Script for polybar to display and control media using DBus

## polybar-now-playing Script for polybar to display and control media(not only Spotify) using DBus

Python script to display and control current playing media. Includes a way to switch between players. Scrolling text used for metadata(title, artist, album, etc.) and playback button based on spotify-polybar and zscroll.

#### Demo: 



### Dependencies

- [python3](https://www.python.org/downloads/): Required to run the script - [playerctl](https://github.com/altdesktop/playerctl): Required to control players - [dbus-python](https://pypi.org/project/dbus-python/): python module required to interact with [DBus](https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus/) message bus system

### Setup & Configuration - This script requires a monospace font to work as expected, so adding a monospace font to your polybar config is adviced. After adding the font, update the index in `polybar-now-playing` file where indicated. Font indices are 1-based so be careful, refer [polybar:Fonts](https://github.com/polybar/polybar/wiki/Fonts#fonts). - Format of playing track/media details by default is "title - artist". It can be changed by specifying respective field names in `metadata_fields` list. For more details/ field names, refer [mpris sepecification](https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/mpris-spec/metadata/).

```python3 # Config options

# (int) : Length of media info string. If length of string exceedes this value, # the text will scroll. Default value is 20. message_display_len = 20

# (int) : Font index of polybar. this value should be 1 more than the font # value specified in polybar config. font_index = + 1 # (float) : Update speed of the text in seconds. Default value 0.3. update_delay = 0.3 # (list) : list of chars containing previous, play, pause, next glyphs # for media controls in respective order. # example: control_chars = ['','','',''] # (dict) : dict of char icons to display as prefix. # If player name is available as key, then use the corressponding icon, # else default. # example: display_player_prefix = { "spotify": '', "firefox": '', "default": '' } # (list) : list of metadata fields based on mpris sepecification. metadata_fields = ["xesam:title", "xesam:artist"] # (char) : separator for metadata fields metadata_separator = "-" ``` - After setting the options, add the following to your polybar config. ```ini [module/now-playing] type = custom/script tail = true ;format-prefix = "" format = exec = click-right = "kill -USR1 $(pgrep --oldest --parent %pid%)" ``` #### Warning: In the click-right field of polybar config, for some setups the given line **does not work**([#2](https://github.com/d093w1z/polybar-now-playing/issues/2)). It works only when polybar runs custom script exec fields as subprocesses using sh, not if it runs them directly(Refer to this for more info(see the Note): [Config#examples](https://github.com/polybar/polybar/wiki/Module:-script#examples)). You can make it work by using the following line: `click-right = "kill -USR1 %pid%"` ### Useful notes: This project was meant as a quick fix, rather than a permanent solution. As this is a Python script, it requires some time to execute. I wouldn't call it a fast solution but it's speed of execution depends on the hardware and software setup of the indivudual. If in future this is ported to C/C++ then the performance can be improved drastically. ## GitHub https://github.com/d093w1z/polybar-now-playing