Synopsis

The prodigal Music Visualizer returns, and it's even better. Version 2 of Music-Visualizer is finally here! V2 brings a much better codebase and more ease for addition, and will only improve over time.

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Releases?

Yes, yes, I know! Unlike the previous version, for now, V2 releases of the .jar will be a stand-alone player. SoundCloud integration will be hidden unless a valid SoundCloud ClientId is set via environment variable.

To protect the ClientId which SoundCloud uses to authenticate requests to its API, the best way (I've found for now) from it being decompiled out of the .jar is to set an environment variable and retrieve it at run time.

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Working with the Source

What you'll need to build and run from the source code

Java JDK + IntelliJ + Kotlin

The codebase is an IntelliJ IDEA project, so I'd recommend using IntelliJ IDEA. This project also uses Kotlin, which is an incredible language! I'd also recommend using the Adoptium: Eclipse Temurin 17 (LTS)

Project Needed Setup

SoundCloud ClientId Token:

• To avoid the token being packaged into the .jar during the Maven package Lifecycle, for now, I thought setting an environment variable would be the best way to secure the token.

• I've created a convenience scripts for setting the environment variable! In a terminal window change into the tools folder of this repo, then execute the script for your OS:

  • Note: Replace <client-id> with your actual SoundCloud ClientId

For Windows

1. ./tokenhelper.ps1 <client-id>
   

For Mac and Linux

1. ./tokenhelper.sh <client-id>

   1. Note: If you mess up setting the token, you'll need to manually edit your .bashrc file to correct the export value

2. And Boom! You should be all set to go!

Maven Setup

• If using IntelliJ IDEA IDE, when opening the project, hit the popup about the pom.xml file that says something like: Add as Maven Project
  • This will make sure IntelliJ recognizes the project as being a Maven project!

Maven Tools

• To build the .jar, in the Maven Lifecycle, use the package command
• To install local needed dependencies for .jars in the lib folder, and to clean the project ('target' in root project dir) use the clean command

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Issues? Features? More???

Create an issue for the repo if you encounter any errors or strange behavior/functionality with the application. Please feel free to fork and submit bug fixes or feature requests!

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Errors / Gotchas?

1. If you're using IntelliJ, if you happen to get this exception: NoClassFoundException - Main, try the following:
   1. Close the project
   2. In the root of the repo, delete the .idea folder (this is the folder IntelliJ uses for the IDE)
   3. Re-open the project in IntelliJ and then rebuild and debug
   4. Hopefully that fixes that exception, if not please open an issue for it.

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Libraries and API's Used

• Processing 4 - Graphics library
• Minim - Audio library
• ControlP5 - Awesome GUI controls
• Apache Commons IO - IO Utility library
• Unirest - Java http-client library
• Gson - Java JSON library

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Closing Comments

Thank you for checking out my work/experiment! I'll be pushing updates to this project as often as I can. Please feel free to fork or port this to other languages! Have fun and keep on creating!