Sonata

Documentation

Overview
     Main parts of the interface
FAQ
Shortcuts

Overview

Sonata is designed to be an elegant and intuitive interface for your music collection via the Music Player Daemon (MPD). Most actions are accessed through right-click popup menus. The main window can be collapsed into a mini view or expanded by clicking on the current song (with the > sign next to it).

In the expanded view, the tabbed interface includes your current playlist, info about the current song, your library (browse by folders, genres, artists, or albums), your saved playlists, and any streams (pls/m3u supported). You can reorder the tabs by drag-and-dropping, and hide any of them via a popup menu.

Main parts of the interface

For the quickest access, see the keyboard shortcuts.

Album art

Via a popup menu here, you can choose a remote or local image file, or go to a fullscreen album art view.

Playback controls

Sonata relays your playback commands to MPD. You can seek within the current track by clicking on the progress bar. The target of the volume control is set in the MPD configuration file.

Preferences

You can go through the settings here to customize Sonata to your liking. You can also add connection profiles for remote MPD servers, as well as activate audioscrobbling (Last.fm) support, track cross-fading in MPD, and a now-playing status file.

Current tab

MPD plays the songs from this current playlist. You can add tracks from the library, playlists, or streams. You can save the tracks into a playlist as well. Pressing / (or simply starting to type) brings up a text filter for the tracks.

Info tab

Info about the currently playing track contains song tags, album info, and lyrics.

Library tab

This is the library of your music files that MPD knows about. The top folder is set in the MPD configuration file, and you can use the Update command in the popup menu to make MPD check for changes. If the files are local, you can open the tag editor here.
      By clicking the icon on the bottom-left, you can choose to browse the library starting from the top folder, or from a list of genres, artists, or albums. By choosing the type of search on the bottom-center and typing into the text field on the bottom-right, you can search for tracks.

Playlists tab

MPD has a folder of playlists. You can rename and delete existing playlists here.

Streams tab

Sonata keeps a list of Internet streams for you. You can manage the entries here. The name you can choose freely, the stream URL should either point directly to a stream that MPD can play or to an m3u/pls document that lists such streams.

Tray status icon

The status icon on the system tray (if your desktop environment provides one in its panels) lets you show and hide the main window of Sonata with a mouse click. The scroll wheel controls volume here. The popup menu includes playback controls as well as the command for quitting Sonata.

Tag editor

You can select single or multiple files in the Current and Library tabs and edit their metadata tags within Sonata, if they are local files.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions and answers about Sonata are kept at the MPD wiki page Client:Sonata/FAQ.

Shortcuts

Note: This list can also be found by going to About > Shortcuts.

     Main Shortcuts:
     F1: About Sonata
     F5: Preferences
     F11: Fullscreen Artwork Mode
     Alt-[1-5]: Switch to [1st-5th] tab
     Alt-C: Connect to MPD
     Alt-D: Disconnect from MPD
     Alt-R: Randomize current playlist
     Alt-Down: Expand player
     Alt-Left: Switch to previous tab
     Alt-Right: Switch to next tab
     Alt-Up: Collapse player
     Ctrl-H: Search library
     Ctrl-Q: Quit
     Ctrl-Shift-U: Update entire library
     Menu: Display popup menu
     Escape: Minimize to system tray (if enabled)

     Playback Shortcuts:
     Ctrl-Left: Previous track
     Ctrl-Right: Next track
     Ctrl-P: Play/Pause
     Ctrl-S: Stop
     Ctrl-Minus: Lower the volume
     Ctrl-Plus: Raise the volume

     Current Shortcuts:
     Alt-R: Randomize list
     Enter/Space: Play selected song
     Delete: Remove selected song(s)
     Ctrl-I: Center currently playing song
     Ctrl-T: Edit selected song's tags
     Ctrl-Shift-S: Save playlist
     Ctrl-Delete: Clear list

     Library Shortcuts:
     Enter/Space: Add selected song(s) or enter directory
     Backspace: Go to parent directory
     Ctrl-D: Add selected song(s) or directory(s)
     Ctrl-R: Replace with selected song(s) or directory(s)
     Ctrl-T: Edit selected song's tags
     Ctrl-Shift-D: Add selected item(s) and play
     Ctrl-Shift-R: Replace with selected item(s) and play
     Ctrl-U: Update selected item(s)/path(s)

     Playlist Shortcuts:
     Enter/Space: Add selected playlist(s)
     Delete: Remove selected playlist(s)
     Ctrl-D: Add selected playlist(s)
     Ctrl-R: Replace with selected playlist(s)
     Ctrl-Shift-D: Add selected playlist(s) and play
     Ctrl-Shift-R: Replace with selected playlist(s) and play

     Stream Shortcuts:
     Enter/Space: Add selected stream(s)
     Delete: Remove selected stream(s)
     Ctrl-D: Add selected stream(s)
     Ctrl-R: Replace with selected stream(s)
     Ctrl-Shift-D: Add selected stream(s) and play
     Ctrl-Shift-R: Replace with selected stream(s) and play

     Info Shortcuts:
     Ctrl-T: Edit playing song's tags