tmux-now-playing

Showing currently playing track in tmux status bar with music controls

Integrations

• (macOS only) osascript (AppleScript) - enable the following integrations and more in the future
  • Spotify
  • iTunes / Music
• (Windows through WSL only, experimental) cscript (Windows Script Host) - enable the following integrations and more in the future
  • iTunes
• mpd (Music Player Daemon) through nc (netcat)

Configurations

Use #{now_playing} in status-left or status-right to show a currently playing track in supported music player

Status Format

• @now-playing-status-format
  Description: An interpolated string with components to show for #{now_playing} component
  Default: {icon} {scrollable} [{position}/{duration}]
  Values: string with components
• @now-playing-scrollable-format
  Description: A scrolling interpolated string with components for {scrollable} component (see scrollable component section below for more details)
  Default: {artist} - {title}
  Values: string with components
• @now-playing-scrollable-threshold
  Description: A maximum number of characters in a component before it will be turned into a scrolling one
  Default: 25
  Values: number of characters
• @now-playing-playing-icon
  Description: A string to display for {icon} component when the music player is playing
  Default: >
  Values: string
• @now-playing-paused-icon
  Description: A string to display for {icon} component when the music player is paused
  Default: (empty space)
  Values: string
• @now-playing-keytable
  Description: A string that is bound in the key table for combinating keys.
  Default: prefix
  Values: string

Key Bindings

• @now-playing-play-pause-key
  Description: A list of key to bind as a play/pause command
  Default: ,
  Values: a space separated string
• @now-playing-stop-key
  Description: A list of key to bind as a stop command
  Default: .
  Values: a space separated string
• @now-playing-previous-key
  Description: A list of key to bind as a previous track command
  Default: ;
  Values: a space separated string
• @now-playing-next-key
  Description: A list of key to bind as a next track command
  Default: '
  Values: a space separated string

Update Interval

• @now-playing-auto-interval
  Description: A string indicated whether to have plugin automatically adjusted the refresh interval based on the music player state
  Default: no
  Values: yes or no
• @now-playing-playing-interval
  Description: A number of seconds to refresh when the music player is playing
  Default: 1
  Values: number
• @now-playing-paused-interval
  Description: A number of seconds to refresh when the music player is paused
  Default: 5
  Values: number

Music Player

• @now-playing-mpd-host
  Description: An IP address to MPD server
  Default: 127.0.0.1
  Values: string
• @now-playing-mpd-port
  Description: A port number of MPD server
  Default: 6600
  Values: number

Components

• {icon} A string from @now-playing-playing-icon or @now-playing-paused-icon depends on the music player state
• {scrollable} A scrolling interpolated string from @now-playing-scrollable-format (see scrollable component section below for more details)
• {title} (Scrollable) A track title
• {artist} (Scrollable) A track artist
• {position} A playing position in mm:ss format with zero-padded
• {position_sec} A playing position in seconds
• {duration} A track duration in mm:ss format with zero-padded
• {duration_sec} A track duration in seconds
• {percent} A playing position in percent (without percent sign)
• {app} A music player name

Scrollable Components

When specific component is too long to display (per @now-playing-scrollable-threshold value), it will turned itself into a scrolling one. This scrolling will be padded with 3 spaces and based on the playing position of the current track.

If a component is not exceeding the threshold, it will simply be a static one.

So if the threshold is set to 10 and a song name is This is too long, a {title} component will be shown as...

[00:00] This is to
[00:01] his is too
[00:02] is is too 
[00:03] s is too l
[00:04]  is too lo
[00:05] is too lon
...
[00:09] oo long   
[00:10] o long   T
[00:11]  long   Th
[00:12] long   Thi

Now, if all scrollable component in the {scrollable} component is exceeding the threshold, the whole {scrollable} component itself will be expanded and turned into a scrolling one instead.

Key Bindings

These are default key bindings, you can configure your own key bindings by refer to the configuration section above

• <Prefix>+, Play/Pause
• <Prefix>+. Stop
• <Prefix>+; Previous track
• <Prefix>+' Next track

Installation

Requirements

Please note that this plugin utilize multiple unix tools to deliver its functionalities (most of these tools should be already installed on most unix systems)

• sed
• grep
• cut
• awk
• uname
• wc

Using TPM

set -g @plugin 'spywhere/tmux-now-playing'

Manual

Clone the repo

$ git clone https://github.com/spywhere/tmux-now-playing ~/target/path

Then add this line into your .tmux.conf

run-shell ~/target/path/now-playing.tmux

Once you reloaded your tmux configuration, all the format strings in the status bar should be updated automatically.

Troubleshoots

Playing status is not update

First, locate the temporary directory that use for storing caches by running

echo "${TMPDIR:-${TMP:-${TEMP:-/tmp}}}"

If the temporary directory located above does not exists, try checking on ~/.tmp.

Then remove all the files under tmux-now-playing-XXX where XXX is any number.

This should remove all the caches which plugin will regenerate itself when needed.

License

MIT