[arch-general] Multi-audio player script-based control?

[Sander Jansen]

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 8:43 AM, Sander Jansen <s.jansen at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 8:08 AM, Oon-Ee Ng <ngoonee.talk at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I use mpd for 'regular' music playing, but once in a while (like
>> today, V-Day) I use other players (like Exaile) for various purposes.
>>
>> I currently use xbindkeys to bind various keyboard shortcuts to mpc
>> next, mpc prev etc. Of course, finger memory means I still press those
>> even though I'm currently using another music player (which results in
>> two different songs playing).
>>
>> Anyone know of an existing script which controls the active player (so
>> if I press my 'next song' keyboard shortcut and VLC is active, it
>> receives the signal, if Exaile/amarok whatever is active, it receives
>> it, if nothing is active it defaults to mpd)? Thought about hacking
>> something up in bash but would like to check if something already
>> exists, first.
>
> GNOME has the gnome settings daemon which takes care of this problem.
> Applications can register themselves to receive these type of key
> events and whichever is running will receive them and can handle it.
>

Another option would be to see if all the players you like support
MPRIS. Then you can make a little script that finds the active mpris
client on the Session bus (dbus) and send the required mpris command.
Hookup the script to your xbindkeys and you should be in business.

Sander