[tip / tools] Pausing music when you get a Skype call

Phil sent me a link to a Motorola / Skype Bluetooth Headset that automatically stops your music when calls come in. We both use Skype a lot - I hardly touch the phone anymore - and it sure sounded convenient to be able to switch from music or podcasts to a phone call, then automatically switch back when the call ended. That got me looking for Skype toys that let you do that with my existing headphones; here's what I turned up.

Phil uses iTunes, so Skypeteer MiTunes is perfect for him. He tested it out and said it works great.

I stick with Windows Media Player¹, and the best thing soution for that seems to be MuteForSkype, which also handles WinAmp and Sonique. I worked great out of the box, with two small exceptions:

1. It stops rather than pauses when you get a call, then starts the track over when the call ends. That's a pain if you're listening to a long mix or podcast. I noticed several comments about that on the website, and it bugged me enough that I disassembled² the WMP Mute plugin and fixed it. You can download my version of the WMP Mute plugin here. I just changed one character (I changed 0x00004979 to 0x00004978).
2. The plugin should detect if WMP is playing before it toggles Pause / Play, since it will start WMP playing if it was paused when you received the call. This was an existing problem in the original plugin. I looked into fixing this, but it's not at all simple to find out if WMP is playing. Just about all the WMP API documentation focuses on how to use a WMP control, not how to talk to the existing instance of WMP. Apparently you can the the IWMPRemoteMediaServices interface and remote to WMP. I looked at two remotable WMP wrappers - tried this one first, but prefer this one. This was more work than I was ready to bite off right now - I've got too much work and other unfinished projects. If anyone's got C# code will tell if WMP is playing or paused, let me know.

¹I'm not a big fan of iTunes.
²Michal posted the source of the WMP Mute plugin on his blog, so I figured it was okay to update it.