If you enjoy this program then why not simply build it?
I gave it a try in my test jail and although it is a bit picky about its requirements I can fully build and use it. Note: I don't have vlc, spotify and any of that installed so I don't know if it actually controls them. Still, considering that it build cleanly I don't see why it wouldn't:
Code:
root@psi:~/playerctl/playerctl # ls -F
.libs/ playerctl-generated.h
Makefile playerctl-generated.lo
Makefile.am playerctl-generated.o
Makefile.in playerctl-player.c
Playerctl-1.0.gir playerctl-player.h
Playerctl-1.0.typelib playerctl-player.lo
libplayerctl-1.0.la playerctl-player.o
meson.build playerctl-playerctl-cli.o
mpris-dbus-interface.xml playerctl-version.h
playerctl* playerctl-version.h.in
playerctl-1.0.pc playerctl.h
playerctl-cli.c playerctl.pc
playerctl-generated.c playerctl.pc.in
As I said, it is quite picky and it requires several building tools, in specific:
Also keep in mind that these are the main ports, they all have dependencies of their own which also need to be satisfied. Like I said: I used my test jail for this so I simply installed the binary packages for that.
But if you install those tools you should be able to run
autogen.sh which will eventually run
configure after which you might need to run it manually:
./configure --disable-dependency-tracking
; for some reason I had an issue with the setup trying to run
depfiles, something I'm not familiar with nor can I track this in the ports collection. I assume it's part of some GNU make toolset but couldn't be bothered to try and find it, also because using the commandline parameter also works.
Hope this can help!