Are there secret Banshee rewind and fast forward controls?

I do a lot of listening to songs I need to learn, which means I often want to rewind or fast forward a few seconds. Instinctively I want to use my arrow keys. Is there a plugin for Banshee that can help with that or some controls that I'm just not seeing? I can move the scrubber with my trackpad, but it isn't very precise. I'd rather use keystrokes.

I found 1 source claiming:

Shift + Left: rewind song by 10 seconds. Shift + Right: fast-forward song by 10 seconds

But more sources that Banshee does not have shortcuts for those actions (...). Please try and comment if these do not work and I shall remove this answer.

Changelog Banshee

1.9.4 February 23, 2011

• Multimedia-Keys: Support Pause, FastForward, Rewind, Repeat and Shuffle

If it worked after this update someone removed it again (and it does not show in the other changelogs :P )

This seems interesting: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/banshee-list/2012-June/msg00029.html It states Banshee does NOT have keys for FF and RW but that this person wants it (and believes he can create it). Of course he never replied that he did get it done ;)

Conclusion: Banshee does not have a working rewind of fast forward.

It used to, and it was super helpful. Disappointing that they removed it.

I was facing the same problem when I stumbled across your question. Sadly, the keyboard shortcut combinations didn't work for me either.

I did some research to find if I can control Banshee through CLI and how. If you can control Banshee through CLI, then you can make it do pretty much anything you want.

Here's how:

=======================================================================

NB1: In this technique, I'm using my keyboard's multimedia keys to Fast Forward & Rewind

NB2: I'm using Linux Mint, so regarding steps 5 & 6 & 7 & 8 & 9, you may have to do them slightly differently.

NB3: This technique will enable you to FF/RWND by intervals of 10 seconds. If you want to change this, change "10" on line number 4 in the code in step 2.

=======================================================================

To assign a keyboard shortcut for Fast Forwarding, do the following:

1) Create a file & name it "ff.sh" in your home directory

2) Using any text editor you like, put the following code inside this file: (copy & paste)

#!/bin/bash
currPosSTR="$(banshee --query-position)"
currPosNUM="$(echo $currPosSTR | sed 's/\([a-zA-Z: \t]\)//g' | cut -d . -f 1)"
nxtPos=$(($currPosNUM+10))
banshee --set-position=$nxtPos

3) Save the file

4) You need to make it executable. To do this, open your terminal and execute the following command

sudo chmod +x ~/ff.sh

5) Now, go to your System Settings --> Shortcuts & Gestures --> Custom Shortcuts

6) Right click (in the middle column) --> New --> Global shortcut --> Command/URI

7) Rename this shortcut to anything you like (e.g., Fast Forward)

8) Go to "Trigger" tab (in the right column) --> Click on the little gear icon --> Press the multimedia button on your keyboard that you want to assign Fast Forwarding to

9) Go to "Action" tab (in the right column) --> Click on the browse icon (little folder icon) --> Browse to your home directory --> Choose this "ff.sh" --> OK --> Apply

=======================================================================

To assign a keyboard shortcut for Rewinding, do the following:

1) Create a file & name it "rwnd.sh" in your home directory

2) Using any text editor you like, put the following code inside this file: (copy & paste)

#!/bin/bash
currPosSTR="$(banshee --query-position)"
currPosNUM="$(echo $currPosSTR | sed 's/\([a-zA-Z: \t]\)//g' | cut -d . -f 1)"
nxtPos=$(($currPosNUM-10))
banshee --set-position=$nxtPos

3) Save the file

4) You need to make it executable. To do this, open your terminal and execute the following command

sudo chmod +x ~/rwnd.sh

5) Now, go to your System Settings --> Shortcuts & Gestures --> Custom Shortcuts

6) Right click (in the middle column) --> New --> Global shortcut --> Command/URI

7) Rename this shortcut to anything you like (e.g., Rewind)

8) Go to "Trigger" tab (in the right column) --> Click on the little gear icon --> Press the multimedia button on your keyboard that you want to assign Rewinding to

9) Go to "Action" tab (in the right column) --> Click on the browse icon (little folder icon) --> Browse to your home directory --> Choose this file "rwnd.sh" --> OK --> Apply