GNU ELPA

Listen.el is published in GNU ELPA as listen, so it may be installed in Emacs with the command M-x package-install RET listen RET. This is the recommended way to install Listen.el, as it will install the current stable release.

The latest development build may be installed from ELPA-devel or from Git (see below).

Git

The master branch of the Git repository is intended to be usable at all times; only minor bugs are expected to be found in it before a new stable release is made.

To install from Git, it is recommended to use quelpa-use-package, like this (using this helpful command for upgrading versions):

;; Install and load `quelpa-use-package'.
(package-install 'quelpa-use-package)
(require 'quelpa-use-package)

;; Install Listen.
(use-package listen
  :quelpa (listen :fetcher github :repo "alphapapa/listen.el"))

One might also use systems like Elpaca or Straight (which is also used by DOOM), but the author cannot offer support for them.

Queues

While listen can simply play one track and stop, playing multiple tracks sequentially is provided by queues (what other players may call playlists). A queue is a list of tracks, each of which is backed by a file on disk, and which may have associated metadata (provided by reading the file in Emacs with the listen-info library, or from an external source, like an MPD server).

Queues are automatically persisted to disk in the variable listen-queues.

A new, empty queue may be made with the command listen-queue-new, but it’s usually more convenient to use a command that adds tracks to a queue and enter a new queue name.

A queue’s tracks may be de-duplicated using the command listen-queue-deduplicate. Tracks that appear to have the same metadata (artist, album, and title, compared case-insensitively) are de-duplicated. Also, any tracks no longer backed by a file are removed.

• Adding tracks to a queue
• Queue buffer
• Queue list buffer

Library

To help with exploring and managing a music library, listen provides various "library" features. Tracks can be passed between library and queue buffers and operated on with similar commands and bindings.

listen does not maintain its own database of audio files; they are simply read from the filesystem as needed. But if a local MPD server is available, tracks can be loaded from its database (which does a fine job of indexing audio files and their metadata); this is generally much faster, because it avoids having to read tracks’ metadata with Emacs Lisp or their durations with ffprobe.

listen does not provide features to modify tracks’ metadata, but it provides commands to run shell commands on tracks’ filenames, which works well with external tools like Picard.

• Library buffer

Players

listen supports audio playback via MPV or VLC backends. Internally, any number of simultaneous player instances could be controlled, but listen’s UI provides the means to control one at a time.

Controlling the player is mainly done through the main (transient)Transient menu, through the command listen. However, all of the commands provided in it are also available as interactive commands, which could be bound by the user in any keymap (see, e.g. M-x apropos-command RET ^listen- RET).

The player is run in a child process, which is started when playback begins. The listen-quit command terminates the player process.

• Volume
• Seeking
• Repeat modes

Mode

The listen-mode minor mode runs a timer which plays the next track in the current queue when a track finishes playing (when playing a queue). It is automatically activated when playing a queue. It also shows the current track in the global-mode-string, which may be displayed in the mode line or tab bar.

Tips

• When using VLC as a backend, MPRIS-based player info and controls "just work", so you can use things like media hotkeys and various widgets to control listen’s playback. When using MPV as a backend, see the mpv-mpris package.
• Similarly, you might even see an icon in your task switcher indicating that Emacs is playing sound (e.g. with KDE Plasma).

v0.10-pre

Additions

• MPV support.
• Command listen-queue-add-tracks, when used in a Dired buffer, uses the marked files or the one at point.
• Option listen-backend, which sets the backend to use: MPV or VLC. (The default is to auto-detect which is available at load time, with MPV being preferred due to more robust IPC support.)
• Faces for parts of mode line lighter.

Fixes

• Updating vtables for Emacs versions before 30.

v0.9

Released without additional changes due to change in ELPA recipe.

Fixes

• Currently playing column in queue list buffer.
• Autoload of listen / listen-menu commands (See Transient issue. Thanks to Jonas Bernoulli.).

v0.8.1

Fixes

• Autoload of listen / listen-menu commands.

v0.8

Additions

• The listen-queue-list buffer can be bookmarked.
• Queue buffers showing the currently playing queue indicate so in the mode line.
• Support for mood metadata tag in MP3 files (added in ID3v2.4; other filetypes need no specific support).

Changes

• Truncate track titles for display using option listen-lighter-title-max-length (because the format-spec specifier used in listen-lighter-format does not add an ellipsis where truncation occurs).

Fixes

• Command listen-queue-add-from-mpd.
• Indication of currently playing queue in queue list.
• Set metadata slot when reverting track from disk.
• Don’t highlight current track in non-playing queues.
• Increase minimum ffprobe timeout for a single track.

v0.7

Additions

• Info manual.
• Option listen-lighter-format now allows customizing the mode line lighter.

Changes

• Command listen-queue switches to existing queue buffers without reverting them.
• Transient qq command exits the transient.
• Optimize updating of individual tracks in queue buffer.
• Improve handling of maximum volume with VLC (allowing boosting over 100%).
• Library buffer name defaults to given path.
• Minor improvements to Transient menu.

Fixes

• When reverting a queue’s tracks from disk, re-detect the currently playing track by filename.
• Queue bookmark handler.
• Open library buffer with point at beginning.
• In queue buffer, sort track numbers numerically.

v0.6

Additions

• In library buffer, show disc number when available.

Changes

• Reverting library buffers shows tracks from the queue or MPD query originally selected.
• Command listen-queue-add-files no longer plays the queue automatically.
• Command listen-library-play-or-add renamed to listen-library-play, and it now plays the selected queue when playing multiple tracks.
• Face listen-album slants italic.
• In library buffer, prefer album-artist over artist tag when available.
• Use half the number of CPUs to read track durations, by default.

Fixes

• Reading new queue name when no queue is playing.

v0.5.1

Fixes

• Viewing queues which aren’t currently playing.

v0.5

Additions

• Command listen-queue-list shows a list of queues.
• Command listen-jump (bound to j in queue and library buffers) jumps to the track at point in a Dired buffer.
• Command listen-track-view shows a track’s complete metadata in a table view.
• Mode listen-queue-delay-mode plays a queue with a configurable, random delay between tracks.
• Option listen-queue-repeat-mode (also settable in listen-menu) allows repeating a queue in-order or shuffled.
• Option listen-lighter-extra-functions allows displaying extra information in the listen-mode lighter.
• Option listen-track-end-functions allows running functions when a track finishes playing.
• Show total queue duration at bottom of track list.
• Show track ratings in library and queue buffers.

Changes

• All metadata in MP3 and Ogg files is available for display (not only standard tags).
• For date field in library and queue views, show originalyear or originaldate metadata fields in preference to date (which seems generally more useful, as the date field may contain a full date, and sometimes of a later release).

Fixes

• Increase timeout for reading track durations.
• Command listen-queue-deduplicate first removes any tracks not backed by a file.
• In queue buffer, mark current track by comparing filename (rather than internal track identity).

v0.4

Additions

• Command listen-queue-deduplicate removes duplicate tracks from a queue (by comparing artist, album, and title metadata case-insensitively).
• Read track durations with ffprobe and show in library and queue views.
• Bound key ? to open the listen Transient menu in library and queue views.

Fixes

• Transposing a track in a queue keeps point on the track.
• Autoloading of listen command.

v0.3

Additions

• Command listen-library-from-mpd shows tracks selected from MPD in a library view.
• Command listen-library-from-queue shows tracks selected from a queue buffer in a library view.
• Command listen-library-from-playlist-file shows tracks from an M3U playlist in a library view.
• Command listen-queue-add-from-playlist-file adds tracks from an M3U playlist file to a queue.

Changes

• Reading tracks from MPD allows multiple selection using completing-read-multiple.
• Various improvements in robustness.
• Command listen-queue doesn’t recreate its buffer when already open.
• Key bindings in listen Transient menu.
• Function listen-queue-complete accepts argument :allow-new-p to return a new queue if the entered name doesn’t match an existing one.

Fixes

• Completing read of tracks from MPD.
• Unset VLC process’s query-on-exit flag.

Credits

• Thanks to Philip Kaludercic for reviewing.

v0.2

Additions

• Command listen-queue-jump jumps to the currently playing track in the queue.
• Command listen-queue-shell-command runs a shell command on the tracks selected in the queue.
• Reverting a queue buffer with universal prefix argument refreshes the tracks’ metadata from disk.

Fixes

• The queue could sometimes skip tracks when playing.
• Improve handling of tracks that are changed during playback (e.g. metadata).
• Update copyright statements in all libraries.

v0.1

Initial release.

Copyright assignment

Listen.el is published in GNU ELPA and is considered part of GNU Emacs. Therefore, cumulative contributions of more than 15 lines of code require that the author assign copyright of such contributions to the FSF. Authors who are interested in doing so may contact assign@gnu.org to request the appropriate form.

Known issues

• Queue buffers that are not visible during playback are not updated automatically (i.e. to show the currently playing track). This is due to a limitation of the vtable library (see bug #69837).