In July 2007, Fincs released a popular library of functions to control Media Control Interface (MCI) devices. He called it Sound.ahk. The library is a conversion of the AutoIt standard library Sound.au3, originally provided by RazerM. A month later, Fincs released an enhanced version of the library as Media.ahk.
After doing some MCI research on msdn, I started making some changes to the library for my personal use. After a while there were enough modifications to share the changes. So as not to confuse this release with any of the previous libraries, I named this library MCI.ahk. Although there are significant differences here and there, the library maintains the same basic structure as originally released by Fincs. Credit and thanks to Fincs for providing the original AutoHotkey libraries and to RazerM for providing the original AutoIt library.
What's New/Different
The following are some of the new or enhanced features:
- Support for Audio CDs. The MCI_OpenCDAudio function has been added to open CDAudio devices. In addition, other library functions have been added or enhanced to support CDAudio and similar devices.
- Notify Callback. The MCI_Play function has been enhanced to support the MCI "notify" flag which will call a developer-defined function when the device completes (or fails to complete) the requested operation.
- Wait flag. With the exception of the MCI_Play and MCI_Record functions, all library functions that manage media (Open, Close, Pause, Resume, Seek, etc.) have been modified to include the MCI "wait" flag by default. This small but important change insures that the library functions do not step on each other by forcing the mciSendString DLL function to complete the requested operation before returning control to the calling function.
- Improved Error Handling/Reporting. Several important changes:
- The MCI_Open and the new MCI_OpenCDAudio functions have been significantly beefed-up to trap for errors. Where possible, a developer-friendly error message is dumped to the debugger when an error occurs.
- All calls to the mciExecute DLL function have been removed. This obsolete (according to msdn) function is a bit easier to use than the mciSendString DLL function but it displays a message dialog when errors occur. A message dialog is tolerable when developing/testing a script but can be catastrophic in a live script especially if the message dialog is displayed in lieu of returning the appropriate error code.
- The MCI_SendString function has been enhanced to collect the associated message text when a non-zero error code is returned from the mciGetErrorString DLL function. Although the error code is still returned by the MCI_SendString function, the developer-friendly message text is dumped to the to the debugger (via outputdebug) for easy review.
The pertinent files are as follows:Source code: MCI.ahk
Documentation: MCI.html
Examples: MCI - Examples.zip
Issues/Considerations/Bugs
- MCI devices. A few considerations:
- Not all MCI devices are created equal. If you write a routine that works for one MCI device, don't assume that it will work for other device types. Be sure to test your script using all of the target device types. If necessary, use the MCI_DeviceType function to identify which MCI device type you're using.
- Setup/Configuration. Sometimes a media file will not open, play, or operate correctly because the file's extension is not registered as a valid MCI extension or the MCI extension is assigned to the wrong device type/driver. Although I'm sure they exist, I don't know of any tools to identify and fix a bad MCI configuration. However, additions and changes to the MCI installation can be made in the registry. Be careful! See the documentation in the MCI_Open function for registry locations.
- Bugs. Although it's relatively rare, MCI devices do have bugs. Sometime media doesn't play or does something freaky because of bugs in the device driver.
- Seek. The MCI_Seek function presents unique challenges. It was designed to position the media to a specific location but because the core Seek command stops the media after it has been positioned, the function has been enhanced to return the device back to the state it was in before the function was called if necessary (Play or Pause). Although this methodology works for most devices, it does not work as expected for some devices (CDAudio for example) and it is probable that a call to this function will interrupt the "Notify" option of the MCI_Play function.
- Debugging. Checking the return codes from the MCI_Open and MCI_OpenCDAudio functions is critical. These functions establish a connection to a MCI device and until a valid connection is made, none of the other library functions will work correctly.
Checking the return codes from the rest of the library functions brings into account the law of diminishing returns. The reason: 99% of the MCI errors occur because of programming and/or logic errors. These include errors that occur because of attempts to access a device that hasn't been opened or using a command, flag, or flag option that is not supported by the device.
There are two tools that are necessary for proper debugging:
- MCI Reference Guide. This is a "must have" reference to find out what you can and cannot do with/to a MCI device. See the References section for the link.
- Debugger. When a non-zero error code is returned from the mciGetErrorString DLL function, the associated error message text is dumped to the debugger in an easy-to-read format. Errors trapped by the MCI_Open and MCI_OpenCDAudio functions are also sent to the debugger in a easy-to-read format.
The following are forum posts and links that I used to research this project.
Sound.ahk - Sound functions for use with AutoHotkey
http://www.autohotke...ith-autohotkey/
I am gone for 15 days...
http://www.autohotke...p-media-player/
MCI Reference
http://tinyurl.com/67sce3Scripts that use the library:
QuickMediaPlayer
http://www.autohotke...pic.php?t=71867---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Release Notes
v0.1 (Preview)
Original release.
v0.2 (Preview)
- Added the MCI_Record and MCI_Save functions. (thanks heresy)
- Added "Record" example. (thanks heresy)
- Enhanced the MCI_Open function to support the "new" device name (used when recording with WaveAudio device).
- Removed the p_Track parameter from the MCI_Seek function. For devices that support tracks, this code did not work as expected and is not really needed. May be added back (with enhancements) in the future.
- Minor updates to examples.
- Minor documentation changes.
- Minor changes to the forum post body.
v0.3 (Preview)
- Fixed bug with notify feature of MCI_Play function when the p_hwndCallback parameter is not specified. (thanks skwire)
v0.3.1
- Fixed bug in the MCI_Open function for Windows 95/98/ME users. (thanks Drugwash)
v1.0
- Cleaned up code. No functional differences from v0.3.1
- Added a few examples.
- Added external documentation.
v1.1
- Minor changes to support Unicode. Should work on all versions of AutoHotkey but has not been tested on a 64-bit build.
- Updated examples.