TITLE: CMUS colour scheme and persistent settings
DATE: 2022-12-08
AUTHOR: John L. Godlee
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cmus uses a file called autosave (~/.config/cmus/autosave) to store 
configuration settings. This file is loaded every time cmus is 
launched. Settings changed during a session will be written to 
autosave on exit. This can make changing settings a bit finicky. A 
few times I've accidentally changed a setting by pressing the wrong 
hotkey, and then not been able to change it back. There is another 
file called rc (~/.config/cmus/rc) which can store persistent 
settings. These settings are loaded after autosave and will not be 
overwritten on exit.

  [cmus]: https://cmus.github.io/

In my cmus rc I only have a few settings:

-   set aaa_mode=all - play all tracks, alternatively artist or 
album for all songs in the current artist or album.
-   set stop_after_queue=true - after the play queue has finished, 
stop playing
-   set continue=true - Play the next song automatically
-   bind -f common q quit - rebind q to not ask for confirmation on 
exit
-   unbind -f common C - unbind C, which normally toggles playing 
the next song automatically. I never want to disable continuous 
mode.

All settings can be found in the cmus manual.

  [cmus manual]: 
https://github.com/cmus/cmus/blob/master/Doc/cmus.txt

The rest is colour settings:

-   set color_separator=white - separator colour between artist and 
track view in tree view
-   set color_statusline_bg=gray - statusline background
-   set color_statusline_fg=black - statusline foreground
-   set color_win_title_bg=gray - background of window title
-   set color_win_title_fg=black - foreground of window title
-   set color_titleline_bg=default - background of currently 
playing track
-   set color_titleline_fg=white - foreground of currently playing 
track
-   set color_win_sel_bg=gray - background of selected row when not 
currently playing
-   set color_win_sel_fg=black - foreground of selected row when 
not currently playing
-   set color_win_inactive_sel_bg=darkgray - background of selected 
row when not in that window and not currently playing
-   set color_win_inactive_sel_fg=black - foreground of selected 
row when not in that window and not currently playing
-   set color_win_cur_sel_bg=gray - background of currently playing 
track when selected
-   set color_win_cur_sel_fg=black - foreground of currently 
playing track when selected
-   set color_win_inactive_cur_sel_bg=darkgray - background of 
currently playing track when row selected but not in that window
-   set color_win_inactive_cur_sel_fg=black - foreground of 
currently playing track when row selected but not in that window
-   set color_win_cur=green - text colour of currently playing 
track when not selected

  ![Annotated screenshot of cmus showing colour 
settings](https://johngodlee.xyz/img_full/cmus_colours/scrot.png)