itunes from the command line

[patrick99e99]

Hi everyone,

I found online a script someone had written that allows you to control your itunes from the command-line, which is very useful for me as I can ssh to my main computer (which has airtunes via airport express) from my laptop and start and stop certain playlists…

Anyway, I added something to the script to have it return all of my playlists to the command line so I can know which ones that I can switch to…

right now, they are being returned like a normal list would be “depeche mode, new order, xymox” etc… And I was wondering if anyone knows a good way that I can have then returned in a 3 column view spaced out… like:

“depeche mode new order xymox”

I tried doing something with text item delimiters, but it wasn’t working very well with the osascript -e stuff…

Any thoughts?

here is the script:

#!/bin/sh

####################################

iTunes Command Line Control v1.0

written by David Schlosnagle

created 2001.11.08

####################################

showHelp () {
echo “-----------------------------”;
echo “iTunes Command Line Interface”;
echo “-----------------------------”;
echo “Usage: basename $0 ”;
echo;
echo “Options:”;
echo “-----------------------------”;
echo “iTunes Command Line Interface”;
echo “-----------------------------”;
echo “Usage: basename $0 ”;
echo;
echo “Options:”;
echo " status = Shows iTunes’ status, current artist and track.“;
echo " play = Start playing iTunes.”;
echo " pause = Pause iTunes.“;
echo " stop = Stop iTunes.”;
echo " next = Go to the next track.“;
echo " prev = Go to the previous track.”;
echo " mute = Mute iTunes’ volume.“;
echo " unmute = Unmute iTunes’ volume.”;
echo " vol up = Increase iTunes’ volume by 10%“;
echo " vol down = Increase iTunes’ volume by 10%”;
echo " vol # = Set iTunes’ volume to # [0-100]“;
echo " playlist “@” = Play iTunes’ playlist named @”;
echo " list = Display all playlist names";
echo " shuffle = Shuffle current playlist.“;
echo " shuffleoff = Stop shuffling current playlist.”;
echo " quit = Quit iTunes.";

}

if [ $# = 0 ]; then
showHelp;
fi

while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
arg=$1;
case $arg in

case $arg in
“status” ) state=osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to player state as string';
echo “iTunes is currently $state.”;
if [ $state = “playing” ]; then
artist=osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to artist of current track as string';
track=osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to name of current track as string';
echo “Current track $artist: $track”;
fi
break ;;

    "play"    ) echo "Playing iTunes.";
        osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to play';
        break ;;

    "pause"    ) echo "Pausing iTunes.";
        osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to pause';
        break ;;

    "next"    ) echo "Going to next track." ;
        osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to next track';
        break ;;

    "prev"    ) echo "Going to previous track.";
        osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to previous track';
        break ;;

    "mute"    ) echo "Muting iTunes volume level.";
        osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to set mute to true';
        break ;;

    "unmute" ) echo "Unmuting iTunes volume level.";
        osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to set mute to false';
        break ;;

    "vol"    ) echo "Changing iTunes volume level.";
        vol=`osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to sound volume as integer'`;
        if [ $2 = "up" ]; then
            newvol=$(( vol+10 ));
        fi

        if [ $2 = "down" ]; then
            newvol=$(( vol-10 ));
        fi

        if [ $2 -gt 0 ]; then
            newvol=$2;
        fi
        osascript -e "tell application \"iTunes\" to set sound volume to $newvol";
        break ;;

      "shuffle" ) echo "Shuffle is ON.";
        osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to set shuffle of current playlist to 1';
        break ;;

     "shuffleoff" ) echo "Shuffle is OFF.";
        osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to set shuffle of current playlist to 0';
        break ;;

      "list" ) osascript -e "tell application \"iTunes\" to return name of playlists";
       break ;;

    "playlist" ) echo "Changing iTunes playlist."; osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes"' -e "set the new_playlist to \"$2\" as string" -e "play playlist new_playlist" -e "end tell"; break ;; 

    "stop"    ) echo "Stopping iTunes.";
        osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to stop';
        break ;;

    "quit"    ) echo "Quitting iTunes.";
        osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to quit';
        exit 1 ;;

    "help" | * ) echo "help:";
        showHelp;
        break ;;

esac
done

[Dominik]

hi partick,

I’d suggest using awk - something like this:

          "list" ) osascript -e "tell application \"iTunes\" to return name of playlists" | perl -pe 's/, /\n/g' | awk -F'\n' '
          	BEGIN {nl=1}
          	{if (nl == 3)
          		{printf "%-50s\n",substr($1,1,48);
          		nl=1}
          	 else
          		{printf "%-50s",substr($1,1,48);
          		nl++}
          	 next}';
		   
           break ;;

Hope that helps

D.

[patrick99e99]

thank you so much!