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When ever i press Space in Rhythmbox the song starts over instead of going on pause and when its on pause and i press Space the song starts over again instead of resuming from where it left of.

So my question is how can i change this so it will toggle between pause/play?

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  • Does this Q&A help - if so, we should perhaps close this as a dupe: askubuntu.com/questions/181651/…
    – fossfreedom
    Aug 30, 2012 at 12:12
  • no, i want to change the "CTRL" + "SPACE" in the program to only "SPACE", so i can press space to toggle between pause and play, and it must only be while the program is open(not minimized just like how the "CTRL" + "SPACE" is now).
    – Jeggy
    Sep 1, 2012 at 15:38

4 Answers 4

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rythymbox's keyboard interface is incoherent.

The desired behaviour, (which imo is desired behaviour for all music players at all times,) of space bar being play/pause button, is actually possible after you click play or pause with the mouse. It is like it 'selects' that button.

However, after you select a track for example, the spacebar behaviour changes to selecting that track, so everytime you press pause, I mean spacebar, it will again select that track, and because it is playing it will start playing the track again. I hope this will get fixed sometime into something more sensible and intuitive. Like the desired behaviour.

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You have to press "Ctrl+P" to play/pause apparently (at least on Gnome in Ubuntu 20.04, where I tested it).

For some reason this information is not easily accessible.

See https://help.gnome.org/users/rhythmbox/stable/shortcuts.html.en for more.

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  • Any way to change this? I want to use only SPACE as my default key to play/pause.
    – ambigus9
    Dec 29, 2022 at 18:25
  • I've looked for a way to do this, but haven't found one. Let me know if you do! Sep 13, 2023 at 16:55
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You would need to change the source, as space in a tree typically means "activate the current selection." And this describes the behavior you're seeing exactly.

However, it does appear that pressing Ctrl+Space gives your desired behavior.

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  • thanks :D do you know how i can change it so when i press "CTRL" the same will happen as when pressing "CTRL"+"SPACE" ?
    – Jeggy
    Aug 17, 2012 at 18:30
  • As Ctrl is a modifier key, you can't really make it do something when you press only that key. You will have to press it along with another key. If you want a single key for play/pause, I'd recommend a multimedia keyboard if you don't already have one. If you do have one, the play/pause key on it should do what you want. :)
    – dobey
    Aug 17, 2012 at 20:07
  • sorry i wrote wrong, i meant "SPACE" not "CTRL"
    – Jeggy
    Aug 17, 2012 at 21:25
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You are ~probably supposed to also be able to change the setting for global play-pause in gnome-control-center -> All Settings -> Keyboard -> Play (or Play/Pause), which I think is by default set to Control-Space.

But, it won't let you set Space as an option since that would conflict with other applications. It's also not working for me at the moment; there might be other pieces of gnome that I don't have loaded cause I'm not running a full gnome desktop.

This isn't really a solution, but at least provides a bit more info on the misbehaving subsystems.

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  • also, in the time it takes rhythmbox to load, cmus can index your entire library from scratch. use space, tab, and arrow keys to navigate, then the c key is you play/pause button. Don't try to play an aac file, or it will blast static at a deafening volume. Apr 15, 2015 at 8:54
  • Why isn't this answer on the top?!
    – Tanny
    Jun 10, 2016 at 6:31

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