PowerShell : Play Music until Sleep

A while back I had blogged about using PowerShell to create a playlist of random songs in VLC player & I had a rudimentary function based on that in my profile.

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function play-song {     param([int]$count=5, [string]$Path="D:\Songs")     Get-ChildItem $Path -recurse -filter *.mp3| Get-Random -Count $count |         ForEach-Object -process { Start-Process $_.Fullname -verb 'AddtoPlaylistVLC'} }

I know the name contains an unapproved verb but I was lazy to change it.


Few days back I thought of extending above function a little bit, so that my laptop Sleeps when the songs in the playlist end (hopefully I would have slept by that time )


I took a simple approach for this: 

• Get the total duration of all the songs 
• Create a Job Trigger with current time + duration of the songs + 1 minute
• Create a PowerShell Scheduled job which will sleep the machine 

Below is the explanation of the code :

First let's take a look at the Function definition & the parameters declared.

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function Start-VLCplaylist  {      [CmdletBinding()]      Param      (          # Specify the folder path where Music files are stored          [Parameter(ValueFromPipeline,                     ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName)]          $Path='D:\Songs', #Putting a default value here so that I don't have to specify it everytime          # Specify the count of songs to play          [Parameter()]          [int]$count=5,          #Specify this switch if you want your System to sleep after songs in the playlist get over          [Switch]$SleepLater      )

• Name of the Function has approved Verb now.
• Path parameter to tell where you have your all .mp3 files stored.
• Count param to tell how many songs to add to playlist.
• SleepLater Switch to tell the function to sleep the computer after all songs have played.

Now Let's proceed to the Begin {} block

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Begin      {        Write-Verbose -Message '[Start-VLCplaylist] Begin : Starting the Function'        if (Test-Path -Path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe' -PathType Leaf)        {            #Associate the .MP3 files to be open with VLC            $null = cmd /c 'assoc .mp3=VLC.mp3'            $null = cmd /c 'ftype VLC.mp3="C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --started-from-file "%1"'            Write-Verbose -Message '[Start-VLCplaylist] Begin : .MP3 files associated to be open with VLC player'        }        else        {             Throw 'VLC Player is not installed'        }        $shell = New-Object -COMObject Shell.Application        $duration = [timespan]::Zero      }

• Check if VLC player is installed. If not throw an exception.
• Use Assoc & Ftype to associate .mp3 files to VLC player.
• Create a Shell.Application COM Object for later use.
• Variable duration to store the total duration of the songs, initialized to Zero.

Time for the  Process {} Block.

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Process      {         Write-Verbose -Message '[Start-VLCplaylist] Process : Randomly collecting the songs'         $Songs = Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -recurse -Filter *.mp3| Get-Random -Count $count                ForEach ($song in $Songs)         {                    $shellfolder = $shell.Namespace($($song.directoryname))             $shellfile = $shellfolder.ParseName($($Song.Name))             $Duration = $duration +  [timespan]$($shellfolder.GetDetailsOf($shellfile, 27))             Write-Verbose -Message "[Start-VLCplaylist] Process : Working with $($song.name) ; Totalduration : $($duration.TotalMinutes)"             Start-Process $song.Fullname -verb 'AddtoPlaylistVLC'                        }         If ($SleepLater)         {             Write-Verbose -Message '[Start-VLCplaylist] Process : Creating the Trigger for the Scheduled Job'             $trigger = New-JobTrigger -Once -At $( (Get-Date).AddMinutes($duration.TotalMinutes + 2))                    $joboption = New-ScheduledJobOption -HideInTaskScheduler -ContinueIfGoingOnBattery             if (Get-ScheduledJob -Name DexSleepAfterMusic)             {                 Write-Verbose -Message '[Start-VLCplaylist] Process : The Scheduled Job DexSleepAfterMusic already exists. Setting the Trigger & job option'                 Get-ScheduledJob -Name DexSleepAfterMusic | Set-ScheduledJob  -Trigger $trigger             }             else             {                 Write-Verbose -Message '[Start-VLCplaylist] Process : Creating the Scheduled Job DexSleepAfterMusic '                 Register-ScheduledJob -Name DexSleepAfterMusic -ScriptBlock {[System.Windows.Forms.Application]::SetSuspendState($([System.Windows.Forms.PowerState]::Suspend), $false, $false)} `                     -Trigger $trigger -ScheduledJobOption $joboption                 #Schedule the system to sleep in             }               }      }      End      {         Write-Verbose -Message '[Start-VLCplaylist] End : Ending the Function'      }

• Randomly select the songs.
• Foreach Song - use the COM Object to get the duration (add it to $Duration) & add the song to the playlist
• If Switch SleepLater is specified then Create a Job Trigger by adding the totalminutes of the duration + 1 minute to the current time.
• Create a new job option which hides the Scheduled Job in Task Sched & run even if on battery.
• Check if the Scheduled Job is already created if Yes then just set the Trigger & Job option (Just to be sure)
• If the Scheduled Job was not created earlier go ahead and create it.

Note - The Scriptblock used will Sleep the machine once the total duration of the songs is over.

The Function right now only works with the .Mp3 files but you can very well make it work with Video files etc.

Below is a gif showing it in action :)

Listening to music and going to sleep now ;)

P.S - At the end I disabled the Scheduled Job so that my Machine doesn't sleep while I am working (after the Playlist gets over) :)


Resources :

MVP Trevor's response @ Stack Overflow to sleep or hibernate machine
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20713782/suspend-or-hibernate-from-powershell

PowerShell.com - Organize Videos and Music 
http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/tobias/archive/2011/01/07/organizing-videos-and-music.aspx