Pandora VB/VS 2005 "Minimize to System Tray" Player

Since I read about Pandora, I’ve been listening to it non-stop. But as I mentioned before, it bugs me that I can't minimize it to the system tray.

Finally I stopped obsessing about it (Who me? Obsessing about something? Na…  ;)  and I took a few minutes and built my own VB/VS 2005 host for it, using the updated WebBrowser and NotifyIcon controls.

Now I have a Pandora Player that I can minimize to my system tray! Yeah. Instead of being hosted in IE, it's just hosted in the new WebBrowser control… No hacking, content removal, etc, etc.

It’s very easy to do…

1. Create a new VB project


2. Add a WebBrowser control to the form


3. Dock the control to the Parent (i.e. Docking = Fill)


4. Add a NotifyIcon to the form


5. On the NotifyIcon SmartTag, select “Choose Icon” and pick a icon somewhere on your system.


6. Paste in the below code to the form.


7. You’re done! You now have System Tray Pandora Player.. Yeah!

Public Class Form1

  Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
    WebBrowser1.Navigate("http://www.pandora.com/?cmd=tuner")
  End Sub

  Private Sub NotifyIcon1_MouseDoubleClick(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs) Handles NotifyIcon1.MouseDoubleClick
    Me.Show()
    Me.WindowState = FormWindowState.Normal
    NotifyIcon1.Visible = False

  End Sub

  Private Sub Form1_Resize(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Resize

    If Me.WindowState = FormWindowState.Minimized Then
      NotifyIcon1.Visible = True
      Me.Hide()
    End If

  End Sub

End Class


Update #1 11/13/2005 @ 2:14 PM (PST):
There's one thing that is a little weird...

The Flash player does not respond to clicks unless you first click on the hosting web page. For each click you want to make on the Flash app, you must first click on the web page and then the Flash app...

So if you want to pause the playing, click on the web page area above the player and then click on the pause button... If you want to say "I Like it" on a song, click on the page, the song (to get the song menu), the page again and then finally on the "I Like It" menu item.

Yeah it's kind of a pain but for me its worth it to have a SysTray player... Your milage may vary, yada, yada, yada...