Volumectl

A small script that bundles volume control and dunst notification. Intended to be used either on command line or for keyboard shortcuts.

Here below is a demonstration of how it works when pressing the volume and mute keys. The behaviour of the notification is the same if the script was executed from the terminal.

Installation

Dependencies

Dunst

Before installing and using this script, you will need to install the official dunst package. Make sure you have the dunstify command available, that's what is needed to have a nice looking percentage bar.

Bash Ini Reader

In order to use a custom config file (which is optional, the script works without it but it's useful if you want to customise it), you need to install the read_ini.sh script from the bash_ini_parser github repo.

You can do it in two different ways downloading the script directly or cloning the git repo (the script won't care which one you choose, it knows how to handle both situations).

Option 1: Cloning the git repo

git clone https://github.com/rudimeier/bash_ini_parser $HOME/.local/lib/bash_ini_parser

Option 2: Downloading the script directly

Make sure you have wget installed first.

Downloading the script directly doesn't change much to do it this way since the repo hasn't been updated in a while.

mkdir -p $HOME/.local/lib
wget -O $HOME/.local/lib/read_ini.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rudimeier/bash_ini_parser/master/read_ini.sh
chmod +x $HOME/.local/lib/read_ini.sh

Installing volumectl

To install this script, you can do it in a similar way as with the ini parser, you can either clone the repo or download the script directly (this option is not recommended because you might miss new features or bug fixes).

Option 1 (recommended): Cloning the repo

To make install the script, just clone this repo and then create a symlink to volumectl in whatever directory you want (as long as it is in your $PATH variable, so that the script will be executable from anywhere in the terminal, see this link for more info about the $PATH variable). In the commands below I'm using the $HOME/.local/bin, which by default is not in the $PATH variable, so make sure you set it.

git clone https://github.com/karma-riuk/volumectl $HOME/.local/lib/volumectl
mkdir -p $HOME/.local/bin # just to make sure that the ~/.local/bin directory exists
ln -s $HOME/.local/lib/volumectl $HOME/.local/bin/volumectl

Option 2 (not recommended): Downloading the script directly

mkdir -p $HOME/.local/bin
wget -O $HOME/.local/bin/volumectl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/karma-riuk/volumectl/master/volumectl
chmod +x $HOME/.local/bin/volumectl

Usage

Command line

To use the script, simply execute the volumectl with the flag you want, example:

volumectl -i

Possible flags

(You can find all the information below by doing volumectl -h)

Short flag	Equivalent long flag	Description
-i	--increase	increases the volume by the "normal" amount (by default: 5%)
-i <arg>	--increase <arg>	increase the volume by the <arg> amount
-I	--big-increase	increases the volume by the "big" amount (by default: 10%)
-d	--decrease	decreases the volume by the "normal" amount (by default: 5%)
-d <arg>	--decrease <arg>	decrease the volume by the <arg> amount
-D	--big-decrease	decreases the volume by the "big" amount (by default: 10%)
-s <arg>	--set <arg>	sets the volume to <arg>
-m	--mute	activates mute
-u	--unmute	deactivates mute
-t	--toggle	toggles mute
-g	--get-volume	prints the current volume level
-G	--get-mute	prints the current mute state

Optional flags

Short flag	Equivalent long flag	Description
-c <file>	--config <file>	use <file> as the config file instead of the default location (see below)
-v	--verbose	print each step the script passes through
-h	--help	print the help message and exit

Key Bindings

Awesomewm

Here is an example of how keybindings would look like in awesomewm (tested)

---- Volume Management
awful.key({ }, "XF86AudioMute",
          function ()
              awful.spawn("volumectl -t")
          end,
          {description = "Toggle mute", group = "Media management"}),

awful.key({ "Shift" }, "XF86AudioMute",
          function ()
              awful.spawn("volumectl -m")
          end,
          {description = "Set mute", group = "Media management"}),

awful.key({ }, "XF86AudioRaiseVolume",
          function ()
              awful.spawn("volumectl -i")
          end,
          {description = "Increase volume", group = "Media management"}),

awful.key({ "Shift" }, "XF86AudioRaiseVolume",
          function ()
              awful.spawn("volumectl -I")
          end,
          {description = "Increase volume a lot", group = "Media management"}),

awful.key({ }, "XF86AudioLowerVolume",
          function ()
              awful.spawn("volumectl -d")
          end,
          {description = "Decrease volume", group = "Media management"}),

awful.key({ "Shift" }, "XF86AudioLowerVolume",
          function ()
              awful.spawn("volumectl -D")
          end,
          {description = "Decrease volume a lot", group = "Media management"}),

i3

Here is an example of how keybindings would look like in awesomewm (NOT TESTED, please tell me if it's wrong)

bindsym XF86AudioMute exec --no-startup-id volumectl -t
bindsym Shift+XF86AudioMute exec --no-startup-id volumectl -m

bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec --no-startup-id volumectl -i
bindsym Shift+XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec --no-startup-id volumectl -I

bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec --no-startup-id volumectl -d
bindsym Shift+XF86AudioLowerVolume exec --no-startup-id volumectl -D

Config

The config file is an optional feature, but it allows you to set a different volume controller than the default one (pamixer).

To enable the config file, first make you installed the read_ini.sh script (see above, in the dependencies) just create a config.ini file in the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/volumectl ($HOME/.config/volumectl/ if $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is not set) directory.

If you think the default values are fine but want to modify just one value, then you can just place that value in the config file, volumectl will just take that changed value and keep the rest as default.

You can see what all the available config variables are by looking at the example_config.ini.

The easiest way to go to setup a custom config is by running the following commands

mkdir -p ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/volumectl
cp $HOME/.local/lib/volumectl/example_config.ini ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-$HOME/.config}/volumectl/config.ini

and then editing the config with your prefered editor and tinker with it.

Quick tip: when tinkering with the config, be sure to use volumectl -v (it's important to put the -v right after the command, so that you see everything that's happening) so that you see what the values are for the variables and will be able to spot where your error is, if there is any.