Pianobar

INTRODUCTION

In this post I'm going to go over Pianobar. We'll grab the latest source, compile it, set it up, and run it. Pianobar is a awesome opensource console based client for Pandora Radio.

Step One:

First we'll need to install git so we can grab the latest source from github. We're going to grab the source from git so we have the latest code, otherwise we could easily install it from the repositories. So jumping to your terminal you'll just need to

$ sudo apt-get install git

Step Two:

We need to get the latest source of pianobar. So in the terminal again type the following

$ git clone https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar.git

Step Three:

We need to install the dependencies for pianobar to work correctly. Again the your terminal type the following:

sudo apt-get install libao-dev libmad0-dev libfaad-dev libgnutls-dev libjson0-dev libgcrypt11-dev

Step Four:

Now all we need to do is compile and install the git source we got earlier. So in the same directory that you were in when you used git to get pianobar just `cd` to the pianobar directory and use:

$ cd pianobar
$ make
$ sudo make install

Step Five:

At this point pianobar should be installed assuming we didn't get any errors along the way. So the next step is to add information to the config file in your home directory. Pianobar should have a directory within the .config directory, if not create it.

cat ~/.config/pianobar/config

We'll need to add some information to the config file in order to make pianobar work correctly. If there is no config file in the pianobar directory create a blank text file named 'config'.

password = pandora account password here

Adding your username and password are optional, but it saves you from having to type in your username and password every time.

Step Six:

Now to run the beauty that is pianobar for the first time. You can run pianobar by just typing pianobar and hitting enter into your terminal.

Optional steps:

So now that we have pianobar functional we can work on other things. For instance getting our plaintext password to be encrypted, keybinding, etc.

Password Encryption:

Keybinds:

If you're using a multimedia keyboard, you can add keybinds for pianobar. For my setup I have a microsoft wireless comfort keyboard 4000, and I'm running crunchbang with openbox. Openbox keybinds are located in the rc.xml config file. What we'll also need is to grab control-pianobar.sh files. Make sure you're in your .config/pianobar directory before you use the following command:

git clone https://github.com/Bruce-Connor/control-pianobar.git

First we need to know exactly what the keys do in order to map them to a command. So we'll use xev tool for that. So in  your terminal type in xev and hit enter, next hit one of the multimedia keys on your keyboard. You'll see output like this:

KeyPress event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x4e00001,
root 0x370, subw 0x0, time 2488373614, (943,113), root:(1395,1057),
state 0x10, keycode 164 (keysym 0x1008ff30,
XF86Favorites), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False

KeyRelease event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x4e00001,
root 0x370, subw 0x0, time 2488373806, (943,113), root:(1395,1057),
state 0x10, keycode 164 (keysym 0x1008ff30, XF86Favorites), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False

XF86Favorites is what we'll need to configure our keybind. So open up your rc.xml file and navigate to where the keybind area is and add the xml portion to execute a command from the control-pianobar.sh. The button I'm setting up is the "star" button on my keyboard which I'm going to use to tell pianobar that I like that song. In the rc.xml file I'm going to add:

<keybind key="XF86Favorites"> 
    <action name="Execute"> 
        <command>/home/xplicit/.config/pianobar/control-pianobar.sh +</command>
    </action> 
</keybind>

Now all we need to do is save the rc.xml file and reconfigure openbox then test it.

┌─[*********@*******]─[~/.config/pianobar]
└──╼ pianobar
Welcome to pianobar (2012.05.06)! Press ? for a list of commands.
(i) Control fifo at /home/username/.config/pianobar/ctl opened
(i) Login... Ok.
(i) Get stations... Ok.
  0) q   2Pac (Tupac) Radio
  1) q   A Day To Remember Radio
  2) q   Eazy-E Radio
  3) q   Eminem Radio
  4) q   Mac Miller Radio
  5) q   New Found Glory Radio
  6)  Q  QuickMix
  7) q   Tate Stevens Radio
  8) q   Travie McCoy Radio
[?] Select station: q
  6)  Q  QuickMix
[?] Select station: 6
|>  Station QuickMix
(i) Receiving new playlist... Ok.
|>  The Last Thing I Do by Tate Stevens on Tate Stevens @ Tate Stevens Radio
|>  I'd Rather Fuck You by Eazy-E on Eternal E (Explicit) @ Eazy-E Radio
|>  Mr. Highway's Thinking About The End by A Day To Remember on Homesick @ A Day To Remember Radio

You can see all my keybinds for pianobar here.

Links and Sources:

Pianobar Project
Bruce Connor fifo script

Creating your own key-binds in Openbox

Introduction

I love being able to control any and every aspect of my computer by utilizing key-binds and macros to do certain tasks. This post is going to go over how to create key-binds in the Openbox desktop environment. Again as my last post I'll be running Crunch Bang as my distribution of choice which comes preconfigured with Openbox. Also because I don't like to steer too far away from the CLI; I will be calling the configs from the per this post.

The Configuration

As I discussed in my last tutorial, you can locate the config file by using the find command.

$ find ~/ -iname rc.xml

In this case we're going to edit the rc.xml file. Before we can edit that file we need to know which keys we're going to use as shortcuts along with the task that we want that key sequence to execute. So we're going to use a built in tool called 'xev' to find out what keys are called. For the sake of this post I'm going to use left shift and f1 to make a key-bind. So open a terminal and type xev and press enter, then push left shift and you should see an output like this:

KeyPress event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x4000001,
    root 0x370, subw 0x0, time 326988347, (-740,188), root:(572,1005),
    state 0x11, keycode 50 (keysym 0xffe1, Shift_L), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

Now lets push f1 and see what happens:

KeyPress event, serial 46, synthetic NO, window 0x4000001,
    root 0x370, subw 0x0, time 327135703, (-576,193), root:(736,1010),
    state 0x10, keycode 67 (keysym 0xffbe, F1), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes:
    XFilterEvent returns: False

What information does this give us? First we have the X11 key name, and we also have the keycode which if we change to hex can be used in place of the X11 key name. So back to the rc.xml file. For simplicity reasons we'll just use the X11 key names, Shift_L and F1 respectively. In the xml file, we need to find the area where keybinds are defined. You should see comments that talks about keybinds like:

<!-- Keybindings for desktop switching -->

Now we need to create our own. You can create your keybinds anywhere in the keybind portion of the config file. Use the following format as an example:

<keybind key="">
     <action name="">
          <command>command goes here</command>
     </action>
</keybind>

Remember in this example we're using Shift_L and F1 for the keybind key, openbox has used modifiers for certain keys such as Shift which is an uppercase S and that's what we'll insert instead of Shift_L:

<keybind key="S-F1">

For the action name we want it to execute a command:

<action name="Execute">

And for the command we'll have it open Iceweasel:

<command>iceweasel</command>

Our keybind alltogether should look like this

<keybind key="S-F1">
     <action name="Execute">
          <command>iceweasel</command>
     </action>
</keybind>

Reload Openbox Configs

Now that the keybinds have been changed, whenever we use shift + f1 iceweasel opens up. These keybinds can be configured to do anything you want with endless combinations of keybinds and actions. Once you're happy with your current configuration, we need to have openbox reload the config files. In order to accomplish this, type the following into your terminal:

$ openbox --reconfigure