Spotify Quicklist for Unity

I think the answers given so far are a bit over-complicating things. There is no separate script required, the relevant DBus commands can be sent directly via dbus-send. Just make sure that the dbus package is installed and in the command line issue the following commands:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
cp /usr/share/applications/spotify.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

Edit the file ~/.local/share/applications/spotify.desktop to read:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Spotify
GenericName=Music Player
Comment=Listen to music using Spotify
Icon=spotify-client
Exec=spotify %U
TryExec=spotify
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Qt;Audio;Music;Player;AudioVideo
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/spotify
# ====> MODIFICATIONS START HERE <=====
Actions=PlayPause;Next;Previous

[Desktop Action PlayPause]
Name=Play/Pause
Exec=dbus-send --print-reply=literal --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.PlayPause
OnlyShowIn=Messaging Menu;Unity;

[Desktop Action Next]
Name=Next
Exec=dbus-send --print-reply=literal --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Next
OnlyShowIn=Messaging Menu;Unity;

[Desktop Action Previous]
Name=Previous
Exec=dbus-send --print-reply=literal --dest=org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player.Previous
OnlyShowIn=Messaging Menu;Unity;

And you're done.

spotify (native linux client)

Since spotify includes an indicator to control some of its functions, this allows us to use dbus to send events.

There is a great script on ubuntuforums that covers this.

First install a prerequisite:

sudo apt-get install libnet-dbus-perl

Now copy and paste the script into a text file called spcmd and save this to your home folder.

Give it execute rights:

chmod +x ~/spcmd

Lets move this to a more useful folder:

mv ~/spcmd /usr/local/bin

Now, lets create a quick list.

First copy the spotify desktop file to your home folder:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
cp /usr/share/applications/spotify.desktop ~/.local/share/applications

Open the file and copy and paste the quick list to the end of the file. Save it.

gedit ~/.local/share/applications/spotify.desktop

end result

quicklist

X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=PlayPause;Next;Previous;Stop;

[PlayPause Shortcut Group]
Name=PlayPause
Exec=spcmd playpause
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Next Shortcut Group]
Name=Next
Exec=spcmd next
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Previous Shortcut Group]
Name=Previous
Exec=spcmd previous
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Stop Shortcut Group]
Name=Stop
Exec=spcmd stop
TargetEnvironment=Unity

spcmd

#!/usr/bin/perl

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Basename;
use Net::DBus;

# Figure out some dbus stuff
unless ( defined $ENV{'DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS'} ) {
&set_DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS;
#die "Don't know which dbus to attach to.\nMake sure environment variable DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS is set.";
}
#my $bus = Net::DBus->find;
my $bus = Net::DBus->session;
my $spotify = $bus->get_service("org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify");
my $player = $spotify->get_object("/org/mpris/MediaPlayer2", "org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player");
my $application = $spotify->get_object("/org/mpris/MediaPlayer2", "org.mpris.MediaPlayer2");
my $getorset = $spotify->get_object("/org/mpris/MediaPlayer2", "org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties");

# Handle command line argument
if (scalar @ARGV == 0) { &print_help; }
given ($ARGV[0]) {
# when ('play') { $player->Play(); } #Does not work for some reason.
when ('pause') { $player->Pause(); }
when ('playpause') { $player->PlayPause(); }
when ('next') { $player->Next(); }
when ('previous') { $player->Previous(); }
when ('stop') { $player->Stop(); }
when ('playstatus') { print $getorset->Get("org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player", "PlaybackStatus") . "\n"; }
when (m/\bspotify:(artist|album|track):[0-9a-zA-z]{22}\b/) { $player->OpenUri($_); }
when ('metadata-debug') { &print_debug_metadata; }
default { &print_help; }
}


# Print the help text
sub print_help {
print "USAGE: " . basename($0) . " {pause|playpause|next|previous|stop|playstatus|met adata-debug|<spotify URI>}\n\n";
print "\t" . "pause" . "\t\t" . "Causes spotify to pause current playback." . "\n";
print "\t" . "playpause" . "\t" . "Causes spotify to pause or play current playback." . "\n";
print "\t" . "next" . "\t\t" . "Goes to next song." . "\n";
print "\t" . "previous" . "\t" . "Goes to previous song." . "\n";
print "\t" . "stop" . "\t\t" . "Stops playback." . "\n";
print "\t" . "playstatus" . "\t" . "Prints current playstatus (Playing/Paused)." . "\n";
print "\t" . "<spotify URI>" . "\t" . "Starts playing supplied URI." . "\n";
print "\t" . "metadata-debug" . "\t" . "Shows available data on currently playing song." . "\n";
print "\t" . "\t\t" . "Fairly unformatted, thus \"debug\" data." . "\n";
print "\n";
print "EXAMPLES:\t" . basename($0) . " playpause" . "\n";
print "\t\t" . basename($0) . " spotify:track:5XXAq1r5r73ZyBS0XAiGw0" . "\n";

exit;
}

# Print some raw metadata
sub print_debug_metadata {
# Dereference the metadata hashref by copying it to a local hash
my %metadata = %{ $getorset->Get("org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player", "Metadata") };

# Print all metadata
print "Now Playing:\n";
for (keys %metadata) {
print $_ . ":\t" . $metadata{$_} . "\n" unless ($_ eq 'xesam:artist');
}

# Dereference the artist arrayref by copying it to local array
my @artistarray = @{ $metadata{'xesam:artist'} };

# Print all artists.
foreach my $artist (@artistarray) {
print "artist: \t" . $artist . "\n";
}
}

sub set_DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS {
my $curruser = `whoami`; chomp $curruser;
my $procname = 'spotify';
my $pid = `pgrep -o -u $curruser $procname`; chomp $pid;
my $environ = '/proc/' . $pid . '/environ';
my $dbussession = `grep -z DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS $environ`; $dbussession =~ s/^DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=//;

$ENV{'DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS'} = $dbussession;
}

spotify_cmd is a tool to control a running instance of Spotify under wine, it should work on Windows as well but have not been tested.

Download spotifycmd. Copy to Desktop. then

cd ~/Desktop/
tar -xvjf spotifycmd-0.5.tar.bz2 
sudo cp -r spotifycmd /usr/bin/

now use Exec=/usr/bin/spotifycmd/spotify_cmd.exe XXXX while creating quicklist.

Here XXXX is playpause, next, prev, stop, voldown, volup, etc.

for guide to create quicklist look at my answer