Warblebeta

User guide Reference

Settings

Open Warble at login, change the text size, how long a paused song stays, what a hover shows, whether a notch drawn on another display shows the title, whether a new song shows its title, whether lyrics show, whether a swipe skips, whether the album art can be dragged out, set keyboard shortcuts, including one that opens the notch, and turn on the warble command and warble:// links for scripts.

Warble works without changing anything, but a few things can be set your way.

Open Settings

  1. Click the Warble icon in the menu bar, or right-click the notch. You can also Control-click it.
  2. Choose Settings….

The right-click menu also opens the app that’s playing, checks for updates and quits Warble. It works even with the menu bar icon hidden. To get the icon back, open Warble again from your Applications folder. The icon comes back, and Settings opens.

Every change takes effect straight away.

General

  • Open at login. Off at first. Turn it on, and Warble opens each time you log in, so it’s there after a restart. It’s the same switch as Warble’s entry in System Settings › General › Login Items. If you turn Warble off there, turn it back on there.
  • Show icon in the menu bar. Turn it off to keep the menu bar tidy. Right-click the notch for the same menu, or open Warble from Applications to get the icon back.
  • Text size. Makes the words in the notch larger: Standard, Large or Larger.
  • Displays. For each display without a notch, choose whether Warble draws one there. See External displays.
  • Stay visible after pausing. How long a paused song stays in the notch before Warble hides behind the camera again, from 5 seconds to 5 minutes.

Notch

  • When nothing is playing, hover shows. Last Played shows the card with the last song you played, so you can pick up where you left off. Nothing keeps Warble out of sight until something plays.
  • Show the title in a virtual notch. On at first. On a display where Warble draws a notch of its own, the title of what’s playing shows in the middle. A long title fades out and scrolls once when the song changes. See External displays.
  • Show a message when the track changes. Off at first. Turn it on, and when a new song starts, its title and artist slide out of the notch for two seconds, so you can see what’s on without pointing at it. Skip a few songs in a row and you see only the last one. Point at the notch or click the message to open the full player.
    • Show it over full-screen apps too. Off at first, and only there while the message above is on. Turn it on, and the message also slides out over an app in full screen, such as a film or a game, then goes. The notch itself still stays out of a full-screen app.
  • Show lyrics under the notch. Off at first. Turn it on, and the line being sung shows under the notch while a song plays. To find the lyrics, Warble sends the song’s title, artist, album and length to LRCLIB, a free lyrics library. The player then has a lyrics button that shows the lines around it. See Show lyrics.
  • Swipe over the notch to skip. Off at first. Turn it on, and swiping left over the notch with two fingers skips to the next song, and swiping right goes back. It needs a trackpad, or a Magic Mouse. Scrolling up and down still changes the volume. See Use gestures.
  • Skip by seconds in podcasts. Off at first. Turn it on, and a podcast or an audiobook has back 15 seconds and forward 30 in place of previous and next. Songs keep previous and next. See Listen to podcasts.
  • Show a sleep timer in the player. Off at first. Turn it on, and the player has a moon button that pauses what’s playing after 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour or at the end of the track. Turning it off stops a timer that’s running. See Set a sleep timer.
  • Drag the album art out of the player. Off at first. Turn it on, and you can drag the art from the open player into another app: a folder gets the picture as a file, and a message or a note gets the picture. A click on the art still opens the app. See Use gestures.
  • Hide from screen sharing and recordings. Off at first. Turn it on, and Warble stays out of what others see when you share your screen in a call, and out of your screen recordings and screenshots. You still see the notch and can use it as usual.

Shortcuts

The play/pause, next and previous keys on your keyboard already control what’s playing. If your keyboard doesn’t have them, or you’d rather use other keys, give each action a shortcut that works in every app. None is set until you add one.

  1. Click Record Shortcut beside Play or pause, Next track or Previous track.
  2. Press the keys you want, such as ⌃⌥P. A shortcut needs ⌘, ⌥ or ⌃, so it doesn’t catch your typing.

Open the notch works a little differently: it opens the notch ready for the keyboard, so you can play, pause, skip and change the volume with the arrow keys. See Accessibility.

The shortcut works straight away. To change it, click it and press new keys. To remove it, click the cross beside it, or click it and press Delete. Press Esc to stop without changing anything.

Warble won’t use a shortcut that every app needs, such as ⌘Q, or one another action already has. It tells you why under the shortcut, so you can pick other keys.

Developer

For scripts, launchers and other tools. Everything here is off at first.

  • Allow the warble command. Off at first. Turn it on, and the warble command in Terminal can read what’s playing and control it, for scripts and status bars. While it’s off, Warble opens nothing for it. Below it, Use warble in Terminal installs the command if Homebrew didn’t. See Use the warble command.
  • Answer warble:// links. Off at first. Turn it on, and links like warble://toggle play, pause, skip, seek, set the volume and open Settings. While it’s off, Warble ignores them. See Control Warble with links.

About

About shows which version of Warble you have, with Check for Updates… and a switch to check for updates automatically. Warble only goes online to check for updates, and to look up lyrics if you turn them on.