Based Black Music Player

Minimal, responsive, aesthetically pleasing frontend for MPD. Written in Jai, inspired by ncmpcpp.

Intro video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqxlbBX7YyQ

Configuration

If you have XDG_CONFIG_HOME defined, then save your config to $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bbmp/bbmprc. Otherwise, save it to$HOME/.bbmprc.

Example config:

mpd_host              = localhost
mpd_port              = 6600
max_log_size          = 1000
log_level             = normal
mpd_library_directory = ~/media/music/library
album_cover_directory = ~/.cache/bbmp/covers

Description of these values:

mpd_host: The URI of the MPD host to connect to. Defaults to localhost.
mpd_port: The port of the MPD host to connect to. Defaults to 6600.
max_log_size: This is the maximum number of values to store in the debug log. Defaults to 1000, which is plenty for most situations.
log_level: The verbosity level of the logs to display. This can be normal, verbose, or very_verbose. Defaults to normal.
mpd_library_directory: The path to your MPD directory. This must be specified for bbmp to locate your album cover files. Should be set to the same folder that MPD loads your library from. Does not have a default value.
album_cover_directory: The directory to save generated album covers to (see the next section for more on this). The default is $XDG_CACHE_HOME/bbmp/covers if the XDG_CACHE_HOME environment variale is set, otherwise the default is $HOME/.cache/bbmp/covers.

Note that, at the moment, MPD must be running before starting bbmp. Additionally, neither the configuration nor the music library will hot-reload in bbmp if they change -- you have to restart bbmp to pull in updates.

Album Cover Generation

The album_cover_directory is the folder you want bbmp to save the generated album covers to. Right now, you must create this directory manually, it will not be created for you.

For each album cover file in your library named cover.jpg or cover.png, two bitmap files will be generated and saved to the album_cover_directory: an 800-pixel-width version of the cover, and a 200-pixel-width version. So, the higher-resolution your original files are, the better these will look.

The 200 px covers are used as thumbnails in the Library Album Art view:

And the 800 px covers are used when viewing a specific album:

These covers will be generated whenever you start bbmp for all albums that don't already have cached covers.

Note: A current limitation of bbmp is that updating the cached album covers is not very straightforward -- e.g. if you update an album's cover file in your library, any existing covers generated by bbmp don't automatically update. For now, the easiest workaround is to remove all of the generated cover files in your album_cover_directory and restart bbmp so that the covers are recreated. This will be made easier in the future.

Keybindings

The entire program is navigable with keybindings only. There is currently no mouse support, but that may change in the future. If you're familiar with ncmpcpp, then you'll already know many of the basics.

There are a few global keybindings, then each view has its own keybindings.

Global

1: Go to the Now Playing view
2: Go to the Queue
3: Go to the Library Album Art
4: Go to the Library
5: Go to the Playlists view
6: Go to the Config Viewer
7: Go to the Debug Logs
p: Toggle pause
b: Rewind
f: Fast forward
<: Previous song
>: Next song
=: Volume up
-: Volume down
c: Clear the queue
Q: Quit the program
Ctrl-t: Toggle showing the view titles in the header

Now Playing View

There are no additional keybindings in this view.

Queue View

j: Move the cursor down
k: Move the cursor up
J: Shift the selected song up in the queue
K: Shift the selected song down in the queue
Ctrl-d: Move the cursor half a page down
Ctrl-u: Move the cursor half a page up
g: Move the cursor to the top of the page
G: Move the cursor to the bottom of the page
x: Delete the selected song from the queue
o: Move the cursor to the currently playing song
Enter: Play the selected song
/: Start a search
- Enter/Escape: Submit the search
n: Move the cursor to the next search result
N: Move the cursor to the previous search result

Library Album Art View

Library Subview

j: Move the cursor down
k: Move the cursor up
j: Move the cursor left
l: Move the cursor right
Ctrl-d: Move the cursor one page down
Ctrl-u: Move the cursor one page up
g: Move the cursor to the first album
G: Move the cursor to the last album
o: Move the cursor to the currently playing album
Space: Add the selected album to the queue
Enter: Add the selected album to the queue and play it
/: Start a search
- Enter/Escape: Submit the search
n: Move the cursor to the next search result
N: Move the cursor to the previous search result
i: Open the selected album in the Album Subview (see below)

Album Subview

j: Move the cursor down
k: Move the cursor up
Ctrl-d: Move the cursor one page down
Ctrl-u: Move the cursor one page up
g: Move the cursor to the first track in the selected album
G: Move the cursor to the last track in the selected album
o: Move the cursor to the currently playing album + song
Space: Add the selected song to the queue
Enter: Add the selected song to the queue and play it
/: Start a search
- Enter/Escape: Submit the search
n: Move the cursor to the next search result
N: Move the cursor to the previous search result
i: Go back to the Library Subview

Library View

j: Move the cursor down
k: Move the cursor up
j: Move the cursor left
l: Move the cursor right
Ctrl-d: Move the cursor half a page down
Ctrl-u: Move the cursor half a page up
g: Move the cursor to the top of the current column
G: Move the cursor to the bottom of the current column
o: Move the cursor to the currently playing song
Space: Add the selected song to the queue
Enter: Add the selected song to the queue and play it
/: Start a search
- Enter/Escape: Submit the search
n: Move the cursor to the next search result in the current column
N: Move the cursor to the previous search result in the current column

Playlist View

j: Move the cursor down
k: Move the cursor up
j: Move the cursor left
l: Move the cursor right
Ctrl-d: Move the cursor half a page down
Ctrl-u: Move the cursor half a page up
g: Move the cursor to the top of the current column
G: Move the cursor to the bottom of the current column
Space: Add the selected song to the queu
Enter: Add the selected song to the queue and play it
/: Start a search
- Enter/Escape: Submit the search
n: Move the cursor to the next search result in the current column
N: Move the cursor to the previous search result in the current column

Config Viewer

No keybindings for now. Will eventually be a configuration editor.

Debug Logs

By default, the log viewer will scroll down as entries are logged so that the most recent are always shown. You can hit F to start a cursor that allows you to navigate the logs with the following keybindings:

j: Move the cursor down
k: Move the cursor up
Ctrl-d: Move the cursor half a page down
Ctrl-u: Move the cursor half a page up
g: Move the cursor to the top of the page
G: Move the cursor to the bottom of the page

This is in lieu of better user notifications + error output.

dgrisham/bbmp