This is a basic crash course on running audacious headless. This isn’t particularly interesting to an everyday user, but to a power user or programmer it’s good inspiration for making an entirely textmode player with all the power that is Audacious. I wonder if I could ever hope to build something as cool as cplay was.

This post is accurate for Audacious 1.5.1

Start audacious headless.  Note that if you run the Audacious with the Status Icon plugin, you’ll be able to see the icon.  Also make sure Audacious isn’t already running.

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audacious -H &

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Check the previously-used playlist, if you’ve already configured it to show one.

audtool playlist-display

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Nuke the playlist and add one song. Does not work with wildcards, uses the first match.

audtool playlist-addurl-to-new-playlist 1.mp3

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Play controls:

audtool playback-play
audtool playback-pause
audtool playback-stop

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Append one song to the playlist. Does not work with wildcards, uses the first match.

audtool playlist-addurl 2.mp3

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Append a list of songs with something like this.

find -exec audtool playlist-addurl {} \;
find -L . -name '*.mp3' -type f -exec audtool playlist-addurl {} \;

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Next/previous item (stops working at the end/start of the playlist)

audtool playlist-advance
audtool playlist-reverse

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Exit

audtool shutdown

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The complete list of commands:

audtool help

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Vital information:
current-song	returns current song title
current-song-filename	returns current song filename
current-song-length	returns current song length
current-song-length-seconds	returns current song length in seconds
current-song-length-frames	returns current song length in frames
current-song-output-length	returns current song output length
current-song-output-length-seconds	returns current song output length in seconds
current-song-output-length-frames	returns current song output length in frames
current-song-bitrate	returns current song bitrate in bits per second
current-song-bitrate-kbps	returns current song bitrate in kilobits per second
current-song-frequency	returns current song frequency in hertz
current-song-frequency-khz	returns current song frequency in kilohertz
current-song-channels	returns current song channels
current-song-tuple-data	returns the value of a tuple field for the current song
current-song-info	returns current song bitrate, frequency and channels
Playlist manipulation:
playlist-advance	go to the next song in the playlist
playlist-reverse	go to the previous song in the playlist
playlist-addurl	adds a url to the playlist
playlist-insurl	inserts a url at specified position in the playlist
playlist-addurl-to-new-playlist	adds a url to the newly created playlist
playlist-delete	deletes a song from the playlist
playlist-length	returns the total length of the playlist
playlist-song	returns the title of a song in the playlist
playlist-song-filename	returns the filename of a song in the playlist
playlist-song-length	returns the length of a song in the playlist
playlist-song-length-seconds	returns the length of a song in the playlist in seconds
playlist-song-length-frames	returns the length of a song in the playlist in frames
playlist-display	returns the entire playlist
playlist-position	returns the position in the playlist
playlist-jump	jumps to a position in the playlist
playlist-clear	clears the playlist
playlist-repeat-status	returns the status of playlist repeat
playlist-repeat-toggle	toggles playlist repeat
playlist-shuffle-status	returns the status of playlist shuffle
playlist-shuffle-toggle	toggles playlist shuffle
playlist-tuple-data	returns the value of a tuple field for a song in the playlist
Playqueue manipulation:
playqueue-add	adds a song to the playqueue
playqueue-remove	removes a song from the playqueue
playqueue-is-queued	returns OK if a song is queued
playqueue-get-queue-position	returns the playqueue position of a song in the given poition in the playlist
playqueue-get-list-position	returns the playlist position of a song in the given position in the playqueue
playqueue-length	returns the length of the playqueue
playqueue-display	returns a list of currently-queued songs
playqueue-clear	clears the playqueue
Playback manipulation:
playback-play	starts/unpauses song playback
playback-pause	(un)pauses song playback
playback-playpause	plays/(un)pauses song playback
playback-stop	stops song playback
playback-playing	returns OK if audacious is playing
playback-paused	returns OK if audacious is paused
playback-stopped	returns OK if audacious is stopped
playback-status	returns the playback status
playback-seek	performs an absolute seek
playback-seek-relative	performs a seek relative to the current position
Volume control:
get-volume	returns the current volume level in percent
set-volume	sets the current volume level in percent
Equalizer manipulation:
equalizer-activate	activates/deactivates the equalizer
equalizer-get	gets the equalizer settings
equalizer-set	sets the equalizer settings
equalizer-get-preamp	gets the equalizer pre-amplification
equalizer-set-preamp	sets the equalizer pre-amplification
equalizer-get-band	gets the equalizer value in specified band
equalizer-set-band	sets the equalizer value in the specified band
Miscellaneous:
mainwin-show	shows/hides the main window
playlist-show	shows/hides the playlist window
equalizer-show	shows/hides the equalizer window
filebrowser-show	shows/hides the filebrowser
jumptofile-show	shows/hides the jump to file window
preferences-show	shows/hides the preferences window
about-show	shows/hides the about window
activate	activates and raises audacious
always-on-top	on/off always on top
get-skin	gets skin
set-skin	sets skin
version	shows audaciuos version
shutdown	shuts down audacious
Help system:
list-handlers	shows handlers list
help	shows handlers list
Handlers may be prefixed with `–’ (GNU-style long-options) or not, your choice.