How to stop computer music programs from competing for remote
August 12, 2018 11:25 AM Subscribe
When I have more than one program I've been playing music on, can I choose one as the default?
How do I get them to stop mixing me up: e.g., I turn off (play/pause button) Windows Media Player w/ the remote and that happens, but Spotify takes it as a command to play whatever I was last playing there. I end up having to click "off" for one, or constant alternation of programs playing. Sometimes I cannot just get the one I want to hear to come on...its weird, I know. Some will know exactly what I mean. There are also times two things are playing at the same time -- Spotify pisses me off the most in this regard. You wonder why your favorite tune sounds like it's got another layer only to find you've been polluting it underneath w/ some other playlist... I end up closing Spotify, or Groove. WMP is my go-to, but of course the other two cover me on the cloud. Thank you.
How do I get them to stop mixing me up: e.g., I turn off (play/pause button) Windows Media Player w/ the remote and that happens, but Spotify takes it as a command to play whatever I was last playing there. I end up having to click "off" for one, or constant alternation of programs playing. Sometimes I cannot just get the one I want to hear to come on...its weird, I know. Some will know exactly what I mean. There are also times two things are playing at the same time -- Spotify pisses me off the most in this regard. You wonder why your favorite tune sounds like it's got another layer only to find you've been polluting it underneath w/ some other playlist... I end up closing Spotify, or Groove. WMP is my go-to, but of course the other two cover me on the cloud. Thank you.
Response by poster: Thanks, makes sense. Just figured we'd have a way to stay on the couch in this modern day.
posted by noelpratt2nd at 9:21 PM on August 12, 2018
posted by noelpratt2nd at 9:21 PM on August 12, 2018
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The way multimedia keys and buttons (like the play/pause button) work in Windows is that the OS basically tells all the programs that care "hey, the user pressed the 'play/pause' button" and the program is the one that decides what to do with that. Since programs aren't typically written to be aware of what other programs are doing on the system, they usually just toggle their own playing/paused state, regardless of what anything else might do with it.
TL;DR: you'll need to exit whatever program you're not using at the time to use the multimedia buttons. Otherwise, you're stuck with opening the program itself and playing/pausing via the UI.
posted by Aleyn at 7:08 PM on August 12, 2018