♫> Listlace

Listlace is an mpd (music player daemon) client that uses a Ruby prompt as the interface, allowing you to use the power of Ruby to query your music library and build playlists.

It's a gem, so do this:

$ gem install listlace

Listlace is an mpd client, so make sure mpd is installed and running in the background.

The gem gives you an executable, so do this:

$ listlace
♫>

It gives you a prompt, which is just a Ruby prompt, with the commands below implemented as methods.

Query your music library and build playlists using selectors. There are selectors for each tag (artist, album, title, etc.) As an example, here is how artist works:

♫> artist "thirsty cups"
=> [8 songs]

It returned an Array of 8 Songs.

You can pass multiple queries to a selector, and it will select all songs that match any of those queries:

♫> _why = artist(:the_thirsty_cups, :moonboots, :the_child_who_was_a_keyhole)
=> [33 songs]

You can chain selectors together to narrow down a playlist:

♫> _why.album(:elfin_princess).title(/^the/)
=> [1 song]

The string selectors are: title, artist, album, and genre.

String selectors have "exact" counterparts: title_exact, artist_exact, album_exact, and genre_exact.

Use these "exact" selectors to do an exact, case-sensitive search:

♫> artist_exact "thirsty cups"
=> []
♫> artist_exact "The Thirsty Cups"
=> [8 songs]

The first one didn't match anything, the second one matched the same 8 songs.

You can also pass in a Regexp or a Symbol to a string selector:

♫> artist :the_thirsty_cups
=> [8 songs]
♫> artist /the thirst(y|ier|iest) cups/
=> [8 songs]

Underscores in symbols are interpreted as spaces.

The numeric selectors are: track, disc, and year.

In addition to Integers, you can pass a Range to match against or a Hash that specifies one or more comparison operators:

♫> year 2000, 2004
=> [362 songs]
♫> year 1990..1999
=> [521 songs]
♫> year lt: 1970
=> [76 songs]

The comparison operators are :eq, :ne, :gt, :ge, :lt, and :le. You can also just use :==, :>, :>=, :<, and :<=.

The time selector is just time, which matches the length of songs in seconds.

It's basically a numeric selector, but you can pass a String containing a formatted time in place of a number:

♫> time "1:23"
=> [2 songs]
♫> time "8:00"..."9:00"
=> [79 songs]
♫> time gt: "20:00"
=> [5 songs]
♫> time lt: 20
=> [27 songs]

"1:23" means 1 minute and 23 seconds, and "1:23:45" means 1 hour, 23 minutes, 45 seconds. If you just pass an integer, it is the number of seconds.

all returns all the songs in your library.

♫> all
=> [3560 songs]

none returns an empty playlist.

♫> none
=> []

p is like a play/pause button. If the player is paused, it unpauses. If the player is playing, then it pauses. If the player is stopped, then it starts playing. If you pass it a playlist, it will set the queue to that playlist and begin playing it.

♫> p
♫> p album :in_the_faxed_atmosphere

q without any arguments returns the queue (the current playlist). If you call q with a playlist as an argument, it will replace the queue with that playlist.

♫> q genre :trance
♫> q
=> [53 songs]

stop stops playback.

♫> stop

skip goes to the next song. If you give it a number, it will go that many songs ahead.

♫> skip
♫> skip 3

back goes back a song. If you give it a number, it will go that many songs back.

♫> back
♫> back 3

restart goes back to the beginning of the current song.

♫> restart

pause pauses the current song.

♫> pause

resume resumes the current song after being paused.

♫> resume

seek seeks forward or backward the specified number of seconds. You can also pass a String containing a formatted time, like "1:23", to skip ahead that many minutes and seconds, or "-1:23" to skip backward.

♫> seek 10
♫> seek -10
♫> seek "1:23"
♫> seek "-0:10"

seek_to seeks to an exact position of the current playing song. You can give it a number of seconds, or a formatted string containing a time.

♫> seek_to 0
♫> seek_to "5:00"

list with no arguments lists all the songs in your music library. If you pass it a playlist, it will list all the songs in that playlist.

♫> list
Air - 10 000 Hz Legend - Electronic Performers (5:36)
Air - 10 000 Hz Legend - How Does It Make You Feel? (4:38)
Air - 10 000 Hz Legend - Radio #1 (4:23)
...
♫> list title :fish
Eisley - Currents - Blue Fish (4:02)
Moonboots - Elfin Princess - The Fish Said Hello (2:44)
Radiohead - In Rainbows - Weird Fishes/Arpeggi (5:18)
Thee More Shallows - A History of Sport Fishing - A History of Sport Fishing (7:00)

artists with no arguments lists all the artists in your music library. If you pass it a playlist, it will list all the artists in that playlist.

♫> artists
Air (55 songs)
Amplifier (53 songs)
Andrew Bird (93 songs)
...
♫> artists genre(:trance)
Infected Mushroom (13 songs)
Gouryella (3 songs)
Safri Duo feat. Clark Anderson (6 songs)
Safri Duo (16 songs)

albums with no arguments lists all the albums in your music library. If you pass it a playlist, it will list all the albums in that playlist.

♫> albums
Air - 10 000 Hz Legend (11 songs)
Air - Love 2 (12 songs)
Air - Moon Safari (10 songs)
...
♫> albums artist(:infected_mushroom)
Infected Mushroom - Converting Vegetarians (22 songs)
Infected Mushroom - IM the Supervisor (9 songs)
Infected Mushroom - Legend of the Black Shawarma (11 songs)
Infected Mushroom - Stretched (4 songs)
Infected Mushroom - Vicious Delicious (11 songs)

genres with no arguments lists all the genres in your music library. If you pass it a playlist, it will list all the genres in that playlist.

♫> genres
Trance (53 songs)
Hip-Hop (14 songs)
Jazz (10 songs)
...
♫> genres title(:constantinople)
TMBG (1 song)

years with no arguments lists all the years in your music library. If you pass it a playlist, it will list all the years in that playlist.

♫> years
2007 (205 songs)
2010 (220 songs)
2012 (148 songs)
...
♫> years artist :the_avalanches
2000 (18 songs)

mpd gives you an instance of the MPDClient object, which you can use to send any mpd command that isn't available in Listlace yet. This'll probably be removed once I actually implement all the commands.

♫> mpd.version
=> "0.16.0"