Spotify status and controls module for Polybar with text scrolling

polybar-spotify

This polybar module shows details regarding the currently playing song on Spotify. The unique feature of this module is that the text displayed is constantly scrolled to save space on the bar. This is something that is not found in other spotify modules I came across. Also, this module uses playerctl to do all the work and hence, no >100 line scripts which do all the work themselves. Only one line to fetch the required metadata in the format that you like and another line to scroll the fetched text using zscroll.

Dependencies

• playerctl - To interface with Spotify
• zscroll - To scroll the fetched text

Polybar config

[module/spotify]
type = custom/script
tail = true
format-prefix = "  "
format = <label>
exec = ~/.config/polybar/scripts/scroll_spotify_status.sh

The controls can be easily configured using the following modules. Again, make sure you have playerctl installed.

[module/spotify-prev]
type = custom/script
exec = echo "玲"
format = <label>
click-left = playerctl previous spotify

[module/spotify-play-pause]
type = custom/ipc
hook-0 = echo ""
hook-1 = echo "契"
initial = 1
click-left = playerctl play-pause spotify

[module/spotify-next]
type = custom/script
exec = echo "怜"
format = <label>
click-left = playerctl next spotify

NOTE: The above given play-pause module requires IPC support enabled for its parent bar. That can be done by adding enable-ipc = true in your bar config. Also make sure to replace polybar bottom in get_spotify_status.sh with the name of the parent bar to get the correct pid.

Customization

• Since I'm using playerctl, this script will work with any of the players supported by it. For instance, VLC, Chromium, Audacious, etc. It can even be used with multiple players running simultaneously. More info here.
• The format of the fetched metadata can be changed in get_spotify_status.sh. This line needs to be changed

  playerctl metadata spotify --format "{{ title }} - {{ artist }}"

  More details on what attributes can be fetched can be found here.
• The scrolling text can be configured in scroll_spotify_status.sh.
  • The length can be configured using -l and delay using -d.
  • The separators between the infinitely scrolling text can be configured using --before-text and --after-text parameters.
    More info about zscroll's parameters can be found in man zscroll.