Question

I’m using this example as a basis and would love to retrieve a bit more information about the current track. For instance, what the current time of the track is (where the “playhead” is) and what the total track length is.

Answer 1

If you want to get into using Python and AppleEvent scripting, I would strongly urge you to use py-appscript rather than Scripting Bridge. appscript is robust and well-maintained by its independent developer, whereas Scripting Bridge does not seem to be high on the radar anymore at Apple. py-appscript is also supported on both Python 2 and Python 3.

You can the ASDictionary tool provided by appscript to explore the scripting dictionaries provided by scriptable applications. Or you can view the dictionary in Apple’s AppleScript Editor.app (previously known as Script Editor) and manually translate the syntax. In this case, after installing py-appscript in one of your Python instances, it is pretty easy. In the scripting dictionary definition for iTunes, there are various properties listed for the application object. One listed is:

player position (integer) : the player’s position within the currently playing track in seconds.

Another is:

player state (stopped/‌playing/‌paused/‌fast forwarding/‌rewinding, r/o) : is iTunes stopped, paused, or playing?

To make valid Python names, py-appscript automatically replaces any space characters with an underscore character:

>>> from appscript import *
>>> it = app('iTunes')   # the "application" object
>>> it.player_state()    # access properties of the "application" object
k.playing
>>> it.player_position() #   (calling the property "( )" implies a "get" action)
1958
>>> it.player_position()
1961
>>> it.current_track.artist()
u'Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra'