Ubuntu – Spotify Quicklist for Unity

quicklistsspotifyunity

How can I add a Unity "quicklist" for Spotify (installed from their website), so that when I right-click on the icon on my dock, I get: "Next, Previous, Stop, Play" and so on?

Best Answer

spotify (native linux client)

Since spotify includes an indicator to control some of its functions, this allows us to use dbus to send events.

There is a great script on ubuntuforums that covers this.

First install a prerequisite:

sudo apt-get install libnet-dbus-perl

Now copy and paste the script into a text file called spcmd and save this to your home folder.

Give it execute rights:

chmod +x ~/spcmd

Lets move this to a more useful folder:

mv ~/spcmd /usr/local/bin

Now, lets create a quick list.

First copy the spotify desktop file to your home folder:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications
cp /usr/share/applications/spotify.desktop ~/.local/share/applications

Open the file and copy and paste the quick list to the end of the file. Save it.

gedit ~/.local/share/applications/spotify.desktop

end result

enter image description here

quicklist

X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=PlayPause;Next;Previous;Stop;

[PlayPause Shortcut Group]
Name=PlayPause
Exec=spcmd playpause
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Next Shortcut Group]
Name=Next
Exec=spcmd next
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Previous Shortcut Group]
Name=Previous
Exec=spcmd previous
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Stop Shortcut Group]
Name=Stop
Exec=spcmd stop
TargetEnvironment=Unity

spcmd

#!/usr/bin/perl

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Basename;
use Net::DBus;

# Figure out some dbus stuff
unless ( defined $ENV{'DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS'} ) {
&set_DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS;
#die "Don't know which dbus to attach to.\nMake sure environment variable DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS is set.";
}
#my $bus = Net::DBus->find;
my $bus = Net::DBus->session;
my $spotify = $bus->get_service("org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.spotify");
my $player = $spotify->get_object("/org/mpris/MediaPlayer2", "org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player");
my $application = $spotify->get_object("/org/mpris/MediaPlayer2", "org.mpris.MediaPlayer2");
my $getorset = $spotify->get_object("/org/mpris/MediaPlayer2", "org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties");

# Handle command line argument
if (scalar @ARGV == 0) { &print_help; }
given ($ARGV[0]) {
# when ('play') { $player->Play(); } #Does not work for some reason.
when ('pause') { $player->Pause(); }
when ('playpause') { $player->PlayPause(); }
when ('next') { $player->Next(); }
when ('previous') { $player->Previous(); }
when ('stop') { $player->Stop(); }
when ('playstatus') { print $getorset->Get("org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player", "PlaybackStatus") . "\n"; }
when (m/\bspotify:(artist|album|track):[0-9a-zA-z]{22}\b/) { $player->OpenUri($_); }
when ('metadata-debug') { &print_debug_metadata; }
default { &print_help; }
}


# Print the help text
sub print_help {
print "USAGE: " . basename($0) . " {pause|playpause|next|previous|stop|playstatus|met adata-debug|<spotify URI>}\n\n";
print "\t" . "pause" . "\t\t" . "Causes spotify to pause current playback." . "\n";
print "\t" . "playpause" . "\t" . "Causes spotify to pause or play current playback." . "\n";
print "\t" . "next" . "\t\t" . "Goes to next song." . "\n";
print "\t" . "previous" . "\t" . "Goes to previous song." . "\n";
print "\t" . "stop" . "\t\t" . "Stops playback." . "\n";
print "\t" . "playstatus" . "\t" . "Prints current playstatus (Playing/Paused)." . "\n";
print "\t" . "<spotify URI>" . "\t" . "Starts playing supplied URI." . "\n";
print "\t" . "metadata-debug" . "\t" . "Shows available data on currently playing song." . "\n";
print "\t" . "\t\t" . "Fairly unformatted, thus \"debug\" data." . "\n";
print "\n";
print "EXAMPLES:\t" . basename($0) . " playpause" . "\n";
print "\t\t" . basename($0) . " spotify:track:5XXAq1r5r73ZyBS0XAiGw0" . "\n";

exit;
}

# Print some raw metadata
sub print_debug_metadata {
# Dereference the metadata hashref by copying it to a local hash
my %metadata = %{ $getorset->Get("org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player", "Metadata") };

# Print all metadata
print "Now Playing:\n";
for (keys %metadata) {
print $_ . ":\t" . $metadata{$_} . "\n" unless ($_ eq 'xesam:artist');
}

# Dereference the artist arrayref by copying it to local array
my @artistarray = @{ $metadata{'xesam:artist'} };

# Print all artists.
foreach my $artist (@artistarray) {
print "artist: \t" . $artist . "\n";
}
}

sub set_DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS {
my $curruser = `whoami`; chomp $curruser;
my $procname = 'spotify';
my $pid = `pgrep -o -u $curruser $procname`; chomp $pid;
my $environ = '/proc/' . $pid . '/environ';
my $dbussession = `grep -z DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS $environ`; $dbussession =~ s/^DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=//;

$ENV{'DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS'} = $dbussession;
}
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