Last weekend, I worked a little bit on a python script that connects via dbus to Amarok, and fetches information of the currently playing track. It also has the feature to copy the cover art to a fix location so you can use it in conky as a static image.

So for all of you guys out there using Conky and loving Amarok, here is the perfect combination of both.

For the source go to my github repository and look in tools for the python script. You can also read the entire post for the source code.

#!/usr/bin/env python
#-*- coding: utf-8 -*-
#
# anowplaying.py
#
#  Connects to dbus and retrieves
#  information about the currently
#  playing track in amarok.
#

import dbus, optparse, shutil

class Nowplaying():
    def __init__(self):
        ''' Connect to dbus and retrieve the amarok dictionary containg
            all the information about the currently playing track
        '''
        bus = dbus.SessionBus()
        amarok = bus.get_object('org.kde.amarok', '/Player')
        amarokdict = amarok.GetMetadata()

        self.artist = self.title = self.album = self.genre = self.year = \
        self.track = self.bitrate = self.sample = self.cover = ""

        if amarokdict :
            self.artist  = amarokdict['artist']
            self.title   = amarokdict['title']
            self.album   = amarokdict['album']
            self.genre   = amarokdict['genre']
            self.year    = amarokdict['year']
            self.track   = amarokdict['tracknumber']
            self.bitrate = amarokdict['audio-bitrate']
            self.sample  = amarokdict['audio-samplerate']
            self.cover   = amarokdict['arturl']

    def getArtist(self):
        return self.artist

    def getTitle(self):
        return self.title

    def getAlbum(self):
        return self.album

    def getGenre(self):
        return self.genre

    def getYear(self):
        return self.year

    def getTrack(self):
        return self.track

    def getBitrate(self):
        return self.bitrate

    def getSample(self):
        return self.sample

    def getCover(self, destination):
        ''' Copy amaroks cache cover art to a static location so it can be used in conky'''
        if self.cover != "" :
            try :
                shutil.copyfile(self.cover.replace('file://', ''), destination)
                return ""
            except Exception, e:
                print e
                return ""
        else :
            return ""

if __name__ == '__main__':
    '''Set up the command line parser'''
    usage = 'usage: %prog [options]'
    parser = optparse.OptionParser(usage=usage)
    parser.add_option('-a',  '--artist',  action='store_true', help='artist name')
    parser.add_option('-t',  '--title',   action='store_true', help='title of the track')
    parser.add_option('-l',  '--album',   action='store_true', help='album name')
    parser.add_option('-g',  '--genre',   action='store_true', help='genre of the current track')
    parser.add_option('-y',  '--year',    action='store_true', help='year of the track')
    parser.add_option('-n',  '--track',   action='store_true', help='track number')
    parser.add_option('-b',  '--bitrate', action='store_true', help='bitrate of the track')
    parser.add_option('-s',  '--sample',  action='store_true', help='sample rate of the track')
    parser.add_option('-c',  '--cover',   metavar='filename',  help='copy cover art to destination file')

    '''Get the parser options passed to the program'''
    (opts, args) = parser.parse_args()
    now = Nowplaying()

    if opts.artist :
        print now.getArtist()
    if opts.title :
        print now.getTitle()
    if opts.album :
        print now.getAlbum()
    if opts.genre :
        print now.getGenre()
    if opts.year :
        print now.getYear()
    if opts.track :
        print now.getTrack()
    if opts.bitrate :
        print now.getBitrate()
    if opts.sample :
        print now.getSample()
    if opts.cover :
        print now.getCover(opts.cover)

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