Cmus

Description

cmus (C* Music Player) is a small, fast and powerful console audio player.

Installation

You can obtain the latest stable version via Pacman:

# pacman -S cmus

Alternatively, there is also a development version available from the AUR.

Usage

Cmus comes with a great reference manual.

$ man cmus 
$ man cmus-tutorial
$ man cmus-remote

Starting Cmus

When you first launch cmus it will open to the album/artist tab. To start cmus:

$ cmus

Adding Music

Press Template:Keypress to switch to the file-browser tab so we can add some music. Now, use the arrow keys (Template:Keypress, Template:Keypress), Template:Keypress and Template:Keypress to navigate to where you have audio files stored. To add music to your cmus library, use the arrow keys to hilight a file or folder, and press Template:Keypress. When you press Template:Keypress cmus will move you to the next line down (so that it is easy to add a bunch of files/folders in a row) and start adding the file/folder you pressed Template:Keypress on to your library. This can take a while if you added a folder with a lot in it. As files are added, you will see the second time in the bottom right go up. This is the total duration of all the music in the cmus library.

Note: cmus does not move, duplicate or change your files. It just remembers where they are and caches the metadata (duration, artist, etc.)

Note: Cmus automatically saves your settings and library and everything when you quit

Playing Tracks

Press Template:Keypress to go to the simple library view. Use the (Template:Keypress and Template:Keypress arrow keys to select a track you'd like to hear, and press Template:Keypress to play it. Here's some keys to control play:

Press Template:Keypress to pause/unpause

Press Template:Keypress/Template:Keypress arrow keys to seek by 10 seconds

Press Template:Keypress/Template:Keypress seek by one minute

Keybindings

Press Template:Keypress for a quick overview of the current keybindings and settings. To change a setting or keybind, just select it (Template:Keypress/Template:Keypress keys) and press Template:Keypress. This will put the command for the current setting in the command now (bottom left of your screen), which you can edit to put in a new value/key.

Tabs

There are 7 tabs in cmus. Press keys Template:Keypress-Template:Keypress to change active tab.

Library tab (1)

Display all tracks in so-called library. Tracks are sorted artist/album tree. Artist sorting is done alphabetically. Albums are sorted by year.

Sorted library tab (2)

Displays same content as view, but as a simple list which is automatically sorted by user criteria.

Playlist tab (3)

Displays editable playlist with optional sorting.

Play Queue tab (4)

Displays queue of tracks which are played next. These tracks are played before anything else (i.e. the playlist or library).

Browser (5)

Directory browser. In this tab, music can be added to either the library, playlist or queue from the filesystem.

Filters tab (6)

Lists user defined filters.

Settings tab (7)

Lists keybindings, unbound commands and options. Remove bindings with Template:Keypress or Template:Keypress, change bindings and variables with Template:Keypress and toggle variables with Template:Keypress.

Features

Plugins

Input: Ogg Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, Musepack, WavPack, WAV, AAC, MP4, and everything supported by ffmpeg (WMA, APE, MKA, TTA, SHN, ...) and libmodplug

Output: PulseAudio, ALSA, OSS, RoarAudio, libao, aRts, Sun, and WaveOut (Windows)

Playing

Gapless playback

ReplayGain support

MP3 and Ogg streaming (SHOUTcast/Icecast)

Powerful playlist filters / live filtering

Play queue

Optional playback resume on startup

Interface

Instant startup, even with thousands of tracks

Easy to use directory browser

Customizable colors

Dynamic keybindings. You can bind a key to any command, :seek +1m for example

Vi / less style search mode

Vi style command mode with tab completion

Misc

Excellent compilations handling

Uses Unicode internally for all string handling

Can run external commands for the currently selected files (tag-editor for example)

Can be controlled via UNIX socket using cmus-remote command

Links

1. Git Repository
2. Website