ncmpc - curses Music Player Daemon (MPD) client.

ncmpc [options]

ncmpc is a client for MPD, the Music Player Daemon. ncmpc connects to a MPD running on a machine on the local network.

By default, ncmpc connects to localhost:6600. This can be changed either at compile-time, or by exporting the MPD_HOST and MPD_PORT environment variables, or by the command line options --host and --port.

$ ncmpc --host=musicserver --port=44000

To use a password with mpd, set MPD_HOST to password@host or use the command line option --password. Values from the command line overrides values from the environment.

Read more about MPD on http://www.musicpd.org

-?, --help

Display help.

-V, --version

Display version information.

-c, --colors

Enable colors.

-C, --no-colors

Disable colors.

-e, --exit

Exit on connection errors. The default is to reconnect.

-h, --host=HOSTNAME

Specify MPD host.

-p, --port=PORT

Connect to server on PORT.

-P, --password=PASSWORD

Use password when connecting.

-f, --config=FILE

Read configuration from file.

-P, --key-file=FILE

Read key bindings from FILE.

Mandatory or optional arguments to long options are also mandatory or optional for any corresponding short options.

When ncmpc start it tries to read user setting from the ~/.ncmpc/config file. If no user configuration is found ncmpc tries to load global settings from /etc/ncmpc/config (the actual path is displayed on the help screen). An example configuration file (config.sample) should be provided with ncmpc.

Base colors are: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan and white.

Possible text colors are the base colors plus grey, brightred, brightgreen, brightyellow, brightblue, brightmagenta, brightcyan and brightwhite.

Supported configuration options:

auto-center = yes|no

Enable/disable auto center mode. When auto center mode is enabled ncmpc centers the current track in the playlist window.

wide-cursor = yes|no

Make the cursor as wide as the screen.

hide-cursor = NUM

Hide the playlist cursor after NUM seconds of inactivity.

wrap-around = yes|no

Wrapped cursor movement.

find-wrap = yes|no

Wrapped find mode.

audible-bell = yes|no

Sound audible bell on alerts.

visible-bell = yes|no

Visible bell on alerts.

seek-time = NUM

Seek forward/backward by NUM seconds.

list-format = SONG FORMAT

The format used to display songs in the main window.

status-format = SONG FORMAT

The format used to display songs on the status line.

set-xterm-title = yes|no

Change the XTerm title (ncmpc will not restore the title).

xterm-title-format = SONG FORMAT

The format used to for the xterm title when ncmpc is playing.

enable-colors = yes|no

Enable/disable colors.

color background = COLOR

Set the background color. If the background color is assigned to the keyword none, ncmpc will not change the background color. Only the base colors are valid background colors.

color title = TEXTCOLOR

Set the text color for the title row.

color title-bold = TEXTCOLOR

Set the text color for the title row (the bold part).

color line = TEXTCOLOR

Set the color of the line on the second row.

color line-flags = TEXTCOLOR

Set the text color used to indicate mpd flags on the second row.

color list = TEXTCOLOR

Set the text color in the main area of ncmpc.

color list-bold = TEXTCOLOR

Set the bold text color in the main area of ncmpc.

color progressbar = TEXTCOLOR

Set the color of the progress indicator.

color status-state = TEXTCOLOR

Set the text color used to display mpd status in the status window.

color status-song = TEXTCOLOR

Set the text color used to display song names in the status window.

color status-time = TEXTCOLOR

Set the text color used to display time the status window.

color alert = TEXTCOLOR

Text color used to display alerts in the status window.

colordef COLOR = R, G, B

Redefine any of the base colors. The RGB values must be an integer value between 0 and 1000. Note: Only some terminals allow redefinitions of colors!

When ncmpc start it tries to read user key bindings from the ~/.ncmpc/keys file. If no user key bindings is found ncmpc tries to load global key bindings from /etc/ncmpc/keys (the actual path is displayed on the help screen).

You can view ncmpc's key bindings by pressing '1' (help) when ncmpc is running. To edit key bindings use the key editor in ncmpc (press 'K').

Format of song display for status and the list window. The metadata delimeters are: %name%, %artist%, %track%, %time%, %file%, %shortfile%.

The [] operators is used to group output such that if no metadata delimeters are found or matched between '[' and ']', then none of the characters between '[' and ']' are outputed. '&' and '|' are logical operators for and and or. '#' is used to escape characters.

Some useful examples for format are:

"%file%"

and

"[[%artist% - ]%title%]|[%file]"

Report bugs on http://www.musicpd.org/mantis/

Since MPD uses UTF-8, ncmpc needs to convert characters to the charset used by the local system. If you get character conversion errors when your running ncmpc you probably need to set up your locale. This is done by setting any of the LC_CTYPE, LANG or LC_ALL enviroment variables (LC_CTYPE only affects character handling).

mpc(1), mpd(1), locale(5), locale(7)