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ncspot ncspot

ncspot is a ncurses Spotify client written in Rust using librespot. It is heavily inspired by ncurses MPD clients, such as ncmpc. My motivation was to provide a simple and resource friendly alternative to the official client as well as to support platforms that currently don't have a Spotify client, such as the *BSDs.

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Table of Contents

Resource Footprint Comparison

Measured using ps_mem on Linux during playback:

| Client | Private Memory | Shared Memory | Total | | ------- | -------------- | ------------- | ---------- | | ncspot | 22.1 MiB | 24.1 MiB | 46.2 MiB | | Spotify | 407.3 MiB | 592.7 MiB | 1000.0 MiB |

Installation

On macOS

ncspot is available via Homebrew:

zsh brew install ncspot

On Windows

ncspot is available via Scoop:

powershell scoop install ncspot

On Linux

Requirements:

On Debian based systems you need following packages for development headers:

bash sudo apt install libncursesw5-dev libdbus-1-dev libpulse-dev libssl-dev libxcb1-dev libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev

For Fedora, these dependencies are required:

bash dnf install pulseaudio-libs-devel libxcb-devel openssl-devel ncurses-devel dbus-devel

Building a Debian Package

You can use cargo-deb create in order to build a Debian package from source. Install it with:

bash cargo install cargo-deb

Then you can build a Debian package with:

bash cargo deb

You can find it under target/debian.

Build

Install the latest ncspot release using:

bash cargo install ncspot

Or build it yourself using:

```bash cargo build --release

NB: add these flags on Windows

cargo build --release --no-default-features --features rodio_backend,cursive/pancurses-backend ```

Audio Backends

By default ncspot is built using the PulseAudio backend. To make it use the PortAudio backend (e.g. for *BSD or macOS) or Rodio backend (e.g. for Windows), you need to recompile ncspot with the respective features:

```bash

PortAudio (BSD/macOS)

cargo run --no-default-features --features portaudio_backend,cursive/pancurses-backend

Rodio (Windows)

cargo run --no-default-features --features rodio_backend,cursive/pancurses-backend ```

Key Bindings

The keybindings listed below are configured by default. Additionally, if you run ncspot with MPRIS support, you may be able to use media keys to control playback depending on your desktop environment settings. Have a look at the configuration section if you want to set custom bindings.

Navigation

| Key | Command | | :---------------- | :---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | ? | Show help screen. | | F1 | Queue (See specific commands). | | F2 | Search. | | F3 | Library (See specific commands). | | F8 | Album Art (if compiled with the cover feature). | | / | Open a Vim-like search bar (See specific commands). | | : | Open a Vim-like command prompt (See specific commands). | | Escape | Close Vim-like search bar or command prompt. | | Q | Quit ncspot. |

Playback

| Key | Command | | :---------------------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------- | | Return | Play track or playlist. | | Space | Queue track or playlist. | | . | Play the selected item after the currently playing track. | | P | Move to the currently playing track in the queue. | | S | Save the currently playing track to your library. | | D | Remove the currently playing track from your library. | | Shift+P | Toggle playback (i.e. Play/Pause). | | Shift+S | Stop playback. | | Shift+U | Update the library cache (tracks, artists, albums, playlists). | | < | Play the previous track. | | > | Play the next track. | | F | Seek forward. | | Shift+F | Seek forward with a 10-second step. | | B | Seek backwards. | | Shift+B | Seek backwards with a 10-second step. | | - | Decrease volume by 1. | | + | Increase volume by 1. | | [ | Decrease volume by 5. | | ] | Increase volume by 5. | | R | Toggle Repeat mode. | | Z | Toggle Shuffle state. |

Context Menus

| Key | Command | | :---------------------------- | :--------------------------------------------------------------------- | | O | Open a detail view or context for the selected item. | | Shift+O | Open a context menu for the currently playing track. | | A | Open the album view for the selected item. | | Shift+A | Open the artist view for the selected item. | | M | Open the recommendations view for the selected item. | | Shift+M | Open the recommendations view for the currently playing track. | | Ctrl+V | Open the context menu for a Spotify link in your clipboard. | | Backspace | Close the current view. |

When pressing O:

Sharing

| Key | Command | | :---------------------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | X | Copy a shareable URL of the currently selected item to the system clipboard. | | Shift+X | Copy a shareable URL of the currently playing track to the system clipboard. |

Queue

| Key | Command | | :--------------------------- | :----------------------------------- | | C | Clear the entire queue. | | D | Delete the currently selected track. | | Ctrl+S | Delete the currently selected track. |

Library

| Key | Command | | :----------- | :-------------------------------------- | | D | Delete the currently selected playlist. |

Vim-Like Search Bar

| Key | Command | | :----------- | :------------------------- | | n | Previous search occurrence. | | N | Next search occurrence. |

Vim-Like Commands

You can open a Vim-style command prompt using :, and close it at any time with Escape.

The following is an abridged list of commonly-used commands. For the full list, see source code.

| Command | Action | |---|---| | help | Show current key bindings. | | quit
Aliases: q, x | Quit ncspot. | | logout | Remove any cached credentials from disk and quit ncspot. | | playpause
Aliases: pause, toggleplay, toggleplayback | Toggle playback. | | stop | Stop playback. | | seek [+\|-]<time> | Seek to the specified position, or seek relative to current position by prepending +/-. Supports mixing time units (e.g. seek 1m42s). Default unit is millisecond. | | repeat [repeat_mode]
Aliases: loop | Set repeat mode. Omit repeat_mode argument to step through the available modes. | | shuffle [on\|off] | Enable or disable shuffle. Omit argument to toggle. | | previous | Play previous track. | | next | Play next track. | | focus <queue\|search\|library> | Switch to a screen. | | search <keyword> | Search a song. | | clear | Clear playlist. | | share <item> | Copies a shareable URL of the item to the system clipboard. | | newplaylist <name> | Create new playlist with name name. | | sort <sort_key> [sort_direction] | Sort a playlist by sort_key in direction sort_direction. Default direction is ascending. | | exec <cmd> | Executes a command in the system shell. Be aware that command output is printed to the terminal, so redirection to /dev/null e.g. by appending 2> /dev/null may be necessary. |

Configuration

Configuration is saved to ~/.config/ncspot/config.toml (or %AppData%\ncspot\config.toml on Windows). To reload the configuration during runtime use the command prompt by typing :reload.

Possible configuration values are:

| Name | Description | Possible values | Default | |--------------------------|---------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------|-------------| | command_key | Key to open command line | Single character | : | | initial_screen | Screen to show after startup | "library", "search", "queue", "cover"[^2] | "library" | | use_nerdfont | Turn nerdfont glyphs on/off | true, false | false | | flip_status_indicators | Reverse play/pause icon meaning[^1] | true, false | false | | backend | Audio backend to use | String [^3] | | | backend_device | Audio device to configure the backend | String | | | audio_cache | Enable caching of audio files | true, false | true | | audio_cache_size | Maximum size of audio cache in MiB | Number | | | volnorm | Enable volume normalization | true, false | false | | volnorm_pregain | Normalization pregain to apply in dB (if enabled) | Number | 0.0 | | default_keybindings | Enable default keybindings | true, false | false | | notify | Enable desktop notifications | true, false | false | | bitrate | Audio bitrate to use for streaming | 96, 160, 320 | 320 | | album_column | Show album column for tracks | true, false | true | | gapless | Enable gapless playback | true, false | true | | shuffle | Set default shuffle state | true, false | false | | repeat | Set default repeat mode | off, track, playlist | off | | playback_state | Set default playback state | "Stopped", "Paused", "Playing", "Default" | "Paused" | | library_tabs | Tabs to show in library screen | Array of tracks, albums, artists, playlists, podcasts | All tabs | | [track_format] | Set active fields shown in Library/Queue views | See track formatting | | | [theme] | Custom theme | See custom theme | | | [keybindings] | Custom keybindings | See custom keybindings | |

a pause icon when playback is stopped. If this setting is enabled, the behavior
is reversed.

Custom Keybindings

Keybindings can be configured in [keybindings] section in config.toml, e.g. as such:

toml [keybindings] "Shift+i" = "seek +10000"

Proxy

ncspot will respect system proxy settings defined via the http_proxy environment variable.

Theming

Theme generator by @vaarad.

The color palette can be modified in the configuration. For instance, to have ncspot match Spotify's official client, you can add the following entries to the configuration file:

toml [theme] background = "black" primary = "light white" secondary = "light black" title = "green" playing = "green" playing_selected = "light green" playing_bg = "black" highlight = "light white" highlight_bg = "#484848" error = "light white" error_bg = "red" statusbar = "black" statusbar_progress = "green" statusbar_bg = "green" cmdline = "light white" cmdline_bg = "black" search_match = "light red"

More examples can be found in this pull request.

Track Formatting

It's possible to customize which fields are shown in Queue/Library views. If you don't define center for example, the default value will be used. Available options for tracks: %artists, %title, %album, %saved, %duration Default configuration:

toml [track_format] left = "%artists - %title" center = "%album" right = "%saved %duration"

Examples: (Click to show/hide)

Example 1 - Show only album name and track name after it:

toml [track_format] left = "%album" center = "%title" right = ""

Example 2 - Show track title before artists, and don't show album at all:

toml [track_format] left = "%title - %artists" center = ""

Example 3 - Show everything as default, but hide saved status and track length:

toml [track_format] right = ""

Example 4 - Show everything as default, except show title before artists:

toml [track_format] left = "%title - %artists"

Example 5 - Show saved status and duration first, followed by track title and artists, with the album last:

toml [track_format] left = "|%saved| %duration | %title - %artists" center = "" right = "%album"

Cover Drawing

When compiled with the cover feature, ncspot can draw the album art of the current track in a dedicated view (:focus cover or F8 by default) using Überzug. For more information on installation and terminal compatibility, consult that repository.

To allow scaling the album art up beyond its resolution (640x640 for Spotify covers), use the config key cover_max_scale. This is especially useful for HiDPI displays:

toml cover_max_scale = 2

Authentication

ncspot prompts for a Spotify username and password on first launch, uses this to generate an OAuth token, and stores it to disk.

The credentials are stored in ~/.cache/ncspot/librespot/credentials.json (unless the base path has been changed with the --basepath option).

The :logout command can be used to programmatically remove cached credentials (see Vim-Like Commands above).