pimpd

PimpD is a Music Player Daemon - a music player for command line people.

PimpD is a music player with a very simple premise - it reads a playlist file, and then plays the tracks in the file sequentially. That might sound like the most underwhelming thing ever, but bear with me...

PimpD can run in the foreground in a terminal, or it can fork off and run as a daemon, or it can be started by systemd, initd, etc. In it's default configuration it won't start playing until told to, so it can run happily in the background.

PimpD monitors the playlist file for changes, and attempts to handle changes to that file in a "natural" (but configurable) way. So, whatever you want to listen to, you just need to make changes to that playlist file and PimpD will handle them in real time. Some examples might help here. Assume your playlist is in ~/.config/pimpd/playlist.m3u:

• To shuffle the current playlist:

% cat ~/.config/pimpd/playlist.m3u | shuf > ~/.config/pimpd/playlist.m3u.new
% mv ~/.config/pimpd/playlist.m3u.new ~/.config/pimpd/playlist.m3u

• To wipe the current playlist:

% echo "" > ~/.config/pimpd/playlist.m3u

• To add an album to the end of the current playlist:

% cd ~/Music/artist/album
% find "${PWD}" -type "*.mp3" >> ~/.config/pimpd/playlist.m3u

• To back up a playlist, and then listen to a previously backed-up playlist:

% cp ~/.config/pimpd/playlist.m3u ~/Playlists/SundayMorning.m3u
% cp ~/Playlists/Workout.m3u ~/.config/pimpd/playlist.m3u

• And you can really go to town. Here's adding files to the playlist with fzf and kitty terminal:

Screencast_20240603_144735.mp4

The point is, the playlist is just a text file, and any way you want to add/update/remove tracks from that playlist is up you.

PimpD ships with a number of example commands that can be accessed using the pimp command. As of the time of writing the following commands are shipped:

• add adds music from an index file using fzf, as shown in the video above.
• back go back a track (or go back to the start of this track. Configurable).
• end shuts down PimpD.
• next skip to the next track.
• pause pauses playback. Play resumes from the same point.
• play starts/resumes playback.
• random adds random tracks from your collection to the playlist.
• reindex rebuilds an index of your music; makes add & random faster.
• shuffle shuffles the current playlist.
• stop stops playback. Play will resume from the start of the track.
• wipe clears the playlist.

Note that these are really meant as examples, though they may well work for you. Tweak them / rewrite them to suit your setup.

I said that PimpD attempts to handle changes to the playlist file "naturally". What I mean by that is, whatever changes you make to the file won't interrupt the currently playing track. If the currently playing track is still in the playlist after any changes, PimpD plays the new playlist from the track after the current one (this is configurable). If the currently playing track is not in the updated playlist, then PimpD will start at the beginning of the playlist, and will not play that track again. When PimpD reaches the end of the playlist, it loops back to the beginnging (configurable).

Also, for those of you whose desktop environment utilizes DBus (Gnome, KDE, XFCE, maybe others?), PimpD implements the base & Player MPRIS interfaces, which means desktop integration should Just Work. PimpD works best in these environments.

Under the Covers

PimpD uses libmpv for playback, and most of the logic in PimpD involves keeping libmpv's own internal playlist in sync with PimpD's. This means PimpD can play any audio format that libmpv supports, which is a lot. PimpD works best with DBus; without DBus, controlling playback requires communicating with libmpv directly using fifos, and PimpD then has to figure out what's changed by listening to signals issued by libmpv. With DBus, playback control is handled by PimpD directly.

PimpD is written in Perl, and makes use of a number of Perl modules; see Installation below.

Installation

Dependencies

PimpD relies on the following software:

• Perl 5 a recent build.
• libmpv normally installed as part of the mpv package.
• dbus-send if you're in a DBus environment. Usually installed as part of DBus.
• socat if you're note in a DBus environment. Simplifies communicating with libmpv via fifo.
• Optional: fzf for selecting albums/tracks from a list or from the output of find.

Perl Libraries: These can all be installed via cpan with one exception.

• AppConfig
• File::HomeDir
• File::Monitor
• Log::Log4Perl
• MPV::Simple
• Proc::Daemon
• Optional: Net::DBus if using a DBus environment
• Optional: Log::JournalD *Add JournalD support to Log4Perl. Note that the cpan version is old, so install by: cpanm https://github.com/lkundrak/perl-Log-Journald/tarball/master