Enable/Disable MediaElement foreground service.

[Pmr-precure]

I would like to request an option to disable the foreground service when using MediaElement on Android. Currently, MediaElement initiates a foreground service by default during media playback.
In our case we use MediaElement for tutorials and already have a Foreground service running with information about our connected BLE devices. In that case it would be nice not having the MediaElements notification aswell.

[mrucker]

I agree, this wouldn't even be incredibly difficult. For example, the ServiceAttribute could be removed from MediaControlsService, and instructions could be added to the documentation instructing users to add the appropriate service and intent filters to the manifest if they want it. Also, you would need to remove the foreground permission declarations at the top of MauiMediaElement.

[ne0rrmatrix]

If we use init and add it as builder option we can just choose to never call the service and it will never use the ServiceAttribute. We have a MediaElementOption class now that we can do this in.

[ne0rrmatrix]

We discussed this today in our monthly meeting. I will be opening a discussion to implement this feature as it wanted by the community and should be easy to implement. If you watch the youtube stream you will see it at the end of the stream near the very end.

[JoacimWall]

Hi
Is there any status update on this one?
//Joacim

[mrucker]

Hi @JoacimWall, I'm not sure but, I'll reiterate what I said above in case it helps. It is very easy to remove the permissions in the CommunityToolkit code yourself and build a custom package from source. That's what my project has done. It took us like half an hour to get it all hooked up, and we've been good to go for several months now.

[JoacimWall]

Hi @ne0rrmatrix , Do you have any plans to revert this so we can opt in/out off foreground Service.
I really appreciate all the time you put into building this library. But forcing users to use foreground service is not good way for a lib. We show video in our app not play audio in the background. If you want to play only audio there is Plugin.Maui.Audio for this.
@mrucker Yes we can build custom package but I don't think this is the way forward.

//Thanks Joacim

[ne0rrmatrix]

@JoacimWall I have started a Feature proposal here: #2657 If you can take a look and if you have any suggestions or alternatives I would appreciate your input.

[ne0rrmatrix]

Hi @ne0rrmatrix , Do you have any plans to revert this so we can opt in/out off foreground Service. I really appreciate all the time you put into building this library. But forcing users to use foreground service is not good way for a lib. We show video in our app not play audio in the background. If you want to play only audio there is Plugin.Maui.Audio for this. @mrucker Yes we can build custom package but I don't think this is the way forward.

//Thanks Joacim

There are zero plans to remove the service at this time. I just opened a new proposal to allow users to opt out in builder using Media Element Option class and if they opt out it will never load the service. This would be usable in either builder, xaml, or code behind as I envision it. I have tested it and it works. I have to thank @TheCodeTraveler for his assistance on a previous PR that makes this very easy for me to implement.