vibox

Canonical: gitlab.com/safteinzz/vibox · Mirror: github.com/safteinzz/vibox

A jukebox you exit with :q 🎧

A cli music player with vi motions, ex commands, and tmux manners. Your library is a directory, a track is a file, and the last line of the screen is the command line. There is no database and no import step: point it at a folder and it plays.

Moving or deleting the files themselves takes :set danger.

Install

cargo install vibox   # that is the whole install: no system libraries, no headers
vibox ~/Music         # or just `vibox`, for your music directory
vibox rotation.m3u    # a playlist is a library too

Every dependency is pure rust, so the install cannot fail on a missing C header. Sound goes out over the pulseaudio socket, which pipewire serves as well. Linux only for now.

Browse

Folders or playlists on the left, open views as tabs across the top, > on the playing track, and relative line numbers in the gutter so 4j lands where you counted.

Each tab keeps its own cursor, scroll and sort, so searching in one leaves the others where you left them. / filters on what you can see: filenames, artists and albums, never the path.

Rename files in place

c turns the list into a buffer of filenames. Edit them where they sit with the operators you already use (cw, x, A, dw) and move between rows with j and k.

~ marks a row you changed and [+] means something is waiting to be written. Every name is checked before any rename runs, and tags are never modified.

Nothing is written until :w

Renames, playlist edits, cuts and deletions all sit in memory until you write them. :changes lists exactly what :w would do, u and ctrl-r walk them, :e! throws the lot away, and :q refuses while anything is pending. A batch is all or nothing, so one name that already exists stops the whole write rather than half applying it.

Playlists

Playlists are m3u files in ~/.local/share/vibox/playlists, and the left pane switches to them with gt. o starts an empty one, enter shows one in the track list, t opens it in a tab of its own.

Filling one is a yank and a put: t a folder into its own tab, V and j to select, y, gt back to the playlist, p. dd cuts a track out and p puts it back where you want it, so that is also how you reorder one. A playlist is a view over your library, so the folders tab keeps browsing everything while one is open.

Lyrics

:set lyrics fetches from lrclib and follows the song, highlighting the line being sung.

It only follows when lrclib's recording matches yours within a couple of seconds, because timings from a different edit would drift; otherwise you get the words with no highlight. Off by default, cached on disk.

Danger mode

:set danger lets vibox change your library, and nothing else does. With it on, dd cuts tracks or a whole folder, d then p puts them in another folder as a move, y then p copies them, and :mkdir jazz makes a folder. It starts off every time unless you kept it: :mkrc writes it to ~/.config/vibox/viboxrc when it is on, and tells you it did. Nothing else persists it, so it never turns itself on behind your back.

A cut is an edit, not an action: the rows leave the list at once, :changes lists every one, and only :w writes. Cut something and never put it back and :w deletes it, which is the whole point of :changes being there to read first.

Keys

Motions are vi motions: j k, gg, G, 12G, ctrl-d, ctrl-u, H M L, zz zt zb. Counts work everywhere, so 8j moves eight rows and 30l seeks thirty seconds.

Nothing needs a leader key and nothing needs a ctrl-b first, so it keeps out of tmux's way.

Commands

:e <path>       open a directory or an m3u for this session
:set root=~/Music   the library vibox opens on its own
:set lyrics     lyrics pane; :set noartist hides a column, :set artist! flips it
:set danger     let vibox move, copy and delete; off every start, `:mkrc` keeps it
:sort artist    path, title, artist, album, duration
:vol 70         :seek 1:30, :reload, :42 jumps to row 42
:changes        what :w would do        :w writes it, :e! discards it
:mkrc           save your options to ~/.config/vibox/viboxrc
:q  :q!         close the tab, or leave without writing

:set works the way vim's does, and :set on its own lists everything. Volume, shuffle and repeat come back the way you left them.

Media keys

vibox is an MPRIS player, so the media keys on your keyboard reach it from anywhere, and so does playerctl -p vibox play-pause.

One more thing

There is one command for this. It is not in the table above, it is not in :help, and you are not getting it from me.

License

AGPL-3.0-only.