WP8/VS2013 MediaLibrary Songs collection is empty

Question

I'm having a play with writing a mp3 player app for WP8, using MediaLibrary to handle the phone's own mp3 collection. I want to test the result in the phone emulator on VS2013, but when I use the following code:

using (MediaLibrary library = new MediaLibrary())
        {
            SongCollection songs = library.Songs;
            Song song = songs[0];
            MediaPlayer.Play(song);
        }

The song collection is empty, presumably because VS doesn't have any knowledge of a media library with songs in.

Is there any way to test this in the emulator using a fake medialibrary or for VS to use windows' media library? I just want to see (or hear) the code working before I proceed :)

Weetobix Weetobix · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-08T20:35:36

I have managed to find a workaround!

If you add an mp3 file to the app's assets, the following code will add the mp3 to the media player library:

private void AddSong()
    {
        Uri file = new Uri("Assets/someSong.mp3", UriKind.Relative);

        //copy file to isolated storage
        var myIsolatedStorage = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication();
        var fileStream = myIsolatedStorage.CreateFile("someSong.mp3");
        var resource = Application.GetResourceStream(file);
        int chunkSize = 4096;
        byte[] bytes = new byte[chunkSize];
        int byteCount;
        while ((byteCount = resource.Stream.Read(bytes, 0, chunkSize)) > 0)
        {
            fileStream.Write(bytes, 0, byteCount);
        }
        fileStream.Close();

        Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media.PhoneExtensions.SongMetadata metaData = new Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media.PhoneExtensions.SongMetadata();
        metaData.AlbumName = "Some Album name";
        metaData.ArtistName = "Some Artist Name";
        metaData.GenreName = "test";
        metaData.Name = "someSongName";

        var ml = new MediaLibrary();
        Uri songUri = new Uri("someSong.mp3", UriKind.RelativeOrAbsolute);
        var song = Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media.PhoneExtensions.MediaLibraryExtensions.SaveSong(ml, songUri, metaData, Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media.PhoneExtensions.SaveSongOperation.CopyToLibrary);            
    }

I also needed to add:

using System.IO.IsolatedStorage;

I would love to claim credit for this, but I found the answer here:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/wpapps/en-US/f5fa73da-176b-4aaa-8960-8f704236bda5/medialibrary-savesong-method

WP8/VS2013 MediaLibrary Songs collection is empty

2 Answers