kew(1)

📦
version 4.4.2 · 8 versions
, in arch rolling

🌸 kew(1) — the manual, but make it cute

okay so real talk: this is the manual page for kew (yes, from General Commands Manual, the iconic one), and it's about to be your new favorite thing. sit down, grab a lil snack 🍓, and let's get into it.

✨ NAME ✨

kew, kew — Music For The Shell. that's it. that's the whole name. she's a music player that lives in your terminal and she slays. 💅

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

kew [OPTIONS] [PARTIAL FILE OR DIRECTORY NAME]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the vibe: kew plays audio from your music folder when you give it a partial (or whole) file or directory name. that's the whole trick, no cap. 🎧

and like — if it finds more than one file? it literally just makes a playlist for you. main character energy. ✨

the technical flexes, because she's not just pretty:

  • gapless playback 🔥
  • 24-bit/192khz audio
  • MPRIS support (so your desktop knows what's playing, iykyk)

the typical use case, bestie:

kew artist, album or song name
⚠️ important detail, don't skip this one: kew returns results from the location of the first match — it does not return every result possible. so it's giving "first come first served," not "here's everything, you pick." 🙈

💖 OPTIONS 💖

okay here's the full menu, no skips, no cuts:

  • -h, --help — shows you the help. the classic. 🫶
  • -v, --version — spills the version info.
  • path <path> — sets the path to your music library. tell her where the bops live.
  • --nocover — hides the cover art. minimalism era.
  • --noui — completely hides the UI. fully gone. ghost mode 👻
  • -q, --quitonstop — exits after playing the whole playlist. she leaves when the playlist's done, dignity intact.
  • -e, --exact — specifies you want an exact match — but not case sensitive. so like, exact, but make it chill. ✨
  • shuffle — shuffles the playlist before starting to play it. chaos mode: enabled. 🔀
  • dir — plays the directory, not the song.
  • song — plays the song, not the directory. (yes, this is the opposite of dir, no I'm not kidding, they're a matched set 💀)
  • play <path> — plays a song or loads a directory one time without changing the default library. a lil visit, not a move-in.
  • theme <theme name> — sets a theme from ~/<configfolder>/kew/themes. aesthetic upgrade incoming 🎀
  • list — searches for a (.m3u) playlist. these are normally not included in searches, so you gotta ask specifically.

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

these are literally the cheat codes, copy them, screenshot them, tattoo them:

kew

starts kew in library view. the classic entrance.

kew all

starts kew with all the songs loaded into a playlist. all of them. every single one. 🔥

kew albums

starts kew with all albums randomly added one after the other in the playlist. lil surprise every time.

kew moonlight son

plays moonlight sonata. 🎹

kew moon

plays moonlight sonata. (see? partial names, bestie. she gets it.)

kew nirv

plays all music under the Nirvana folder, shuffled. 🎸

kew neverm

plays the Nevermind album in alphabetical order.

kew shuffle neverm

plays the Nevermind album shuffled. chaos version.

kew list mix

plays the mix.m3u playlist.

kew theme midnight

sets the 'midnight.theme' theme. midnight era activated 🌙

kew <words A>:<words B>:<words C>

plays the first match (whole directory or file) found under A, B, and C, shuffled. searches are separated by a colon ':' character. so like, colon = "and also look here." 🫶

kew .

plays the "kew favorites.m3u" playlist. the dot is the secret handshake.

👑 KEY BINDINGS 👑

the whole keyboard is basically a controller, let's go:

  • + (or =), - — adjusts volume. 🔊
  • Left-right arrows / h, l — change song.
  • Enter — open a selected folder; press again to enqueue or dequeue it.
  • Space — play, pause. the most-used key, fr fr.
  • Shift+s — stop.
  • F2 or Shift+z — show playlist view.
  • F3 or Shift+x — show library view.
  • F4 or Shift+c — show track view.
  • F5 or Shift+v — show search view.
  • F6 or Shift+n — show help view.
  • u — update the library.
  • i — cycle color mode. 🌈
  • t — cycle themes.
  • c — cycle visualization (requires that Chroma or pmstream is installed). 👀
  • r — cycle repeat (repeat, repeat list or off).
  • v — cycle spectrum visualizer mode and turn visualizer off.
  • b — toggle ASCII Cover. also disables visualizations.
  • m — toggle lyrics page.
  • n — toggle notifications.
  • z — toggle crossfade (experimental).
  • s — toggle shuffle.
  • a — seek backward.
  • d — seek forward.
  • m — show lyrics page. (yes, m is listed twice in the original and we're honoring that, she contains multitudes 💀)
  • shift+d — crossfade (quick).
  • shift+f — crossfade (medium).
  • shift+g — crossfade (slow).
  • x — save currently loaded playlist to a .m3u file in the music folder.
  • "." — add currently playing song to "kew favorites.m3u" playlist. play this list with "kew .".
  • Tab — switch to next view.
  • Shift+Tab — switch to previous view.
  • Backspace — clear the playlist. 😭
  • Delete — remove a single playlist entry.
  • f, g — move a song up or down the playlist.
  • Esc or q — quit kew. bye bestie 🫶

🧚 FILES 🧚

where she keeps her stuff:

  • ~/<configfolder>/kew/kewrc — config file.
  • ~/<statefolder>/kew/kewstaterc — dynamic preferences file, ~/.local/state/kew/kewstaterc on Linux.
  • ~/<configfolder>/kew/kewlibrary — music library directory tree cache.
  • /<musicfolder>/kew favorites.m3u — the kew playlist. add to it by pressing '.' during playback of any song. this playlist is saved before q exits.

Copyright © 2023 Ravachol. License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Artist names and homepage URLs sourced from Wikidata <https://www.wikidata.org/>. Wikidata is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Adapted data is also available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

Website: <https://www.kewplayer.com>

Development home pages:

<https://codeberg.org/ravachol/kew>

<https://github.com/ravachol/kew> (Mirror)

Donate here:

<https://ko-fi.com/ravachol>

<https://github.com/sponsors/ravachol>

and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 this masterpiece dropped 9/3/23 on Linux, and it's the kew(1) manual — go listen to something iconic. 💖✨🎀

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