Re: [mpg123-users] How to use a play list in remote mode?

[Thomas O. <tho...@or...>]

Am Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:12:40 -0500
schrieb Seamus de Mora <sea...@gm...>: 

> Is is accurate to summarize what you've said as follows?:
> 
>    - As of today, loop-playing a playlist using the remote mode is not
>    possible; only the terminal mode can accommodate this.
>    - Loop-playing via remote mode might be added at some point in the
>    future.

Yes. But also, looping applies to tracks, not whole playlists. So you'd
need to apply the overall loop on the outside. What we have is endless
random play (--random). Maybe you mean that?

> If this is an accurate synopsis, can you give me a clue or two on what a
> 'terminal-mode' command to loop-play a list would look like?

Your case seems to me like it could be covered by running

mpg123 --continue --listentry $track --skip $position plist.m3u

and just killing (SIGINT) mpg123 when the button is pressed,
remembering the info printed for CONTINUE, like

cont=$(mpg123 --continue --listentry "$track" --skip "$frames" -@ /dev/shm/plist.m3u )

then parse $cont value, which looks like 

[CONTINUE] track 27 frame 376

Those two numbers give the position to resume playback on the next
button press, which just starts mpg123 anew.

You need some scripting around that, but not too much.

> tell me if the aforementioned "loop-play-via-terminal-mode" could be paused
> via the 'remote-mode` command for 'PAUSE/P'??
> i.e. 'echo "pause" > /tmp/mpg123_fifo'

pkill -INT mpg123

would be the simple approach (more sophistication: Remember the PID of
the process and specifically kill that). Then start mpg123 again on
un-pause.

I realize that the --random mode doesn't interact nicely with
--continue right now. The latter was coded for someone playing folders
of audiobook pieces, where everything needs to be in order. I need to
fix it so that --listentry is honoured properly also with random and
shuffled play. For now, if you do want random playback, you could
randomize your playlist beforehand and let mpg123 play it in order. If
the CONTINUE info tells you that the list ended (track > number of
tracks in list), you reset it to 1 and start again with the same or a
newly shuffled list. This is suboptimal regarding perceived randomness,
but should serve until next minor mpg123 release fixes things.

Before adding playlists to remote control mode, it needs to be decided,
if and how --random and --shuffle command-line switches would apply
there, or if there are commands to enable/disable these modes.


Alrighty then,

Thomas