Code Edit

#!/bin/sh
# Display an OSD of the current track
COLOR="#495D94"
FONT="-bitstream-charter-bold-r-*-*-*-250-*-*-*-*-*-*"
osd ()
{
  title=`mpc | head -1 | sed 's/^volume: [0-9]*%.*/(nothing)/'`
  position=`mpc | head -2 | tail -1 | sed 's/.*\(([0-9]*%)\)/\1/'`
   "$title" == "(nothing)"  && exit || echo "Playing:\n$title $position "
}
pid=`ps ax | grep osd_cat | sed '/grep/d' | awk '{print $1}'`
[ "$pid" ] && kill $pid
echo -e "`osd`" | \
 osd_cat -f "$FONT" -p bottom -o 15 -l 3 -A right -c "$COLOR" -s 1 -d 4

A alternative version Edit

A simpler and less CPU intensive version, of same script above:

#!/bin/sh
# Display an OSD of the current track
COLOR="#495D94"
FONT="-bitstream-charter-bold-r-*-*-*-250-*-*-*-*-*-*"
track ()
{
  title=`mpc -f [[[%name%]%artist%]\ %title%] current`
  position=`mpc -f [%time%] | grep "pl" | awk '{print $4 }'`
  echo "$title $position"
}
pid=`ps ax | grep osd_cat | sed '/grep/d' | awk '{print $1}'`
[ "$pid" ] && kill $pid
echo -e "Playing:\n"`track`" " | \
osd_cat -f "$FONT" -p bottom -o 40 -l 2 -A left -c "$COLOR" -s 2 -d 4

Auto-repeating variant Edit

This script shows OSD every time song is changed (may appear several odd times)

#!/bin/sh
# Display an OSD of the current track
COLOR="#495D94"
FONT="-bitstream-charter-bold-r-*-*-*-250-*-*-*-*-*-*"
osd ()
{
  title=`mpc | head -1 | sed 's/^volume: [0-9]*%.*/(nothing)/'`
  position=`mpc | head -2 | tail -1 | sed 's/.*\(([0-9]*%)\)/\1/'`
   "$title" == "(nothing)"  && exit || echo "Playing:\n$title $position "
}
while true; do
   pid=`ps ax | grep osd_cat | sed '/grep/d' | awk '{print $1}'`
   [ "$pid" ] && kill $pid
   echo "`osd`" | \
     osd_cat -f "$FONT" -p bottom -o 15 -l 3 -A right -c "$COLOR" -s 1 -d 4
   echo "idle" | netcat localhost 6600 | wait
done

UTF-8 Edit

If you are expiriencing problems displaying utf-8 tags try using fonts that have iso10646 encoding. For example "-rfx-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-*-250-*-*-*-*-iso10646-*". You can find other fonst using this command:

xlsfonts |grep iso10646