DMBuce / music

Scripts for playing MPD, Pandora, and radio stations

Scripts for playing MPD, Pandora, and radio stations.

Overview

mps is a wrapper script for mpc/mpd that supports dynamic playlists.

pandora is a script that plays pandora stations using pianobar in a tmux session.

radio is a script that streams radio using mpv in a tmux session.

music is a script that switches between the above scripts and manages whichever one is active.

These scripts are designed with window managers in mind, and the documentation below has example configs for integrating them with i3, rofi, blezz, etc.

Requirements

• all: gettext (for envsubst), bash >=4.3

• music: dmenu or a dmenu-compatible program such as rofi

• mps: mpc

• pandora: pianobar, tmux

• radio: socat, jq, mpv, tmux

In addition, mps requires access to MPD’s music directory.

Install

On Arch Linux, grab the PKGBUILD from the GitHub repository and install using makepkg in the usual way.

On other distributions, you can install manually by copying the files in ./bin to your PATH, making them executable, and copying the file in ./etc to /etc .

There is also a Makefile available for package maintainers and advanced users.

Usage

Running any command from this project, e.g. music --help, will create a default config for you if one does not exist at ~/.config/music/config.ini . The default config has many comments explaining what each option does.

Use music mps, music pandora or music radio to switch between music sources and music play to play the selected music source. You can also chain these commands together, e.g. music radio play will switch to the radio and start playing it.

Running music with no arguments will show some info about the current music source. If pandora or radio are the current music source, it will attach to a tmux session running pianobar or mpv, respectively. Use Ctrl+b to detach from the tmux session.

You may find it useful to create a blezz menu for selecting a music source:

Music:
act(m,Mpd,     music mps play )
act(p,Pandora, music pandora play )
act(r,Radio,   music radio play )
act(c,Choose,  music choose )

Or an i3 mode:

set $exec exec --no-startup-id
# music mode
set $musicmode (M)PD, (P)andora, (R)adio, (C)hoose, (Esc) Cancel
mode "$musicmode" {
   # mpd
   bindsym m $exec music mps play; mode "default"
   bindsym $mod+m $exec music mps; mode "default"
   # pandora
   bindsym p $exec music pandora play; mode "default"
   bindsym $mod+p $exec music pandora; mode "default"
   # radio
   bindsym r $exec music radio play; mode "default"
   bindsym $mod+r $exec music radio; mode "default"
   # choose
   bindsym c $exec music choose; mode "default"
   bindsym $mod+c $exec music choose; mode "default"

   # cancel
   bindsym Return mode "default"
   bindsym Escape mode "default"
}
bindsym $mod+m mode "$musicmode"

Both snippets above also include a music choose entry, which launches a menu with dmenu where you can pick either a dynamic playlist, Pandora station, or radio station depending on which music source is currently active.

The dynamic playlists are stored in ~/.config/music/mps-playlists by default. Here is an example playlist showing how they work: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DMBuce/music/master/example-playlist

The music script also has commands for binding to media buttons. Below is an example for doing that with i3. Use xev to check the name of your media buttons.

bindsym XF86AudioNext         $exec music next
bindsym XF86AudioPrev         $exec music prev
bindsym XF86AudioPlay         $exec music toggle
bindsym XF86AudioStop         $exec music stop

Documentation

Project documentation can be found in these files:

• LICENSE - Terms and conditions

• README - This document

The changelog can be viewed on GitHub at https://github.com/DMBuce/music/commits/master .