table of contents
pms(1) | General Commands Manual | pms(1) |
NAME¶
pms - Practical Music Search, an ncurses-based MPD clientSYNOPSIS¶
pms [-?] [-v] [-d] [-h hostname ] [-c configfile ] [-p port ] [-P password ]DESCRIPTION¶
Practical Music Search aims to be a highly accessible and configurable client to the Music Player Daemon. It features key mapping, customized colors, a command-line mode, several modes of play, and an easy but powerful interface.OPTIONS¶
- -?
- Show command-line options and exit
- -v
- Print version and exit
- -d
- Turn on debugging to stderr
- -h hostname
- Connect to MPD server hostname
- -c configfile
- Use configfile as configuration file instead of default
- -p port
- Connect to port on MPD server
- -P password
- Specify password for the MPD server
CONFIGURATION¶
Configuration is done in three parts: options, key bindings, and colors. Options, bindings and colors can be set at runtime by entering command mode (default binding :) or can be preset in the configuration file (~/.pms/rc). Setting optionsString, integer and enumerated options are set
with
Setting bindings
set
option=value
Boolean options are set with
set option
and reset with
set nooption
They can be toggled with
set option!
or
set invoption
Values can be retrieved with
set option?
se is an alias for set and : can be used in place of
=.Key bindings are set with
Setting colors
bind key command
and removed with
unbind key
key can be any single character, in addition to these special characters:
up, down, left, right, pageup,
pagedown, home, end, space, delete,
insert, backspace, return, kpenter, tab and
F1 through F63. When unbinding, you can specify all as a
parameter to remove all bindings.
map is an alias for bind, while unmap and unm are
aliases for unbind.Colors are defined with
color item foreground
[background]
colour is an alias for color.- OPTIONS
- host=string
- The hostname to connect to. Default: localhost
- port=integer
- The port on the MPD server to connect to. Default: 6600
- password=string
- The password to give to the MPD server. Default: none
- libraryroot=string
- Optional path to the library's root. See !string below. If used, it should have a trailing slash. Default: empty string (nothing is prepended)
- reconnectdelay=integer
- If a connection is lost, this is how many seconds between each connection retry. Default: 30
- mpd_timeout=integer
- Sets MPD connection timeout in seconds. Leave this lower than your MPD setting. Default: 30
- debug (boolean)
- Turn debugging mode on or off. Default: set
- repeatonedelay=integer
- MPD does not support the '1-repeat' mode, and a hack is neccessary. If repeat-1 is not working for you, increase this value. Default: 1
- stopdelay=integer
- MPD does not support manual progression within the playlist. A hack is neccessary to stop when the song is done. If manual song progression is not working correctly, increase this value. Default: 1
- onplaylistfinish=string
- Specify a shell command to run when the playlist finishes and playback stops. Default: none
- addtoreturns (boolean)
- If set, the add-to command will return focus to the original window. Else, the destination will be focused. Default: unset
- followplayback (boolean)
- If set, the cursor will go to the currently playing song and playlist when it changes. Default: unset
- followwindow (boolean)
- If set, playback will continue in the active window. Default: unset
- followcursor (boolean)
- If set, playback will follow cursor position. Default: unset
- follow (boolean)
- Set both followwindow and followcursor to selected value.
- nextafteraction (boolean)
- Move cursor to next item after the song is selected, unselected or added to a playlist. Default: set
- startuplist=enum
- The list which is activated and shown at program startup. This can be playlist, library or an arbitrary name of an existing playlist. Default: playlist
- regexsearch (boolean)
- Use regular expressions for search terms. Default: set
- scroll=enum
- Set scroll mode
The following modes are available:
Default: normal
- normal
- The list only scrolls when the cursor is about to go off the top or bottom of the window. See the scrolloff option.
- centered
- The cursor is always in the middle of the window except when it is near the top or bottom of the list. The spelling centred is also accepted.
- relative
- The position of the cursor in the confines of the window is proportional to the position of the visible songs relative to the whole song list. Try it out to get a better idea of how it works.
- scrolloff=integer
- When scroll is set to normal, try to keep this many songs above and below the cursor at all times. Default: 0
- playmode=enum
- Set song progression mode to manual, linear or random. In manual progression mode playback will stop at the end of each song. Default: linear
- resetstatus=integer
- Set how many seconds before resetting the statusbar text. Default: 3
- sort=field [field [...]]
- Fields by which to sort the library. You can specify multiple fields, separated by whitespace. See FIELDS below. Default: track disc album albumartistsort
- columns=column [column [...]]
- Columns to show in the list. See FIELDS below. Default: artist track title album length
- status_unknown=string
status_play=string
status_pause=string
status_stop=string
Status strings. Defaults: ??,
|>, ||, []
- mouse (boolean)
- If set, the mouse is active. Mouse support is incomplete and the slightly hacky mousewheel support available with standard versions of ncurses is less than ideal, but the actions below have been implemented.
Mouse actions:
Default: unset
- topbar
- Click to toggle play/pause, doubleclick to stop, mousewheel down to skip to the next track, mousewheel up to skip to the previous track, control-mousewheel to turn volume up or down
- header ('Playlist', 'Library' etc)
- Click or scroll mousewheel down to switch to the next window, doubleclick or scroll mousewheel up to switch to the previous window
- playlist
- Click to place the cursor, control-click to place cursor and toggle selection, doubleclick to place cursor and play, tripleclick to place cursor and add to playlist (if there is a selection, the selection will be added and the song clicked will just be selected), scroll mousewheel to scroll the list up and down
- statusbar
- Click to enter command mode
- topbarvisible (boolean)
- If set, the topbar is visible. Default: set
- topbarborders (boolean)
- Whether or not to draw borders on the topbar window. Default: unset
- topbarspace (boolean)
- Whether or not to leave a blank row between the topbar and the playlist windows. Default: set
- topbarclear (boolean)
- Start out with an empty topbar. Default: unset
- topbar[1-99].(left|center|right)=string
- Modify what is displayed in the topbar. The spelling centre is also accepted. See TOPBAR below for format syntax, available fields and defaults.
- TOPBAR
- Available variables to put in the topbar:
- librarysize, listsize, queuesize, livequeuesize, time_elapsed, time_remaining, progresspercentage, progressbar, playstate, volume, repeat, repeatshort, random, randomshort, mute, muteshort, manual, manualshort, bitrate, samplerate, bits, channels
All FIELDS below can also be used.
- Conditionals (if-else) are supported. Currently available conditionals:
- ifcursong, ifplaying
set topbar1.center=%ifcursong%%artist%%endif%
set topbar1.right=Vol: %volume%%% Mode:
%muteshort%%repeatshort%%randomshort%%manualshort%
set topbar2.center=%ifcursong%==> %title%
<==%else%No current song%endif%
set topbar3.left=%listsize%
set topbar3.center=%ifcursong%%album%
(%year%)%endif%
set topbar3.right=Q: %livequeuesize%
- FIELDS
- Available fields are:
- num, file, artist, artistsort, albumartist, albumartistsort, title, album, track, time, date, year, name, genre, composer, performer, disc, comment
- COLORS
- Items available for coloring:
- background, foreground, statusbar, error, position, borders, headers, title, current, cursor, selection, lastlist, playinglist, fields.* topbar.foreground, topbar.time_elapsed, topbar.time_remaining, topbar.progresspercentage, topbar.progressbar, topbar.repeat, topbar.random, topbar.mute, topbar.repeatshort, topbar.randomshort, topbar.muteshort, topbar.librarysize, topbar.listsize, topbar.queuesize, topbar.livequeuesize, topbar.playstate, topbar.fields.*
- The following colors can be used only as foreground colors:
- gray, brightred, brightgreen, yellow, brightblue, brightmagenta, brightcyan
- The following colors can be used either for background or foreground colors:
- black, red, green, brown, blue, magenta, cyan, brightgray
- COMMANDS
Playback
Adding and playing
Playlist management
Application
Movement and search
- play
- Play the song under the cursor
- add
- Add the selected song(s) to the playlist
If a playlist is selected in windowlist mode, that list is appended to the
playlist.
- add-to
- Add the selected song(s) to a chosen playlist
- next
- Play the next song from the playlist or library based on current play mode
- really-next
- Play the next song from playlist or library, regardless of play mode
- prev
- Play previous song
- pause
- Pause playback or play if playback was paused; do nothing if playback is stopped
- stop
- Stop playback
- playmode
- Rotate mode of playback through linear, random from playlist and manual (stop when each track finishes)
- toggle-play
- Toggle playback
Play from the current song if playback was stopped or paused, otherwise
pause.
- volume string
- Set volume
string can be delta (+/-value, for instance +4) or absolute value
(0~100).
- mute
- Toggle mute
- crossfade [integer]
- Set crossfade time in seconds or turn crossfade on and off
- seek integer
- Seek integer seconds (can be negative) in the playing song
- repeat
- Rotate repeat mode through none, repeat one and repeat list
- play-album
- Play all songs from the album of the song under the cursor
- play-artist
- Play all songs from the selected artist
- play-random
- Play a random song from the library
- add-album
- Add all songs from the selected album to playlist
- add-all
- Add all songs from the currently visible list to playlist
If part of the album already is at the bottom of the playlist the remainder is
added.
- add-artist
- Add all songs from the selected artist to the playlist
- add-random
- Add a random song from the library to playlist
- remove
- Remove selected song from playlist
- create string
- Create a new empty playlist with given name
- save string
- Saves the playlist into a new playlist file with given filename
- delete-list [string]
- Permanently delete the named playlist if given or else the current playlist
- activate-list
- Activate currently viewed list for playback
- crop
- Crop the current playlist to the currently playing song
- cropsel
- Crop the current playlist to the selected songs, or song under cursor
- clear
- Clear the playlist
- shuffle
- Shuffle the playlist
- move integer
- Move the selected songs by the given offset
A positive offset moves songs down; a negative offset moves songs up.
- update
- Ask MPD to update the music library
- select [string]
unselect [string]
toggle-select [string]
Select, unselect or toggle selection of songs
matching a search term
If no parameter is given, the song under the cursor is affected.
- clear-selection
- Unselect all songs in the playlist
- info
- Show info in the status bar about the current song
- help
- Show current key bindings
- command-mode
- Enter command mode, where you can enter configuration options or perform other commands (including those which are not mapped to any key)
- change-window enum
- Change the active window to playlist, library or windowlist
- next-window
- Move to the next window
- prev-window
- Move to the previous window
- last-window
- Switch to the previously viewed window
- redraw
- Force screen redraw
- rehash
- Reload the configuration file
- version
- Show version information
- clear-topbar [integer]
- Clear out all contents of the topbar or, if a parameter is given, only that line
- !string
- Run a shell command
Some vim-like placeholders are available:
Examples:
All paths are prefixed with the string in the config variable
libraryroot.
- %
- The current song's file path, not escaped in any way
- #
- The currently highlighted song's file path, not escaped in any way
- ##
- The file path of each of the songs in the current selection or, if there is no selection, each song in the currently visible list. Each path is enclosed in double quotes.
- !echo "%" | xclip
- Copy the current song's file path to the X clipboard
- !rox-filer "$(dirname "#")"
- Browse the directory containing the currently highlighted song with Rox-filer
- !transcribe ##
- Open the selected songs (or, with no selection, all songs on the playlist) in Transcribe
- !cp ## /media/removabledrive
- Copy the selected songs (or, with no selection, all songs on the playlist) to a USB stick or portable media player
- quit, q
- Exit PMS
- move-up
- Move the cursor up
In command or quick-find mode move to the previous item in command or search
history.
- move-down
- Move the cursor down.
In command or quick-find mode move to the next item in command or search
history.
- move-halfpgup
- Move the cursor one half screen up
- move-halfpgdn
- Move the cursor one half screen down
- move-pgup
- Move the cursor one screen up
- move-pgdn
- Move the cursor one screen down
- move-home
- Move the cursor to the start of the list
- move-end
- Move the cursor to the end of the list
- scroll-up
- Scroll the list up one line (only acts differently from move-up if scroll is set to normal)
- scroll-down
- Scroll the list down one line (only acts differently from move-up if scroll is set to normal)
- center-cursor
- Scroll the list such that the cursor is centered (only has an effect when scroll is set to normal)
- quick-find
- Enter quick-find mode: type to search for songs
- next-result
- Find the next search result from the last quick-find
- prev-result
- Find the previous search result from the last quick-find
- next-of string
- Parameter should be a field name (see FIELDS above) -- jump to the next track in the list for which the field differs
- prev-of string
- Parameter should be a field name (see FIELDS above) -- jump up the list to the first (topmost) of a set of tracks which have in common the next differing value of the given field
To put that another way, the cursor moves up until the given field changes, then
keeps going until just before it would change again.
- goto-current
- Jumps to the current playing song, if any
- goto-random
- Jump to a random song in the playlist
FILES¶
- ~/.pms/rc
- Configuration file
ENVIRONMENT¶
- HOME
- The configuration file is read from $HOME/.pms/rc
- MPD_HOST
- Specifies the host which MPD runs on
- MPD_PORT
- Specifies the port on which MPD listens
- MPD_PASSWORD
- Specifies a password to send to MPD on connection