I blogged last week about creating my first webpage to mashup some information using the Songbird Webpage API… but I thought what would be really cool would be to do it as an extension so I wouldn’t even have to leave the library view.

… also I needed to learn the Add-on API – so this was a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

The end result?

mashTape 0.0.1

Here’s a screenshot of mashTape running in Songbird (using the Blackbird Feather)

This extension adds a tabbed panel to the main library view allowing you to see Last.fm tags for the currently playing track (and to open new browser windows for a given tag), a Flickr photo stream cycling through Flickr photos of the artist (doesn’t work so well if you like the Cranberries though), a Last.fm events feed for the artist (see upcoming concerts/events, etc.), and a lyrics textbox from metrolyrics.com.

In other words – it takes various data sources thanks to open standards and APIs, and lets you combine them together to create a useful data aggregation based on key user data: namely your media library.

Anyway, it was a really useful exercise to learn the add-ons API, as well as XUL. Given this was my first exercise in both (I’d more or less had no XUL experience beyond a cruddy Firefox toolbar I wrote ages ago for OpenGrok) – I think this is a great testament to how powerful XUL & Songbird’s extension and add-on capabilities are.

To put it bluntly: you can do a TON of stuff.

Many thanks to Matt for putting together the Songbird Developer Tools Add-on, which made this incredibly easier. Having the ability to disable the XUL cache and refresh the UI were huge – and the XUL periodic table was brilliant. If you are even thinking about writing add-ons… you need to install the Developer Tools Add-on. It will make your life incredibly easier, especially if you’re a XUL-retard like me.