MPRIS

Linux media keys and desktop integration via D-Bus.

On Linux, rockboxd registers itself on the session bus as org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.rockbox. This makes media keys, Now Playing applets, KDE/GNOME notifications and tools like playerctl Just Work.

Capabilities

The MPRIS interface is implemented in crates/mpris/ and exposes:

• Player interface — Play, Pause, PlayPause, Stop, Next, Previous, Seek, SetPosition, Metadata, PlaybackStatus, LoopStatus, Shuffle, Volume
• Root interface — Identity, DesktopEntry, SupportedUriSchemes, SupportedMimeTypes
• TrackList interface — partial (track-level queue introspection)

Quick test

playerctl --player rockbox play-pause
playerctl --player rockbox metadata
playerctl --player rockbox position 90

Wiring up media keys

GNOME and KDE pick up MPRIS players automatically — no setup needed. For sway / Hyprland / dwm:

# sway
bindsym XF86AudioPlay exec playerctl --player rockbox play-pause
bindsym XF86AudioNext exec playerctl --player rockbox next
bindsym XF86AudioPrev exec playerctl --player rockbox previous

Now Playing applet

GNOME Shell, KDE’s Media Player widget, polybar’s mpris-tail, waybar’s mpris module — all consume MPRIS metadata directly.

macOS

macOS has its own Now Playing system. Rockbox publishes to it through the MPNowPlayingInfoCenter API; you don’t need MPRIS on Mac. Media keys work out of the box.