gmusicbrowser - layout documentation

This is the documentation for Gmusicbrowser layout system. It tries to follow the latest git version closely, however, since the software is in active development, this is not guaranteed to work with the latest git version. Also, due to to ever-evolving syntax and features, not all of this will work with the latest unstable version (1.1.5 as of this writing). If you are interested in the legacy documentation for version 1.0.2, please see this page

(the syntax is evolving, but I try to support backward compatibility)
Updated on 08-07-2008 : added the forgotten Button widget, and the stock option that can be used by buttons widget
Updated on 06-07-2008 : added the forgotten markup option for labels widget, and the %-letters section
Updated on 06-05-2008 for gmusicbrowser v0.964

Gmusicbrowser's interface is defined by layouts.

Layouts are found in 2 places:

• the default layouts installed with gmusicbrowser are in /usr/share/gmusicbrowser/layouts when installed
• custom layouts can be added by placing them in ~/.config/gmusicbrowser/layouts (or ~/.gmusicbrowser/layouts if you have started using gmusicbrowser before v0.963), which can be either a file or a folder containing multiple .layout files (read in alphabetical order)

layout file format :

[layout id]
key1 = value
key2 = value
...

As of version 0.962, layouts file can contain group and column definition for the SongTree widget. See the SongTree documentation for details.

long lines can be be splitted in multiple lines by ending them with a backslash

Very simple example, with 3 buttons (settings, play/pause, and open browser window) and the current song title :

[very simple]
Type = G
HBox = Pref Play Playlist _Title

Type=G (G for generic) is used to make it appear in the player layouts list in the settings dialog. The _ before Title is used to make the Title use all the available space in the horizontal box (HBox) it is packed in.

Look in the layout file for more examples.

Keys define either containers or properties.
Keys are unique for a layout, duplicate key definitions replace the previous one.
There are currently 6 properties keys (Type, Name, Default, Title, KeyBindings, ExtraWidgets) which I'll describe later.
If the name of the key begins with one of: HB, VB, HP, VP, MB, EB, TB the key is the name of a container that will contain widgets (also called layout elements or controls) or other containers.
For containers the value is a list of widgets and containers, separated by a space, preceded by optional packing options, the widget names can be followed by a number(to have multiple widgets of the same name) and its options between parentheses.

There must be one, and only one, container which has no parent, this container will be put in the layout window.

Containers options can be specified in parenthesis before the child widgets list, example : HBname = (option1=value1,option2=value2) widget1 widget2, all containers accept the option border, that specify the amount of padding around the container.

HB/VB : Horizontal/Vertical Boxes (based on GtkBox)

optional packing options are : (they must be in this order)

• number : padding (in pixels)
• _ : expand (the widget will use all remaining space in the container)
• - : right aligned

example : HBname = 2_-widget1(opt1=val,opt2=val) -widget2 2container3

Cover and ArtistPic widgets are treated specially, they ignore the expand mode, and expand until they reach a square size. example : in a HBox which has a height of 30, a Cover widget will use available space to expand if it has a width less than 30.

HP/VP : Horizontal/Vertical Panes (based on GtkPaned)

Same as HB/VB but they contain only 2 widgets

And they only have one packing option : _ (expand)

TB : Notebook (based on GtkNotebook)

each widget is in a tab, no packing options but the syntax is a bit different, each widget is preceded by the tab title

the title can have spaces by using quotes

example : TBname = title1 widget1(options) “title with spaces” widget2(options) title3 container3

EB : Expander (based on GtkExpander)

contains only one widget/container which can be showed/hidden

option : label : text for the optional widget syntax : EBname = (label=“optional label”) widget1

or : EBname = widget1

FB : Fixed (based on GtkFixed)

Each widget is positionned at precise coordinates

syntax : FBname = x1,y1 widget1 x2,y2,w2,h2 widget2 …

The widget is positioned at the x,y coordinate.

An optional width and height can follow the coordinates, to specify how much space the widget should use. An height or width of 0 means leave it as default.

x,y,w,h can be relative to the width/height of the container by preceding the number with '.'

x,y can be relative to the right/bottom border by prefixing it with '-'.

MB : Menus

They can contain only MenuItem widgets or SM containers, no packing options

SM : Submenu

They can contain only MenuItem widgets or SM containers, no packing options, label is set with the label container option

FR : Frame (based on GtkFrame)

Draw a border around its child, with an optional label.

shadow none, in, out, etched-in (default), etched-out

label text of the label

SB : Scrolled window (based on GtkScrolledWindow)

Adds scrollbars to its child.

AB : Alignment (based on GtkAlignment)

Controls the alignment and size of its child

options:
xalign Horizontal position of child in available space, value between 0(left) and 1(right), default to .5 (center)
yalign Vertical position of child in available space, value between 0(top) and 1(bottom), default to .5 (center)
xscale If available horizontal space is bigger than needed for the child, how much of it to use for the child. 0.0 means none, 1.0 means all (default :1)
yscale If available vertical space is bigger than needed for the child, how much of it to use for the child. 0.0 means none, 1.0 means all (default :1)

There is also 2 special containers, widgets in these containers must belong to a normal container, and as the widget is defined elsewhere, widgets options can not be set here.

HSize/VSize : Size groups (see GtkSizeGroup)
Force all widgets to have the same Horizontal/Vertical size, if the list of widgets begin with a number, the first widget Horizontal/Vertical size will be set to this number (in pixels)

example : HSize0 = 20 widget1 widget2 or HSize1 = widget1 widget2

VolumeScroll:
A unique virtual container (must be the exact name), for all widgets inside, the scroll wheel will modify the volume (unless the scroll event is intercepted, like in a scrollable list)

Title:
Set a title for the window instead of the default : songtitle by artist ('%S by %a') (see %-letters)

Title = gmusicbrowser playing %S by %a from %l

Type:
A String of letters defining the type(s) of a layout, possible types : B(Browser window), T(Tray window), G(Generic or player window), F(Fullscreen), S(Search), P(Page for use in TabbedLists experimental)

Name:
Set the name of the layout displayed in the settings dialog. The default name is the layout id. Contrary to the layout id, the Name can be changed without losing the layout's saved settings (window size, …)

Default:
Default options used when the layout has no saved state, contains a space-separated list of keys and values, by pair,

widget_or_container_name widget_or_container_variable_options

There is a special key : Window, for the window properties : pos, size (format is numberxnumber for pos and size), sticky, ontop, below, fullscreen (0 or 1 for these)

example:

Default = Window size=1120x820,sticky=0 HPbig 780 FPane0 page=artist

KeyBindings:
Pairs of keys and action, example :

KeyBindings = Insert OpenSearch c-q EnqueueSelected c-Insert OpenCustom(a layout id)

key names are as shown in the key binding tab in the settings dialog action names can be found by running gmusicbrowser with command-line option -listcmd

DefaultFocus:
Name of a widget in the layout.
Set which widget gets the initial focus in the window, will probably only work with very simple widgets and with SongList, SongTree and SimpleSearch for now (let me now if you'd like more)

ExtraWidgets:
Allows the addition of extra widgets to the layout (by options or plugin), for each widget types (only button exist now, I expect to add tab or menuitem in the future) a container can be specified where widgets of this type will be added.

syntax:

ExraWidgets = button container(option1=value1,option2=value)

the option pack contains packing options as defined above for the container (for example '_' for expand in HBoxes). When the container is a HBox/VBox, the option pos=number can be used to specify at which position the widgets will be inserted. If the added widget s a button, the option relief can be used to specify the button's relief (none, half or normal)

A layout can be derived from a previously defined layout by adding “ based on ” followed the name of the reference layout :

[layout id] based on another layout id

In this case the layout starts with all the key definitions of the other layout

each key can be re-defined or deleted (if nothing follow the '=')

Most widget options are optional, '' means any other value ⇒ default behaviour

All widgets options are using this format :

''key1=val1,key2=val2,..., ''

some still accept the old format:

''val1,val2,... ''

for backward compatibility

The widgets are listed with this format :

WidgetName Widget Description

optionkey1 option description and/or possible values

optionkey2 …

Album Currently playing Album

Artist Currently playing Artist

Comment Comment of currently playing song

Cover Album cover of currently playing song
forceratio 1 or 0, if 1 always request a square size, useful for tray tip windows as they can't be resized
minsize minimum size
maxsize maximum size (default is 500)

ArtistPic Artist picture of currently playing song. Same options as Cover. With multiple artists, displays only one picture unless the option multiple was given, which can be set to v (vertical) or h (horizontal)

Date Year of currently playing song

LabelTime Position of currently playing song

Length Length of currently playing song

LockAlbum Album lock

LockArtist Artist lock

Pos Position of currently playing song in the playlist

Title Currently playing Title

Title_by Currently playing Title and Artist

Scale Playing position slider

Stars Currently playing Rating

LabelsIcons Icons for currently playing labels for which an icon is defined in ~/.config/gmusicbrowser/icons/ (by a .png or .svg named “label-” followed by the label name.)

Visuals Eye candy, only with gstreamer

The label widgets include : Album, Artist, Comment, Date, Length, LabelTime, Pos, Title, Title_by and Label

• 'font' : can e used to change the font, the value is passed to the function pango_font_description_from_string.

• 'minsize' : if set (it is set by default for Album, Artist, Comment, Title, Title_by), the label will request a minimum width (it can have more if packed with the expand option in a container), if the width is not enough to display the text, the text will scroll on mouseover. The value of the minsize option is the width it will request : the unit is in pixels if followed by a 'p' or in the width of the 'X' character if it is only a number

• 'markup' : can be used to re-define the text displayed, you can use %-letters (like %t, %a, …) for current-song dependent text, and pango markup (like <b>…</b>)for formatting.

• 'xalign' : horizontal alignement as a value between 0 (left) and 1 (right), .5 being center

• 'yalign' : vertical alignement as a value between 0 (up) and 1 (bottom), .5 being center

Next Next button

Play Play/Pause button

Prev Previous button

Stop Stop button

Quit Quit button

BContext Button to open context window

Playlist Button to open Browser window

Pref Button to open Settings window

ChooseAlbum Open a window to select an album

OpenQueue Open a queue window

Fullscreen Button to switch to/from fullscreen mode

ChooseRandAlbum Button to select an album at random, option “action” can be playlist, addplay, insertplay, queue or replacequeue

The BContext, Playlist and OpenQueue buttons accept the option 'toggle', if true (=1) the button will close the opened window if it is already opened

All buttons can be changed to an indicator(no button border, smaller) with the option button=0

Relief can be changed for buttons by using the option relief=none (default), half or normal.

Size of buttons and indicators can be set to menu, small-toolbar, large-toolbar, button, dialog, dnd (the actual size depends on gtk settings)

Filter Playing filter indicator

Queue Queue indicator

Sort Sort mode indicator

Vol Volume indicator

'VolSlider Volume slider

hide hide the value if true (=1)

horizontal vertical slider if true (=1)

All indicators can be changed to buttons with the option button=1.

Size can be changed same as buttons, see above.

A lot of widgets, in particular labels, indicators and buttons can use the option click1 (or click2 …) to (re)define the action executed when the widget is clicked with mouse button 1 (or 2 …). Example :

click2=OpenSongProp

buttons widget also accept the option activate to (re)define the action executed when the button is activated with a mouse click or keyboard

Also, a lot of widgets, in particular labels, indicators and buttons, can use the option tip, to define a tooltip for the widget. The tip can contains %-letters to display informations on the current song.

Another common option is cursor, to to change the mouse cursor when it hovers over it (eg : cursor=hand2). See this page for a list of cursor names.

A lot of widgets can also use the hover_layout=ALayoutName option, it causes a window using the ALayoutName layout to popup when the mouse hover on the widget (for more than 1000ms, or the value set by the hover_delay option, use 1000ms if set to 0). The popped-up window disappear when the mouse exit the window.

(This feature is still a bit experimental)

Simple example of the hover_layout option to popup a big cover when the mouse hover on a Cover widget, by defining the Cover widget with this option : Cover(hover_layout=CoverPopup)

where CoverPopup is the the layout :

[CoverPopup]

VBmain= Cover(minsize=800,maxsize=800,click1=CloseWindow)

To make the layout popup when the Cover widget is clicked rather than hovered, use this option : Cover(click1=PopupCustom(CoverPopup))

AASearch
aa artist or album
activate addplay or ''

Connections List the active connections when in gstreamer-server mode (very rough for now, will be improved some day)

Context Context view
followselection follow songlist selection rather than playing song if true (=1)

EditList (special)

Filler empty widget, for use with H/VSize

Button custom button (other buttons can use these options too)
label text
stock icon name, see /usr/share/gmusicbrowser/pix/ or Gtk2 Stock-Items or ~/.config/gmusicbrowser/icons/ (without filename extension)

Label custom label (other labels can use these options too)
text label text
markup text than can include %-letters and pango markup

QueueActions combobox to change the queued action

SongSearch

TogButton Show/Hide other widget(s)
icon icon name, see /usr/share/gmusicbrowser/pix/ or Gtk2 Stock-Items or ~/.config/gmusicbrowser/icons/ (without filename extension)
label button text
widget list of widgets/containers separated by '|'
resize String of 'h','v' or '_', one by hidden widget : shrink the window vertically (v) or horizontally (h) when each widget is hidden

HSeparator Horizontal separator

VSeparator Vertical separator

AddLabelEntry Entry to add labels to the current song

PlayOrderCombo Combo box to change play order, the option reqwidth set the requested width, it defaults to 100, -1 to let it grow, but it can grow much to wide, so it's best to set a minimum width and pack it with the expand option

Equalizer Equalizer, only active with gstreamer.

When there is more than one SongList/TabbedLists/QueueList in a layout, they must each but one be assigned a group number though the group option. The one without a group number will be the default with which other widgets interact with

All the other widgets which interact with a SongList/TabbedLists/QueueList accept the option 'group' to specify which one they interact with, it is only needed when the layout contain more than one SongList/TabbedLists/QueueList.

QueueList Display queue (and edit it), accept the same options as SongList

SongList
hideif 'nofilter', 'empty', or ''. Conditions that will make the songlist hide itself or the widgets specified by hidewidget

hidewidget List of widgets separated with '|'. When the hide conditions are met, these widgets will be hidden, by default the songlist is hidden

shrinkonhide String of 'h','v' or '_', one by hidden widget : shrink vertically (v) or horizontally (h) the window when hidden. When multiple widgets are hidden, a direction or no direction (_) can be specified for each widget by using a string of h/v/_

mode playlist or '' : in playlist mode, the songlist and the playlist are synchronized

activate play, queue, playlist, addplay or insertplay. Action when double-clicking on a song : play now, enqueue, set this list as the playlist and play this song, add to playlist, insert in playlist after current position. The action can be followed by a command like this :

activate=play&CloseWindow

activateX where X is a mouse button number, defines the action used when the button X is double-clicked

headers off or ''

songypad change the default number of pixels between rows

no_typeahead if true(=1) disable automatic searching when a letter/digit is pressed and the SongList has focus

TabbedLists Songlists in tabs, can contain playlist, static lists and the queue. Experimental feature : layouts of type 'P' can be opened in TabbedLists (use the layout property key 'stockicon' to set the tab icon)

SongTree Very customizable Songlist replacement. Some things are still not implemented : drag and dropping columns, playlist, queue or static list mode, moving songs using the EditListButtons widget (arrows button) and type-ahead search. See this wiki page for some documentation. These options works : activate activateX headers songxpad songypad

(filter# is a number between 0-9, 0 is meant for FLock, when a filter is set all filters with a higher number are reset)

All these widgets accept the option 'group' to specify which SongList/TabbedLists/QueueList they interact with, it is only needed when the layout contain more than one SongList/TabbedLists/QueueList.

AABox Artist or Album box (name, picture and stats of selected album/artist)
aa artist or album

EditListButtons buttons to remove/move the selected song(s) in the songlist and clear the list
small : if true(=1) hide the label of the remove and clear buttons

FBox advanced search box (set filter#1)

FLock Lock/unlock : current songlist filter is put in filter#0

FPane Filter pane
nb filter#, filter number to set, the artist/album/genre/date/label/folder pages only show the artist/… for songs matching all filters with a lower number
hide hide bottom buttons if true(=1)
pages list of pages separated by '|', among filter, list, savedtree, artist, album, genre, date, label, folder, filesys, lastplay, added, modif, rating. Default pages are savedtree artist album genre date label folder added lastplay rating
activate play or queue or addplay
searchbox if true(=1) add a search box to artist/album,genre,label pages
no_typeahead if true(=1) disable automatic searching when a letter/digit is pressed and the FPane has focus

PlayFilter Button to Play current songlist filter

QueueFilter Button to Enqueue current songlist filter

Refresh Refilter songlist

ResetFilter Reset songlist filter

SimpleSearch simple search entry, search title/album/artist (set filter#1), the selector icon can be disabled with the option noselector=1. The option activate can be used to set a command to run after enter is pressed.

Total Total number/length/size of selected/filter/library
size change text size, value can be xx-small, x-small, small, medium, large, x-large, xx-large, or see this page
format short or long (default)

HistItem Filter history (set filter#1)

LSortItem Sort order for songlist

MainMenuItem main menu

MenuItem Custom menu item
label text
icon name of the icon (same as above)
command gmusicbrowser command to execute
togglewidget list of widgets/containers separated by '|'
resize only with the togglewidget option, see the resize option of the TogButton

PFilterItem playing filter menu

PSortItem playing sort order

PlayItem choose a Filter based on playing title/artist/album/filter (set filter#1) and follow playing songlist option

QueueItem queue menu

SeparatorMenuItem separator

Some options accept %-letters variables that are replaced by a field/property of the currently playing song.

For example in “%t by %a”, %t is replaced by the song title and %a by the artist name.

Note that %c and %f are not meant to be used for displaying

t title

a artist

l album

d disc

n track

y year

C comment

p play count

P last play

k skip count

K last skip

g genres

L labels

m length

S title or filename if no title

f filename (with path) (raw filename, may not display correctly)

u filename (with path) (in utf8, used for display, might not be convertible back to the real filename)

c cover file

Y album year(s)

A album artist or main artist or various (determined automatically from all the songs of the album, doesn't use an album_artist tag)

• Symptom: Font of some widgets (e.g. Title) gets scrambled when song changes
• Affects: gmusicbrowser ⇐ 1.0.1 to >= 1.0.2 (fixed in git branch v1.0.x) and <v1.1.4. (only with gtk >= 2.18)
• Reason: Apparently this happens when the Title, Artist, Album widgets are packed into vertical size groups (e.g. VSize1 = 40 HBTitle HBArtist HBAlbum) in the layout file.
• Workaround: Do not pack those widgets in a vertical size group. Instead you could use a padding (20HBTitle 20HBArtist 20HBAlbum)