vibe-fi
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Usage & Shortcuts

Learn how to search for songs, play music, switch visualizer views, and control playback from your keyboard.

Starting Vibe-Fi

You can launch Vibe-Fi directly from your terminal, search for a song, or play a file:

terminal
# 1. Open the interactive player
vibe

# 2. Search and play a song from YouTube
vibe "miles davis blue in green"

# 3. Play a YouTube link directly
vibe "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qap5aO4i9A"

# 4. Play a local audio file
vibe ~/Music/favorite-song.mp3

# 5. Resume your last session (restores song, queue, volume)
vibe -r

# 6. Fast launch (skips update check)
vibe --no-update

Controls Inside the Player

Everything in Vibe-Fi can be controlled using simple single-key shortcuts:

  • S — Search YouTube: Type any song or artist name to start playing immediately.
  • U — Paste a Link: Play a YouTube URL from your clipboard.
  • Space — Play / Pause: Toggle audio playback.
  • N / B — Next / Previous: Skip to the next or previous track.
  • O — Autoplay: Automatically keep playing related songs when the current one ends.
  • C — Queue: See what songs are playing next.
  • L — Local Music: Browse and play songs stored in your computer's music folder.
⚡
Audio-Only Streaming: Vibe-Fi only downloads the audio stream. It never loads video frames, saving 80%+ of your bandwidth and CPU.

Visualizer & Layout Modes

Press V to switch between three display modes:

  • Split View (Default): Shows the live visualizer on the left and scrolling lyrics on the right.
  • Full Visualizer: Expands the real-time audio bars across your entire terminal window.
  • Full Lyrics: Expands the synchronized lyrics to fill the screen — great for singing along.

Color Themes

Press T inside the player to cycle through 6 built-in color themes:

  • Midnight (Default): Sleek dark grey with cyan and purple accents.
  • Nord: Clean arctic blue and frost tones.
  • Matrix: Classic terminal phosphor green.
  • HyDE: Vibrant cyberpunk neon pink and purple.
  • Gruvbox: Warm retro autumn tones with cream and amber.
  • Slate: Minimalist monochrome grey for distraction-free coding.

Synced Lyrics

Vibe-Fi automatically fetches synchronized lyrics:

  • Lyrics scroll automatically line-by-line as the song plays.
  • Press ↑ and ↓ arrow keys to browse earlier or upcoming lyrics manually.
  • Press Y to re-lock auto-scrolling back to the current song line.

Media Keys & Desktop Controls

On Linux, Vibe-Fi connects to standard desktop media controls. Your keyboard's Play, Pause, Next, and Previous keys work automatically.

bash
# Control playback from terminal or scripts
playerctl -p vibefi play-pause
playerctl -p vibefi next
playerctl -p vibefi previous
playerctl -p vibefi metadata --format "{{ artist }} - {{ title }}"

Status Bar (Waybar & Polybar)

Show the currently playing song in your desktop bar:

~/.config/waybar/config (jsonc)
// In ~/.config/waybar/config
"custom/vibefi": {
    "format": "  {}",
    "max-length": 40,
    "exec": "playerctl -p vibefi metadata --format '{{artist}} - {{title}}' 2> /dev/null",
    "interval": 2,
    "on-click": "playerctl -p vibefi play-pause"
}