add readme

1 files changed, 57 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..41eec45
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+mpd_trigger: Execute whatever you want when MPD (Music Player Daemon) changes its state
+=======================================================================================
+
+:Author: Ted Yin
+:Address: ted.sybil@gmail.com
+
+What Is This?
+-------------
+I'd like to let a notification pop up whenever MPD is playing or paused.
+However, disappointing enough, I failed to find any existing programs/scripts
+to achieve this little but convenient functionality. Although there is
+mpd-hiss_, it has quite a number of dependencies and is written in Python with
+several separated files. I think such a simply little desire should not be as
+complicated as this. Even though I love programming in Python, that project
+still need to polished to be flexible and easy to deploy (But it is a good
+project anyway). Being different from it, this project tends to lightweight and
+simple but as extensible as it can, but in the end, should be simple. After
+all, a simple task deserves a simple solution. Now the code is written in C in
+a single file and highly portable. It uses "patterns" to generate a command
+once MPD state is being changed and pipe it into a pre-selected shell. During
+the execution, it consumes few resources and imposes little overhead.
+
+How to Use?
+-----------
+First, compile it by invoking ``make``. The only executable file is
+``mpd_trigger``. You could run ``./mpd_trigger -h`` to read the help. A typical
+example is as follow (execute in bash):
+
+:: 
+
+    ./mpd_trigger 192.168.248.130 -p 6600 -e "echo 'Hey, {title} is {state}!'"
+
+Then play a song. Besides diagnostic outputs, you should find the output of
+executing that ``echo`` command.
+
+You may have noticed something like ``{title}`` which is actually a pattern
+representing the title of the song is to be filed in that place.
+``mpd_trigger`` currently support two kinds of patterns:
+
+- Information patterns: ``{title}``, ``{artist}``, ``{album}``, ``{track}``,
+  ``{state}``, ``{elapsed_time}``, ``total_time``, ``{elapsed_pct}``
+- Conditional pattern: ``{str_to_check?stringa:stringb}`` which checks whether
+  ``str_to_check`` is an empty string, if it is ``stringa`` is chosen,
+  otherwise ``stringb``, note that the surrounding braces are removed.
+
+
+For Mac OS X users, after installing a tool called ``terminal-notifier``, try
+the following command:
+
+::
+
+    ./mpd_trigger -e 'terminal-notifier -title "{title}: {state} ({elapsed_pct}%)" -subtitle "{artist}" -message "{album} @ {track?{track}:unknown track}" -sender com.apple.iTunes'
+
+Finally, it is worth mentioning that patterns can be nested, for example a part
+of the pattern in last example ``{track?{track}:unkown track}`` makes use of such technique.
+
+.. _mpd-hiss: https://github.com/ahihi/mpd-hiss