GSoC 2020: Implementing a MPD Module in VLC

Introduction

• This repository contains supplement files for the VLC MPD Server Proposal.
• Read more about MPD Protocol here: Music Player Daemon
• Basic schema of MPD Architecture to be implemented as module discussed in this repository.

How to Use MPD Module with VLC Media Player

• Step 1: Install VLC Media Player on your system, and along with this, the mpd module will also be installed.
• Step 2: Using a Command Line, initialise the MPD server within VLC Media Player with command ./vlc --mpd. This loads the MPD module along with running the core vlc_main() thread in the background, waiting for mpd clients requests to come and service them.
• Step 3: Using mpc-clients, send requests to the server to control playback and queue.
• Step 4: Stop the server to kill the thread.

Summary Of Proposed Tasks

• Creating a basic MPD server-client architecture
• Implementing the MPD Protocols
• Parsing Client Side Request
• Connecting it with VLC media library
• Implementing Different MPD features
• Configuring Files Option
• Command line Access to the server
• Documentation & Bug Fixes

Summary of Completed Work

• Created MPD Architecture based on Socket Programming Communication Model and implemented MPD protocol to service clients.
• Polling for sampling a set of clients
• Parsing Input Commands from different Music Player Daemon-Clients.(MPC)
• Implemented two ways of sending data.
• Implemented the following sets of Commands for controlling VLC through MPD Protocol (Complete Set of Commands Available Here):
  1. Playback Options: consume, repeat, random, single, volume, etc
  2. Controlling Playback: play, pause, next, previous, stop, seek, etc
  3. Queue Control: add (files, folders recursively), delete, move, swap, shuffle, playlist information, playlist information metadata, etc.
  4. Playlists: Saving, loading and modifying playlists from MPD.
  5. Music Database: Not very stable, but basic listing and search/search+add features work fine.
  6. Handling other misc commands: Ping, Idle, Close, etc.
• Documentation

Remaining Features & Known Issues:

• Currently only one filter can be applied through vlc_query_params for searching through music database. Multiple tag filters for searching needs to be added, in Advanced Find/Search commands.
• input_item_t Parameter can't extract current playback/database information when Music is being played.
• status and stats commands: can't extract information, input_item_t doesn't grab value as it should.
• Making the music database more verbose. Adding more tags to be queried by MPD clients.