Set the currently playing Player as default

[joneselliot]

Hi folks. I'm the only person in my household, so I'm only ever playing from one player (or group of players) at a time.

I use the Home Assistant integration and when I open Music Assistant, I expect that if only one player (or group of players) is playing, that the web interface should show me that player instead of the previously selected player.

Typically, in HASS, I'll use a Navigate action to open the MASS addin. Sometimes this opens to the last player I selected when using the MASS interface, instead of the player that is currently playing.

My ask is that when only one player is playing, that player should be the default player that is shown in the UI, rather than whatever player was last selected. It's a pain to have to select the Players list and choose the player that's currently active (again, I only ever have one player or player group going at one time) when it seems like the more intuitive behavior is to show the only player that's playing.

Thanks y'all, happy to answer any questions!

[OzGav]

While we wait for discussions to occur on this maybe this is of some use specifically opening the view with a specific player selected https://www.music-assistant.io/faq/how-to/#access-the-ma-views-directly-via-url

[joneselliot]

Thanks for the tip @OzGav. Just want to confirm, do these query parameters work using the Navigate action in Home Assistant? I'm not having any success appending ?player=true to my Music Assistant page url.

[OzGav]

Please show the exact URL you are using.

[joneselliot]

Sorry, was on mobile earlier.

To clarify, this is from a Home Assistant Dashboard using the Navigate interaction.

I've tried /d5369777_music_assistant?player=true, /d5369777_music_assistant?player=[player name, i.e. Living Room Speaker, url-encoded], etc. and the MASS web client will still sometimes show an inactive player.

type: entity
show_name: false
show_state: true
show_icon: true
entity: media_player.google_speakers_2
state_content:
  - media_title
  - media_artist
show_entity_picture: true
icon: mdi:speaker-multiple
visibility:
  - condition: state
    entity: media_player.google_speakers_2
    state: playing
tap_action:
  action: navigate
  navigation_path: /d5369777_music_assistant?player=true

[OzGav]

You need to access the web server via port 8095 for that to work https://www.music-assistant.io/installation/#server-notes

edit: and the true option shows the last known not the currently playing so you will need to be cleverer than that and see if you can use a template to construct the path with the MA player name

[joneselliot]

Got it, so not something that's going to be able to work using built-in navigation concepts like the /d5369777_music_assistant page. Thanks for confirming, I'd seen the webserver requirement but wasn't sure if the Home Assistant MASS web app supported the query params. If these same params could be exposed on the built-in web app that'd be awesome. I have no issue constructing the MA player name path, just don't want to be interacting with MASS outside of Home Assistant basically.

[OzGav]

The last used player should now be remembered

[JReich2609]

@OzGav has this feature vanished again? I recall this functionality but in the latest versions it does not appear to be working any longer?

[OzGav]

Seems to work ok for me. There are some scenarios where it might not get persisted. Does it ever get saved for you?
Try one of these two flows and see if it persists as it should in these cases
Open the player list, click a player, then close the menu (navigate away causing it to close)
Open the player list, click a player, then click a different player, then close the menu