DBus MediaPlayer

The dbus-mediaplayer library empowers Python applications to interact with media players on your system through the D-Bus communication protocol. This enables you to retrieve metadata (like song titles and artists), control playback (play, pause, next, etc.), and potentially even access features specific to certain media players.

Key Features

• Media Player Discovery: Enumerate available media players on your system.
• Metadata Access: Retrieve current song information (title, artist, album, etc.).
• Playback Control: Play, Pause, Skip tracks, Volume, Position.
• Real-time Updates: Utilizes callback functions to provide instant notifications of media player state changes, ensuring your application stays up-to-date.

Requirements

• Python 3.7 or later
• jeepney library

Installation

Install the library using pip:

pip install dbus-mediaplayer

Usage

This library offers two primary usage approaches:

Programmatic Control

Import the DBusMediaPlayers class from your Python code:

from dbus_mediaplayer import DBusMediaPlayers

def callback(players):
    # Handle the list of media player objects here
    print(players)

# Create an instance of the class
media_player = DBusMediaPlayers(callback)

# Control media playback (replace "PlayPause" with desired methods like "Play", "Pause", "Next", etc.)
media_player.control_media("PlayPause")

# Keep the app running
while True:
    time.sleep(1)

Command-Line Interaction (Optional)

If you prefer a quick way to view information or control playback, you can potentially execute the dbus-mediaplayer script directly. For more extensive programmatic control, I would recommend using the library within your Python code. The script supports the following optional arguments for media control:

Status (Default):

If no argument is provided, the script defaults to retrieving media player information.

dbus-mediaplayer get-info

Volume Control:

You can set the volume level (between 0.0 and 1.0).

dbus-mediaplayer control --volume 0.5   # Sets volume to 50%

Set Media Position:

Adjust the playback position in seconds.

dbus-mediaplayer control --position 120  # Sets position to 2 minutes

Playback Control:

Perform media control actions: Play, Pause, PlayPause, Stop, Next, Previous.

dbus-mediaplayer command Pause  # Pauses playback
dbus-mediaplayer command Play   # Plays playback

This flexible command-line approach offers a straightforward way to control media playback directly from the terminal.

Inspiration

This library was inspired by the MPRIS2 library, which utilizes the dbus-python library. However, dbus-mediaplayer aims to offer a more widely deployable solution, removing reliance on external dependencies.