How do I enable the XF86Audio* keys on Linux/Sway?

[j8s0n]

I want to use the media key commands for play/pause, next, and previous. With other media players, I bound the key in my Sway config file to run a script that would make an rpc call to the player. I unbound those, hoping that YTM would read the media keys, but it does not. I also tried setting up a global shortcut, but that didn't work either. I tried with overrideMediaKeys true and false. Neither worked.

"shortcuts": { "enabled": true, "overrideMediaKeys": false, "global": [ { "shortcut": "Ctrl+Super+Shift+G", "action": "playPause" } ] }

Or does YTM support an external rpc call to run commands?

[j8s0n]

I found some remote control programs for YTM and was able to determine the remote API from their source code, so I wrote my own CLI tool to control YTM and bound my keys to call that. Here's the tool for anyone who wants to use it or modify it:
https://github.com/j8s0n/ytm-cli/tree/main

[h-banii]

I personally prefer using MPRIS to control those things (playerctl).

bindsym XF86AudioPlay exec playerctl play-pause
bindsym XF86AudioPause exec playerctl play-pause
bindsym XF86AudioPrev exec playerctl previous
bindsym XF86AudioNext exec playerctl next

When using the Shortcuts (& MRPIS) plugin you can also specify the player --player=YoutubeMusic (not necessary though)

---

If you prefer doing requests to the API, you could also just do it directly with curl:

set $YOUTUBE_MUSIC_API "http://localhost:26538"
bindsym XF86AudioMute exec curl -X POST $YOUTUBE_MUSIC_API/api/v1/toggle-mute

or use a shell script

#!/usr/bin/env sh

API_URL=http://localhost:26538

request() {
  local method=$1
  local path=$2
  local data=()
  [ ! -z "$3" ] && data=('-H' 'Content-Type: application/json' '-d' "$3")
  curl -X $method "${API_URL}${path}" "${data[@]}" 2>/dev/null
}

volume() {
  local increment=$1
  local volume=`request GET /api/v1/volume | jq '.state'`
  request POST /api/v1/volume '{"volume": '$((volume + increment))'}'
}

toggle_play() { request POST /api/v1/toggle-play; }
prev()        { request POST /api/v1/previous; }
next()        { request POST /api/v1/next; }

$@

set $youtube-music "$HOME/.config/sway/scripts/youtube-music.sh"
bindsym XF86AudioMute exec $youtube-music request POST /api/v1/toggle-mute
bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec $youtube-music volume +5
bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec $youtube-music volume -5

All the API endpoints are described in /swagger ( http://localhost:26538/swagger )