Show HN: Muse, a CLI background music player

[aabiji]

https://github.com/aabiji/muse

[benrutter]

Does anyone know if there's more docs on the intention behind this?

Looks like a cool project at first glance, and the code is really nice. But I don't fully get what a " background" music player is? Is the idea that you're not choosing specific song and it'll instead cycle through predesignated ones?

[andion → benrutter]

You can save a ton of battery using things like this.

I created a similar app using mac's afplay 11 (yikes) years ago https://github.com/andion/gramola

I don't use it anymore but at the time it made my battery last longer, you can see a battery consumption comparison on the repo.

[HKH2 → benrutter]

- It plays instantly. You don't need to click through a GUI and see names, labels etc. Just press a play shortcut.

- There's an element of surprise, and you can hear your whole collection. Sure, you can do that with a GUI, but it's a few extra clicks.

You will always get used to music. I wrote a player that will play a piece of music less frequently if I skip it faster, so what I skip less I will hear again sooner. Also, I add extra meta keys to the shortcut if I'm far too used to something and don't want to hear it in a while.

Also, I flag music that has lyrics / speaking / vocal sounds so I can skip it when I'm trying to focus.

[aabiji → benrutter]

Hey! OP here. I primarily work in the terminal, so Muse is a more convenient way for me to play music. Personally, I don't really care what track should play, so as you said it just cycles through predesignated ones. The reason why I call it a "background" music player is that I can just run Muse, and it will play music without any manual intervention or thought.

[benrutter → aabiji]

Hey, nice project, I enjoyed reading your code! I do the same thing and wrote a terminal mp3 player a while back in python (mpy3).

I really like the idea though of just having an "on/off" switch and not thinking about what's playing. Feels like a fun implementation- will definitely give it a go!

[Player6225 → aabiji]

Seems like a really great way to play more passive longer-running kinds of study music/sounds like coffeeshop noise or lofi-hiphop!

[justsomehnguy → benrutter]

> Is the idea that you're not choosing specific song and it'll instead cycle through predesignated ones?

At random. That's why it's background.

> Does anyone know if there's more docs on the intention behind this?

I would assume what it's just what is on the box - a player for when you want some background noise.

Though it gave me an idea and I added a batch file to my global scripts:

    start C:\Shares\personal\justsomehnguy\progs\Winamp563\winamp.exe "%CD%"

[wumms → justsomehnguy]

> At random. That's why it's background.

From the github page:

  # The order in which the audio files are played
  # Can be either "Random" or "Alphabetical".
  playback_order = "Random"

[M95D → benrutter]

... and there's no support for playlists. So, there's actually no control over what it plays.

[trymas → M95D]

I guess you can put your wanted songs in a “playlist” directory and define it in the config?

[M95D → trymas]

Yeah, I'm going to re-organize my entire music collection to fit the player's limitations. Not. Going. To. Happen.

[trymas → M95D]

Symlinks could work, I guess.

[vacuumboots → M95D]

sounds like it's Not. For. You.

[DANmode → trymas]

or a playlist file (if the player supports them).

[chaosprint]

nice work!

can I use "cargo install --git https://github.com/aabiji/muse"?

I also recommend:

https://github.com/ratatui-org/ratatui

https://github.com/mikaelmello/inquire

for your further development

I also have a Rust CLI music project here if you want to have a look

https://github.com/glicol/glicol-cli

[aabiji → chaosprint]

Hey! Yeah, using cargo install --git should work. You should just make sure that ~/.cargo/bin is in your PATH.

[keb_]

Any plans to make it compatible with more bands other than Muse? /s

Cool project.