Updates to MPDQ (automagic playlists for the Music Player Daemon)

Update 2 Feb 2024: Check out version 2.

I was pretty happy with my rewrite ofmpdq and the way it queues music… but there was something missing.

Specifically, the ability to easily pause it.

So I added that functionality. Now,mpdq will automatically pause if MPD is not set to:

  • random: off
  • repeat: off
  • consume: on

So if you want to have “default” behavior back from MPD without interference from mpdq, but want to leave the process running, just toggle any of those values for MPD.

Additionally, I wanted it to be able to adjust to library changes – say, if you added a new genre. I realized this after adding a bunch of standup albums with the new genre “Standup” and suddenly had Steven Wright talking after “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. To fix this possible problem, you first have to set Default=0 in the instruction file loaded by systemd. Then you have to have mpdq get restarted whenever the MPD database changes. You can either use monit or fswatch to make this happen. Instructions and examples for doing so are part of the README.

You can pick it up and try it out on github, gitlab, or my git repository.

Featured Photo by Eric Nopanen on Unsplash