Cross-platform doom-modeline segment to display information about the currently playing song. Supports both Linux (via playerctl) and macOS (via AppleScript & media-control).

You can click the status icon to toggle play/pause, or use the interactive function doom-modeline-now-playing-toggle-status.

• Cross-platform: Works on Linux (playerctl) and macOS (AppleScript)
• Customizable: Control update interval, text length, and playerctl format
• Interactive: Click to play/pause or use keyboard commands
• Multiple players: Supports Spotify, Music.app, and any MPRIS-compatible player
• Modular: Clean provider-based architecture for easy extension

• playerctl - For MPRIS-compatible media players

  # Arch Linux
  sudo pacman -S playerctl
  
  # Ubuntu/Debian
  sudo apt install playerctl
  
  # Fedora
  sudo dnf install playerctl
      

• Attempts to default to media-control
• Falls back to built-in AppleScript support (no additional dependencies)
• Supports Spotify, Music.app, and other AppleScript-compatible players or anything media-control supports

Add the package to your load path after doom-modeline:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/doom-modeline-now-playing")
(require 'doom-modeline-now-playing)

Install doom-modeline-now-playing with your package manager:

;; use-package
(use-package doom-modeline-now-playing
  :after doom-modeline
  :config
  (doom-modeline-now-playing-timer))

;; straight.el
(straight-use-package 'doom-modeline-now-playing)

Add this to your config after loading doom-modeline:

(doom-modeline-now-playing-timer)

Include now-playing in your modeline configuration:

(doom-modeline-def-modeline 'main
    '(bar workspace-name window-number modals matches buffer-info remote-host buffer-position parrot selection-info)
    '(now-playing objed-state misc-info persp-name battery grip irc mu4e gnus github debug repl lsp minor-modes input-method major-mode process vcs checker))

;; Enable/disable the segment (default: t)
(setq doom-modeline-now-playing t)

;; Update interval in seconds (default: 5)
(setq doom-modeline-now-playing-interval 5)

;; Maximum text length before truncation (default: 40)
(setq doom-modeline-now-playing-max-length 40)

;; Customize output format using playerctl template syntax
(setq doom-modeline-now-playing-playerctl-format "{{artist}} - {{title}}")

;; Ignore specific players (e.g., browser players)
(setq doom-modeline-now-playing-playerctl-ignored-players '("firefox" "chromium"))

Available playerctl format options:

• playerName - Player application name
• artist - Track artist
• title - Track title
• album - Album name
• status - Playback status (playing/paused/stopped)
• position - Current position in microseconds
• volume - Volume level

Functions: lc(), uc(), duration(), markup_escape(), default(), emoji()

;; Specify which applications to check (default: Spotify and Music)
(setq doom-modeline-now-playing-macos-players '("Spotify" "Music" "VLC"))

;; Toggle play/pause for current player
M-x doom-modeline-now-playing-toggle-status

;; Start/stop the update timer
M-x doom-modeline-now-playing-timer

The package uses a modular provider-based architecture:

• doom-modeline-now-playing.el - Core functionality and UI
• doom-modeline-now-playing-playerctl.el - Linux/playerctl provider
• doom-modeline-now-playing-osascript.el - macOS/AppleScript provider
• doom-modeline-now-playing-media-control.el - media-control provider

The appropriate provider is automatically loaded based on your system type.

• Ensure a supported media player is running
• Check doom-modeline-now-playing-playerctl-ignored-players settings
• Test playerctl directly: playerctl status

• Verify the media player supports AppleScript
• Add unsupported players to doom-modeline-now-playing-macos-players

Contributions welcome! To add support for new platforms:

1. Create a new provider file following the existing pattern
2. Inherit from doom-modeline-now-playing-provider
3. Implement doom-modeline-now-playing-provider-get-info and doom-modeline-now-playing-provider-play-pause
4. Add loading logic to the main file