ulauncher-mpd

ulauncher-mpd is an extension for ulauncher that allows you to control mpd.

It enables the user to toggle playback, skip tracks and append or insert songs, albums, interprets, folders and playlists to the current queue. It displays and caches album arts while selecting what to play.

Installation

There is a version for python2 (ulauncher 4 / API 1) and one for python3 (ulauncher 5 / API 2) available.

Install this extension using ulaunchers extension menu.

Version Notes

The python 2 version will not receive any future updates. The python 2 version is located in the python2 branch.

With python-mpd2-1.1.0, there were some API changes. As a result, some of the extensions code had to be modified. Install python-mpd2-1.1.0 or manually checkout out the frozen branch pre-python-mpd2-1.1.0

Dependencies

• python-mpd2 (also needed for python3, in this case install with pip, not pip2)
• enum (not required for python 3)
• mutagen

Install these python packages using e.g. pip install or pip2 install for python 2, respectively

Usage

Invoke the plugin by starting ulauncher and typing mpd .

Commands

command	shortcut	action
mpd pause		Pause playback
mpd play		Start playback
mpd toggle		Toggle playback
mpd next		Skip to the next track in the queue
mpd previous		Go to the previous track in the queue
mpd clear		Clear current queue
mpd song-add <title>	mpd sa <title>	Add title <title> at the end of the queue
mpd song-insert <title>	mpd si <title>	Insert title <title> after current song
mpd album-add <album>	mpd aa <album>	Add album <album> at the end of the queue
mpd album-insert <album>	mpd ai <album>	Insert <album> album after current song
mpd artist-add <artist>	mpd ia <artist>	Add artist <artist> at the end of the queue
mpd artist-insert <artist>	mpd ii <artist>	Insert artist <artist> after current song
mpd folder-add <folder>	mpd fa <folder>	Add folder <folder> at the end of the queue
mpd folder-insert <folder>	mpd fi <folder>	Insert folder <folder> after current song
mpd playlist-add <playlist>	mpd la <playlist>	Add playlist <playlist> at the end of the queue
mpd playlist-insert <playlist>	mpd pi <playlist>	Insert playlist <playlist> after current song
mpd add-to-playlist <playlist>	mpd adt <playlist>	Add current song at the end of playlist <playlist>
mpd random-on	mpd rn	Set random mode on
mpd random-off	mpd rf	Set random mode off
mpd shuffle		Shuffle entire playlist once. Does not change random mode
mpd volume-up <int>	mpd vu <int>	Increase volume by <int> or volume step when no value is given
mpd volume-down <int>	mpd vd <int>	Decrease volume by <int> or volume step when no value is given

Insert actions turn random mode off whereas add actions do not change the random mode.

Cache

ulauncher-mpd caches Album arts in XDG_CACHE_HOME/mpd-album-art or ~/.cache/mpd-album-art.

So far it only caches album arts that actually exist permanently, therefore after restarting ulauncher caching large libraries without any album arts might take some while which results in longer query load times. It only caches one song per album and assumes that all songs in one album have the same album art

Cached filenames

Cached album arts have following filenames in ulauncher-mpds cache folder:

• Albums: <artist>-<title>
• Artists: <artist>
• Folders: <path>_<to>_<directory>
• Playlist: _<playlist>

Preferences

In the extension menu of ulauncher u can adjust ulauncher-mpd's preferences:

• hostname: The hostname your mpd server is running on (normally localhost)
• port: The port your mpd server is running on (normally 6600)
• music directory: the directory your library is stored in (needed for album arts)
• volume step: The default volume step for increase and decrease in volume