Groove On Demand

Groove on Demand is a self-hosted application for creating and sharing music playlists. It streams music directly from your local media library using HTML5 audio and a Javascript player built on Howler.js and features a robust interactive command-line tool for managing the playlist database.

[ insert session capture here ]

Installation

Prerequisites and Disclaimers

Groove on Demand was developed against python 3.10 and should work on anything 3.7 or above. Minimal testing was done on this front.

I have no idea if it will function on platforms besides Linux. Code was written to be portable but not tested to be portable. I also don't know if the dependencies support diverse platforms or not. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

1. Download the latest release

[ check the releases tab ]

wget https://github.com/evilchili/grooveondemand/releases/download/beta/grooveondemand-0.9.tar.gz

2. Install

pip3 install grooveondemand-0.9.tar.gz

3. Generate the default configuration

~/.local/bin/groove setup > ~/.groove

4. Set the Media Root

Edit ~/.groove and define MEDIA_ROOT to point to the directory containing your local audio files. For example:

MEDIA_ROOT=/media/audio/lossless

Setting up the Databse

Before creating playlists, you must scan your media and build a database of tracks. Do this by running:

groove scan

This may take a long time depending on the size of your library and the capabilities of your system. Progress will be displayed as the scan progresses.

Start the Interactive Shell

Groove On Demand's interactive shell is optimized for quickly creating new playlists with as few keystrokes as possible. Start it by running:

groove shell

Use the help command to explore.

Serving Playlists

Start the web server application by running:

groove server

It is strongly recommended you place the app behind a web proxy.

Okay, But Why?

Because I wanted Mixtapes-as-a-Service but without the hassle of dealing with a third party, user authentication, and related shenanigans. Also I hadn't written code in a few years and was worried I was forgetting how to do it. I am not entirely reassured on that point.