NAME
pms - Practical Music Search, an ncurses-based MPD client
SYNOPSIS
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 options
String, integer and enumerated options are set with
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 =.
Setting bindings
Key bindings are set with
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.
Setting colors
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:
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.
Default: normal
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:
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
Default: unset
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
See the defaults below for how conditionals are used.
The topbar syntax allows free customization of the top area of
the display. The best way to understand the syntax is to take a
look at the defaults:
set topbar1.left=%time_elapsed% %playstate% %time%%ifcursong%
(%progresspercentage%%%)%endif%
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.*
Replace the wildcard * with any of the FIELDS described above.
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
The special color trans can only be used as a background color,
and provides a transparent background.
The alternative spelling grey can be used in the place of gray,
and light can be used in place of bright.
COMMANDS
Playback
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
Adding and playing
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
Playlist management
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
Application
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:
% 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.
Examples:
!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
All paths are prefixed with the string in the
config variable libraryroot.
quit, q
Exit PMS
Movement and search
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
These environment variables are overridden by command-line switches and
the config file.
AUTHOR
Written by Kim Tore Jensen <kimtjen@gmail.com> with help from Bart
Nagel <bart@tremby.net>.
The newest version can be obtained at <http://pms.sourceforge.net>.
SEE ALSO
mpd(1)
pms(1)