donotturnoff

mpvctl is a shell script for controlling mpv via its socket interface. I wrote this to have more advanced control over mpv using my keybindings in dwm.

Dependencies

• mpvSockets for managing multiple mpv sockets
• jq for JSON parsing
• socat for socket communication

Documentation

In the following documentation, MR refers to the most-recently-opened instance of mpv.

Program arguments

Usage: mpvctl command [PATTERN]

Positional arguments

command

The command for mpvctl to run. One of:

toggle

Toggle play/pause for MR. If no instance of mpv is running, run the command defined in $MPVCMD

toggle_all

Toggle play/pause for all instances of mpv

prev

Play the previous item in the playlist of MR

next

Play the next item in the playlist of MR

get_file

Echo the filename of the file currently being played by MR

is_paused

Echo true if MR is paused and false otherwise

play

Unpause MR if pattern is not specified, otherwise pause MR then play files in $MUSICPATH matching pattern

pause

Pause MR

stop

Kill MR and delete its socket

Optional arguments

pattern

A search string for finding files to play when using the play command. Can be several words, but no glob or regex matching is performed

Configuration

Variables

MPVCMD

The command to run if no instance of mpv is running when the toggle command is executed

MUSICPATH

The path to search for files to play when the play command is executed

To do

• More control options (e.g. alter volume)
• Make more UNIX-like