simple-mpc

A GNU Emacs major mode that acts as a front end to mpc.

Requirements

• GNU Emacs >=24
• Music Player Daemon or Mopidy
• mpc

Installation

MELPA

The easiest way to install is through MELPA.

To do this add MELPA to your package-archives list if you have not yet done so:

(require 'package) ;; You might already have this line
(add-to-list 'package-archives
             '("melpa" . "http://melpa.org/packages/"))
(package-initialize) ;; You might already have this line

Then install the package through either M-x list-packages or by just running M-x package-install simple-mpc.

Manual

• Clone the repository
• Add it to your emacs init:

(add-to-list 'load-path "path/to/simple-mpc")
(require 'simple-mpc)

Usage

Quickstart

Start with M-x simple-mpc. The rest of the keybindings now appear in a buffer. Configuration can be done with M-x customize-group <RET> simple-mpc. Viewing the current playlist and querying the database is done with c and s respectively. Most commands (like simple-mpc-query-add and simple-mpc-delete) respect the region.

Structure

Simple-mpc consists of three ‘views’, two of which have their own minor mode that implements specific extra functionality:

view	major mode	minor mode
main	simple-mpc-mode	/
query	simple-mpc-mode	simple-mpc-query-mode
current playlist	simple-mpc-mode	simple-mpc-current-playlist-mode

simple-mpc-mode is always active and contains the most common bindings. Additional functionality is added with minor modes. Someone who does not like the interface can use simple-mpc-query-mode and simple-mpc-current-playlist-mode directly.

Bindings

Bindings can be viewed with describe-mode (C-h m) but are listed below for completeness:

simple-mpc-mode

key	function
t	simple-mpc-toggle
n	simple-mpc-next
p	simple-mpc-prev
f	simple-mpc-seek-forward
b	simple-mpc-seek-backward
c	simple-mpc-view-current-playlist
C	simple-mpc-clear-current-playlist
S	simple-mpc-shuffle-current-playlist
l	simple-mpc-load-playlist
s	simple-mpc-query
q	simple-mpc-quit

simple-mpc-query-mode

key	function
q	simple-mpc-query-quit
S	simple-mpc-query-sort
<return>	simple-mpc-query-add
<S-return>	simple-mpc-query-add-and-play

simple-mpc-current-playlist-mode

key	function
d	simple-mpc-delete
q	simple-mpc-current-playlist-quit
<return>	simple-mpc-play-current-line

Hook

You can use a hook like this to ensure that mpd is running when you open simple-mpc:

(add-hook 'simple-mpc-mode-hook (lambda () (my/mpd-start)))

(defun my/mpd-start ()
  "Start MPD if it's not already running and check, then update the MPD database."
  (interactive)
  (if (= 0 (call-process "sh" nil nil nil "-c" "pgrep mpd"))
      (message "MPD was already running.")
    (shell-command "mpd")
    (my/mpd-update)
    (message "MPD started.")))

(defun my/mpd-kill ()
  "Kill MPD."
  (interactive)
  (call-process "killall" nil nil nil "mpd")
  (message "MPD killed."))

(defun my/mpd-update ()
  "Updates the MPD database synchronously."
  (interactive)
  (call-process "mpc" nil nil nil "update")
  (message "MPD database updated."))

Configuration

Configuring simple-mpc can be done entirely through the simple-mpc customization group (M-x customize-group simple-mpc<RET>).

When using Mopidy as a server setting simple-mpc-playlist-format is recommended, the default output from mpc search won’t be very descriptive otherwise. The following configuration works well mopidy (note that the whitespace between the metadata delimiters and the separator itself are TAB characters (C-q <TAB>), not spaces):

(custom-set-variables
...
 '(simple-mpc-playlist-format "%artist%	%album%	%title%	%file%")
 '(simple-mpc-table-separator "	")
...)

History

This mode was inspired by mingus written by Niels Giesen and parts of the interface were inspired by mu4e written by Dirk-Jan C. Binnema. I used mingus for > 4 years and was mostly happy with it, but occasionally there were bugs and interface choices that I disagreed with. After looking through the source code in an attempt to fix these issues I came to the conclusion that it would be better to implement my own mode. A big reason for this decision was the fact that mingus uses its own MPD library implementation called libmpdee.el, which I expect contain some obscure bugs. I think it is a better choice to instead take advantage of mpc, a small program that is maintained by MPD developers and implements more than libmpdee.el. On top of that it makes the major mode much smaller and easier to maintain. Currently simple-mpc consists of ~300 LOC versus ~5000 LOC for mingus (mingus does have more features though).

GNU Emacs also contains mpc.el written by Stefan Monnier. It’s interesting but wasn’t really what I was looking for, partly because of its interface (inspired by Rhythmbox), and partly because it’s not particularly well documented.

Todo

• add a way to combine multiple search terms e.g. mpc search artist a album b