Description: The amarok Anti-Geeking Jukebox is a small amarok script that runs a locked xscreensaver hack displaying the title, artist, album and album cover of the currently playing track.
It is written in bash and requires these external programs (all pretty common):
amarok The Image Magick toolkit (specifically mogrify, convert and composite) xwininfo xscreensaver, xscreensaver-command xloadimage
The idea was to create something to run at parties that would let people see what song was playing without letting them sit down and geek out (checking email, reading webcomics, whatever...). It was inspired by a good friend of mine with a bad habit for doing that.
It is still in a very early stage of development. There are no configuration options. I make no guarantees it will work any system other than my own (although I can't see why it wouldn't).
Making it say the track and artist was easy enough, but I also found it annoying that the script did not start xscreensaver immediately, so I made this edit to the end of the script:
#run
input="trackChange"
while [ 1 ]
do
if [ $input = "trackChange" ]; then
cp ~/.xscreensaver ~/.xscreensaver.juke.bak
cp ~/.xscreensaver.juke ~/.xscreensaver
xscreensaver-command -select 1
cp ~/.xscreensaver.juke.bak ~/.xscreensaver
fi
read input
done
this is really great utility, but what's the current status ?
it would be nice to have some customisation, to be able to show upcoming tracks from the playlist and maybe queue, if one exists.
also, giving the ability to control amarok only might be useful in some cases (turning the computer in sort of jukebox-only). maybe even limiting amarok controls available ;)
oooh, i could write a quite long list of features to make this script really great ;)
I'm using Image Magic 6.2.3 and fancy i have all nessecery softwear ( I have OpenSUSE). When i'm using script screen goes black, and he don't show cover. What should I do?
Ratings & Comments
7 Comments
I just use xtrlock on parties. That way people can make compliments about Amarok and still not tamper with the rest of the desktop.
Making it say the track and artist was easy enough, but I also found it annoying that the script did not start xscreensaver immediately, so I made this edit to the end of the script: #run input="trackChange" while [ 1 ] do if [ $input = "trackChange" ]; then cp ~/.xscreensaver ~/.xscreensaver.juke.bak cp ~/.xscreensaver.juke ~/.xscreensaver xscreensaver-command -select 1 cp ~/.xscreensaver.juke.bak ~/.xscreensaver fi read input done
this is really great utility, but what's the current status ? it would be nice to have some customisation, to be able to show upcoming tracks from the playlist and maybe queue, if one exists. also, giving the ability to control amarok only might be useful in some cases (turning the computer in sort of jukebox-only). maybe even limiting amarok controls available ;) oooh, i could write a quite long list of features to make this script really great ;)
I'm using Image Magic 6.2.3 and fancy i have all nessecery softwear ( I have OpenSUSE). When i'm using script screen goes black, and he don't show cover. What should I do?
why not put a visualization in the background behind the album cover?
Outstanding. Excellent thinking and foresight. Well done you, The Borg Queen
Well. Thank ya.