spotifyc

Mostly a wrapper around playerctl, with a few extra features 😉

How to use

Clone this repository and add it in your PATH.

git clone https://github.com/YoogottamK/spotifyc
cd spotifyc

export PATH="$PATH:$PWD"
or
echo export PATH='$PATH':"$PWD" >> ~/.[z/ba/*]shrc && source ~/.[z/ba/*]shrc

Alternatively, you can place both the executables in some directory which is in PATH

Features [in no specific order]

• Basic track control:

  spotifyc [-c|-p|-n|-r|-s]

   -c: toggle play/pause state
   -p: previous track
   -n: next track
   -r: play [why r?! resume]
   -s: pause [why s?! stop]
  

• Control spotify's volume:

  spotifyc -v [m|u|t|abs|+-rel]

   m: mute
   u: unmute
   t: toggle mute state
   abs: set spotify's volume to abs
   +/-rel: adjust spotify's volume by rel
  

• Get formatted output for status bars like polybar, i3blocks, etc (basically any status bar which allows you to run a script)

  spotifyc -f '<format>' -i '<playing>' '<paused>' -o

   -f '<format>': specify the format of output
                   [see formatting options below]
   -i '<playing>' '<paused>': specify the icons to be displayed when
                               song is playing or is paused repectively
   -o: prints the output in the specified format [defaults to '{{ artist }}: {{ title }}']
  

  Example polybar config:

  [module/spotify]
  type = custom/script
  format-underline = #2aa198
  interval = 1
  
  exec = spotifyc -f "{{ icon }} {{ artist }}: {{ title }}" -i "" "" -o
  exec-if = pgrep -x spotify
  
  label = %output:0:37:...%
  format = %{A1:spotifyc -p:}%{A} <label> %{A1:spotifyc -n:}%{A}
  
  click-left = spotifyc -c
  click-right = spotifyc -v t
  ; adjust this if you have enabled natural scrolling
  scroll-up = spotifyc -v '+5'
  scroll-down = spotifyc -v '-5'

  

• Mute ads on spotify and play some other song stored locally.

  spotifyc -m '<alt_music_dir>'

   -m: mutes ads on spotify
   if provided, a random song present in 'alt_music_dir' will be played, and then spotify will resume again
  

  NOTE

  Make sure only one instance is running at a time [you don't want 2 different songs playing whenever an ad comes]

  Make sure you have nothing other than songs in 'alt_music_dir' [since vlc can play so many formats, having a check in code didn't make sense]

  If you have songs shorter in length than the advertisement, you unfortunately will have to listen to the ad, and maybe resume spotify again.

  How to run?

  If you simply run this command, it will block your shell. Add an & at the end to run this in background. Ideally place this in some file while which runs when you log in [not .bashrc or .zshrc]. In the standard case, ~/.profile should work.

  Inspiration

  Spotify ads which complain about how ads on Spotify are bad and irritating

Formatting output

This uses playerctl to display metadata. So, it supports all options which playerctl does. Check man playerctl to see all options and modifiers.

Other than that, it also uses '{{ icon }}' which is used to display the icons specified by -i|--icons

Requirements

• Spotify (obviously)

• PyGObject:

  Note that you don't need the gtk3 package. I recommend installing from PyPI with pip.

• playerctl:

  I recommend using google first to check if you can install it using your package manager before trying to build it

• vlc bindings for python3

  pip3 install python-vlc

Issues

If for some reason this isn't working, please run as follows:

SPOTIFYC_DEBUG=1 spotifyc -m "<alt_music_dir>"

This will print data on the screen which will help find the problem

Please create issues on GitHub

Note

This project was created just for fun. If you really like Spotify and hate ads, consider paying for the premium account.