HowTo

Overview

Like any other XMMS2 client octopus communicates with the XMMS2-daemon (xmmsd). The name Octopus reflects its possibility to change color and shape easily. Whereas octopus is written in C/Vala, the user interfaces like "classic" or "simple" are written in JavaScript. Additionally to the potential of rapid development due to JavaScript, user interfaces can be stylable via CSS.

Medialib

The Medialib stores metadata of your audio files.

process overview

Audio files contain an id3-tag with information about artist, album, title, album art, ...
Use a tag editor like EasyTAG to edit metadata and add an album art (png, jpg) to mp3 files.

When importing audio files into XMMS2 metadata is stored in the media library (intern sql database).

$ xmms2 server import <path>

The command rehash tells the XMMS2 server to re-read metadata from already imported audio files.

$ xmms2 server rehash

Note: Due to the asynchronous nature of XMMS2 client-server communication it might be unclear if a process like rehash is finished. Check CPU usage of xmmsd (the XMMS2-daemon) using a process manager.

Learn more about the medialib and how to use XMMS2 command-line client.
Restart Octopus might be required to see changes.

Note: Some XMMS2 clients let you edit metadata in the medialib directly. I recomend edit id3-tags and rehash for consistency and flexibility. Imagine removing all audio files from medialib and import them again (e.g. location of audio files changed).

prepare id3-tags

Artist, album, title and track# tags are essential for a satisfying user experience using Octopus.
Sampler, Soundtracks
Unless you set the "Performer"/"Album Artist" - tag Sampler and Soundtracks will show up multiple times in your album list (per artist). Set "Album Artist" to "Various Artists" fixes the problem.
Multi CD's
For multi CD's we got 2 options.

• distinct album tag, like "Greatest Hits, vol.1" and "Greatest Hits, vol.2"
• "Part of a set"/CD - tag

set album art

The easiest and fastest way to get album art into your medialib at the moment is to embed it into id3 tags, they will be automatically processed when importing audio files.

Sadly this does not seem to work for non mp3 files like ogg or flac.

Octopus

command line options

$ octopus --help
Usage:
  octopus [OPTION...] - Octopus Autio Player

Help Options:
  -h, --help                    Show help options

Application Options:
  -i, --user-interface=<ui>     Use 'ui' as user interface
  -s, --css-file=<ss>           Use 'ss' as style sheet
  -q, --query=<q>               Albumlist load-query
  -v, --verbose                 Print debug messages to stdout

The available alternative user interface / css file combinations are:

$ octopus -i classic -s classic.css -s classic-gtk.css
$ octopus -i simple -s simple.css
$ octopus -i simple -s white.css
$ octopus -i evolution -s evolution.css

The optional "query" parameter enables you to limit the albumlist to be loaded. Read Collections usage with cli if the XMMS2 collection concept is new to you.
Here are some easy examples:

$ octopus -q "artist:A*"
$ octopus -q "in:Playlists/Default"
$ octopus -q "genre:Rock"
$ octopus -q "artist:AC/DC OR artist:Metallica"
$ octopus -q "artist:'Arctic Monkeys'"