Music is the GNOME music playing application.

Where can I find more?

Music has a wiki page at https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Music.

You can join the developers on IRC: #gnome-music on Libera Chat.

Join the development

Follow the GNOME Newcomers guide and choose Music as your project. There are bugs labeled for newcomers, which should provide an easy entry point. Of course, feel free to pick something more challenging. Pick bugs if you can, not feature requests. The goal is to make the current Music experience sound & stable and only then extend it's functionality.

Build Music

Music uses the meson build system. Use the following commands to build Music from the source directory:

$ meson _build
$ cd _build
$ ninja

Then you can either run in the build dir by running:

$ ./local-music

You can also install Music system-wide by running:

$ ninja install

Debugging

GNOME Music uses GLib logging facilities to print debug messages. It can be activated by setting the G_MESSAGES_DEBUG environment variable:

G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=org.gnome.Music gnome-music

Coding style

GNOME Music is written in Python and adheres to the coding style described in the python style guide PEP-8.

Docstrings adhere to PEP-257. The content of docstrings uses the Sphinx markup style. Docstrings should be added to all (new) public functions.

Take note of the following rules as a basic style guide, but when in doubt consult PEP-8.

Line length

Limit all lines to a maximum of 79 characters.

For flowing long blocks of text with fewer structural restrictions (docstrings or comments), the line length should be limited to 72 characters.

Indentation

Music uses hanging indents when the lines get too long.

When using a hanging indent the following should be considered; there should be no arguments on the first line and further indentation should be used to clearly distinguish itself as a continuation line.

# More indentation included to distinguish this from the rest.
def long_function_name(
        var_one, var_two, var_three,
        var_four):
    print(var_one)

# Hanging indents should add a level.
foo = long_function_name(
    var_one, var_two,
    var_three, var_four)

Line break before a binary operator

# Yes: easy to match operators with operands
income = (gross_wages
          + taxable_interest
          + (dividends - qualified_dividends)
          - ira_deduction
          - student_loan_interest)

# Add some extra indentation on the conditional continuation line.
if (this_is_one_thing
        and that_is_another_thing):
    do_something()

Class internals

All non-public classwide variables or methods should be prepended with an underscore.

_single_leading_underscore: weak "internal use" indicator. E.g. from M import * does not import objects whose name starts with an underscore.

Type checking

Post 3.38 Music is starting to use type checking for all new code. This means that all arguments, returns values and variables have defined types and these types are checked for errors during the CI phase. Music uses mypy for the type checking pass.

The specific syntax is best learned from the code already adapted (coresong.py, grltrackerwrapper.py) or online sources, note that Music uses the annotation style. A simple example follows.

Old

x = []

x.append(1)

New

from typing import List

x: List[int] = []

x.append(1)

Properties

Mypy does not currently support PyGObject properties. This means property setters need to be forceibly ignored.

@GObject.Property(type=bool, default=False)
def selected(self) -> bool:
    return self._selected

@selected.setter  # type: ignore
def selected(self, value: bool) -> None:
    self._selected = value

PyGObject specifics

Properties

Most objects in Music are derived from GObject and have properties. Use PyGObject properties through decorator usage if you add properties to your code.

Short form for simple properties:

selected = GObject.Property(type=bool, default=False)

With method definition if more control is needed:

@GObject.Property(type=bool, default=False)
def selection_mode(self):
    return self._selection_mode

@selection_mode.setter
def selection_mode(self, value):
    self._selection_mode = value

Manipulate and refer to GObject properties with the props attribute to set them apart from regular python attributes:

is_selected = object.props.selected

object.props.selection_mode = True

Multi-word properties

Note that GObject multi-word properties are separated by - as in 'selection-mode', however Python does not allow - in variable or method names. So these are translated to _ instead. You might find both 'selection-mode' and selection_mode in the code (depending on how they are used), but they refer to the same property.

Templates

Music uses ui templates extensively for building the user interface. The basic usage in Python is as follows, with the widget.ui file being a regular GTK template:

@Gtk.Template(resource_path="/org/gnome/Music/widget.ui")
class Widget(Gtk.Widget):

    __gtype_name__ = "Widget"

    _button = Gtk.Template.Child()

    @Gtk.Template.Callback()
    def _on_button_clicked(self, klass):
        pass

Commit messages

Music is fairly strict on the format and contents of commit messages. New contributors often struggle with this.

The GNOME wiki has a good intro on what a proper commit message is and this is a must read for first-time contributors.

It is always recommended to look at other Music commit messages as well to get an idea of what a good commit message is specific to Music.

It should look somewhat like:

tag: Short explanation

Problem in some detail. Implemented fix.

Closes: #issuenr

Merge requests

When opening a Merge Request, please enable the 'Allow commits from members who can merge to the target branch' checkbox. This allows the Music maintainers to help out on the Merge Request as needed.