ViTunes

ViTunes lets you control and navigate iTunes from the comfort of Vim.

Benefits:

Control iTunes without leaving Vim, where one is probably in a state of productive bliss

Avoid using the mouse or trackpad; keystrokes get you there faster

Zen-minimalist textual UI works better on small screens than iTunes' bulky, multi-paned GUI

Control iTunes from another computer over ssh, across the room or across the world

Let multiple people control one instance of iTunes over ssh (how)

Control iTunes from a GNU/Linux client computer over ssh

ViTunes is pronounced vee-eye-tunes.

If you're looking for vitunes for MPlayer by Ryan Flannery, click here.

Prerequisites

Ruby 1.8.6 or higher (developed on Ruby 1.9.2)

OS X (tested on Snow Leopard 10.6)

Vim 7.2 or higher (tested on Vim 7.3)

Install

gem install vitunes && vitunes-install

vitunes-install installs a Vim plugin into your ~/.vim/plugin directory. If you don't want to install the Vim plugin and just want to run vitunes as a stand-alone program, just run gem install vitunes and skip vitunes-install .

If you get an error message saying that vitunes-install is missing, then you probably have a PATH issue. Try one of these workarounds:

Put the directory where Rubygems installs executables on your PATH

Try installing with sudo gem install vitunes && vitunes-install

To upgrade ViTunes to a newer version, just repeat the installation procedure.

How to use it

For all the commands below, the mapleader is just assumed to be a , . If your mapleader is \ or something else, use that instead.

Starting ViTunes

You can run ViTunes in two ways:

within Vim with ,i or ,I

or from the command line with the vitunes command

General commands

,i invoke or dismiss ViTunes

invoke or dismiss ViTunes ,I invoke ViTunes and go full screen with it

invoke ViTunes and go full screen with it ,? show help and commands

,I is useful if you want to launch immediately into ViTunes after starting Vim.

Navigation

,s search iTunes library by search query

search iTunes library by search query ,p select playlist

select playlist ,a select artist

select artist ,g select genre

select genre ,A select album

select album ENTER start playing a track under cursor

Playlist, artist, genre, and album navigation (but not search) use make use of Vim autocompletion. Start typing the first few letters of what you want. For example, if you want to jump to all artists that start with the letter 'P', type 'P' and you'll see the drop-down items update. This autocompletion is case-sensitive.

CTRL-p and CTRL-n let you navigate the drop-down matches. Press ENTER to select one.

More advanced autocompletion tips:

CTRL-e closes the match list and lets you continue typing

closes the match list and lets you continue typing CTRL-u : when the match list is active, cycles forward through the match list and what you've typed so far; when the match list is inactive, erases what you've typed.

: when the match list is active, cycles forward through the match list and what you've typed so far; when the match list is inactive, erases what you've typed. both TAB and CTRL-x CTRL-u reactivates autocompletion if it's gone away

and reactivates autocompletion if it's gone away CTRL-y selects the highlighted match without triggering ENTER

To exit the autocompletion or search query mode, press ENTER when the query line is blank, or try ESC then q .

Volume Control

+ louder

louder - softer

softer = louder

Playhead

SPACEBAR play/pause

play/pause > next track in ViTunesBuffer

next track in ViTunesBuffer < previous track in ViTunesBuffer

previous track in ViTunesBuffer >> next track in iTunes current playlist

next track in iTunes current playlist << previous track in iTunes current playlist

previous track in iTunes current playlist . show current track and playlist, if any

One thing to note: if you start playing a track that you've gotten to by going through the playlist dropdown, iTunes will play in continuous mode, where the next track in the playlist will automatically start playing after the current one ends.

But if you start playing a track you found some other way (e.g. via search query), iTunes will stop playing after that track ends.

If you want to use ViTunes to find and queue a bunch of tracks and have them play in automatic succession, use the next feature...

Copying and deleting tracks

,c copy track(s) to a playlist

copy track(s) to a playlist BACKSPACE deletes track(s) from the playlist

To copy tracks, put the cursor on a track or select a range of tracks, and then hit ,c to select a playlist to copy them to. The tracks will be added to the end of the playlist.

If this target playlist is already playing, you can keep queuing tracks to it and let the mix play out automatically.

To delete tracks from a playlist, put the cursor on a track or select a range of tracks, and then hit BACKSPACE (the Apple delete key) to remove them from the playlist that you are looking at.

Managing playlists

,P goes to the current playlist, if there is one

goes to the current playlist, if there is one :NewPlaylist [new playlist name] creates a new playlist

Tips

If you want to see your entire library in a Vim buffer, load the Library playlist. It may take a few seconds to load your entire iTunes library. But once it's loaded you'll be able to page through it at blazing speed and play any tracks you want. The list will be sorted by artist.

If you have cheap Linux netbooks, they make good ViTunes controllers. I control the iTunes on my Mac Mini from two Linux Asus 1015PEM netbooks that I move around the apartment.

History and future

I've been interested in designing alternative user interfaces to iTunes since 2008, when I was working out of the creative hacker cooperative Betahouse.

My first experiment was itunes-rails.

My second experiment was itunes-command.

ViTunes is the third experiment.

If you run a coffeeshop or coworking space where you'd like to let people use a common iTunes library like a jukebox, please let me know, because I'm interested in making something convenient for this kind of environment. This will probably require interaction via mobile devices.

Buy more music, support the ViTunes project

,z opens Amazon's MP3 Store in your web browser

At no additional cost to you, Amazon will give the ViTunes developer a small referral bonus (around 6%) when you buy MP3s via ,z . Thank you for your support!

Bug reports and feature requests

Please submit these at either of these places:

About the developer

My name is Daniel Choi. I specialize in Ruby, Rails, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and iOS development. I am based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and the little software company I run with Hoony Youn is called Kaja Software.