Execute on song change

Rmpc provides on_song_change property in the config file which can be used to run a command whenever the song changes. This can be used for various purposes like showing a desktop notification.

Desktop notification on song change

Assuming you have a notification daemon with support for images like dunst running. All song metadata are available to the script as environment variables. For example $TITLE, $FILE, $DURATION, etc.

Create a script and place it somewhere. For example ~/.config/rmpc/notify. Below is an example of such script. Edit it to your needs or create a new one.

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#!/usr/bin/env sh
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# Directory where to store temporary data
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TMP_DIR="/tmp/rmpc"
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# Ensure the directory is created
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mkdir -p "$TMP_DIR"
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# Where to temporarily store the album art received from rmpc
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ALBUM_ART_PATH="$TMP_DIR/notification_cover"
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# Path to fallback album art if no album art is found by rmpc/mpd
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# Change this to your needs
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DEFAULT_ALBUM_ART_PATH="$TMP_DIR/default_album_art.jpg"
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# Save album art of the currently playing song to a file
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if ! rmpc albumart --output "$ALBUM_ART_PATH"; then
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    # Use default album art if rmpc returns non-zero exit code
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    ALBUM_ART_PATH="${DEFAULT_ALBUM_ART_PATH}"
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fi
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# Send the notification
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notify-send -i "${ALBUM_ART_PATH}" "Now Playing" "$ARTIST - $TITLE"

Make the script executable
Terminal window
```
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chmod +x ~/.config/rmpc/notify
```

In your rmpc’s config.ron specify on_song_change property and point it at location of the script from step 1.

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#![enable(implicit_some)]
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#![enable(unwrap_newtypes)]
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#![enable(unwrap_variant_newtypes)]
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(
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    address: "/tmp/mpd_socket",
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    on_song_change: ["~/.config/rmpc/notify"],
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...

Restart rmpc