SoundLink

SoundLink is a desktop music player for Windows built with Qt 6, C++23 and QML. It plays your local music library and music from YouTube — streamed or downloaded — in one place.

Current version: 0.2

Features

• Local library — scans your music folders in the background, reads tags and duration, caches the result so the library is available immediately on startup.
• YouTube search and streaming — search from the title bar (InnerTube, with yt-dlp as a fallback), infinite scrolling of results, playback without downloading.
• Downloads — a download queue for online tracks; a downloaded file becomes the local copy of the same track, so likes, tags and playlists stay.
• Playlists — static playlists with drag-and-drop ordering and smart playlists built from rules (artist, album, genre, tag, year, duration, play count, liked, source, added / played within N days).
• Search everywhere — one search field for pages, settings, tracks, playlists and YouTube, with tags: yt:, lib:, go:, pl:, s:<category>;<setting>.
• Player — queue, shuffle, repeat (off / all / one), perceptual volume, output device selection.
• System integration — tray icon (closing the window hides it to the tray), media keys and the Windows media overlay (System Media Transport Controls), Discord Rich Presence.
• Tools managed for you — yt-dlp is installed and kept up to date automatically; ffmpeg and deno are installed on first start.
• Browser extension (optional) — the SoundLink Bridge extension (Chrome, Firefox 128+) lends the player a PO token from your browser's YouTube session for more reliable streaming. Paired once with a 6-digit code; cookies never leave the browser unless you allow it.
• Built-in updates — the app checks GitHub releases and installs updates through Updater.exe.

Not done yet: interface translations, volume normalization and crossfade (the settings exist but are not applied), cover art for local files.

Repository layout

Path	Contents
source/	CMake root: main.cpp, core/ (framework and subsystems), ui/ (tray icon, QML module, view models)
extension/	The browser extension (MV3, one codebase for Chrome and Firefox)
third_party/QTomlUtils	Submodule: TOML configs with default layers (QTomlUtils)
third_party/QAppUpdater	Submodule: updater, bin/ layout and release packaging (QAppUpdater)
build-release.bat	One-click Release build
Doxyfile	API documentation config

Building (Windows, MinGW)

Requirements

• Qt 6.8.3 for MinGW 64-bit with the modules Multimedia and WebSockets
• MinGW 13.1 (Qt/Tools/mingw1310_64), CMake 3.22+ and Ninja — all available from the Qt installer

Get the sources

git clone --recursive https://github.com/Stalker72742/MusicPlayer.git

In an existing clone, fetch the submodules with:

git submodule update --init

Configure and build

The CMake root is source/, not the repository root:

cmake -S source -B source/build/Release -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=D:/Qt/6.8.3/mingw_64 -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=D:/Qt/Tools/mingw1310_64/bin/g++.exe

cmake --build source/build/Release

If Ninja is not in PATH, add -DCMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM=D:/Qt/Tools/Ninja/ninja.exe to the configure command.

The build output looks like an installed program: SoundLink.exe and Updater.exe with a single bin/ folder holding the Qt, FFmpeg and MinGW runtime, so the exe runs straight from the build folder without Qt in PATH.

Release builds with presets

build-release.bat builds a standalone copy into dist/ (build-release.bat package also makes packages/SoundLink-<version>-win64.zip). It uses the workflow presets release-dist / release-package from source/CMakeUserPresets.json. That file is machine-specific and not committed — create it with your paths:

{
    "version": 6,
    "configurePresets": [
        {
            "name": "QtMinGW",
            "binaryDir": "${sourceDir}/build/${presetName}",
            "generator": "Ninja",
            "cacheVariables": {
                "CMAKE_C_COMPILER": "D:/Qt/Tools/mingw1310_64/bin/gcc.exe",
                "CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER": "D:/Qt/Tools/mingw1310_64/bin/g++.exe",
                "CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH": "D:/Qt/6.8.3/mingw_64",
                "CMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM": "D:/Qt/Tools/Ninja/ninja.exe"
            }
        },
        {
            "name": "QtMinGW-Release",
            "inherits": "QtMinGW",
            "cacheVariables": { "CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE": "Release" }
        }
    ],
    "buildPresets": [
        { "name": "release-dist", "configurePreset": "QtMinGW-Release", "targets": ["SoundLink_deploy"] },
        { "name": "release-package", "configurePreset": "QtMinGW-Release", "targets": ["SoundLink_package"] }
    ],
    "workflowPresets": [
        {
            "name": "release-dist",
            "steps": [
                { "type": "configure", "name": "QtMinGW-Release" },
                { "type": "build", "name": "release-dist" }
            ]
        },
        {
            "name": "release-package",
            "steps": [
                { "type": "configure", "name": "QtMinGW-Release" },
                { "type": "build", "name": "release-package" }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

The version is set in one place — project(SoundLink VERSION ...) in source/CMakeLists.txt — and goes into the exe resources, the app's About screen and the release package name.

Browser extension

The extension is optional: without it streaming goes through yt-dlp alone.

1. In SoundLink open Settings › Online and click Open extension folder.
2. Load that folder as an unpacked extension: chrome://extensions → Developer mode → Load unpacked (Chrome), or about:debugging → Load Temporary Add-on (Firefox).
3. Enter the 6-digit code SoundLink shows into the extension popup.

The extension only connects to the app on 127.0.0.1. Its PO token appears after any video has been played in the browser.

Where data is stored

• Settings — Saved/Settings.toml next to the exe (only values that differ from the defaults).
• Library cache, playlists, download queue, paired browsers, yt-dlp / ffmpeg / deno — %LOCALAPPDATA%/SoundLink.

API documentation

Headers are documented with Doxygen comments. To generate HTML documentation into docs/, run from the repository root:

doxygen Doxyfile

License

MIT