Kawaii Player Versions Save

New Features and modifications:

1. PC To PC Casting

   The application can work as client as well as server at the same time. This feature was exploited in the past to create peer-to-peer mode. Now this peer-to-peer mode has been extended to include master-slave design in order to incorporate PC-To-PC casting feature. Following are some important aspects of this feature.

   • Casting a single file or entire playlist from one computer (Master) to another computer (Slave) running kawaii-player.
   • Automatic loading of subtitle (if subtitle name matches the file name)
   • Ability to send external subtitle file from master to slave
   • Ability to queue items
   • Ability to open web interface of slave from internal browser of master, which contains multiple other options to control playback activity on slave.
   • Cross-platform casting. Cast audio/video from gnu/linux box to windows box (or any other OS on which kawaii-player can be installed) and vice-versa.

2. POST request added to ccurl for sending files

3. modified remote_fullscreen method.

Bug Fixes:

1. Fixed fullscreen mode on windows, after opening internal browser
2. Fixed crashing of qtwebengine on closing
3. Fixed some queue related issues

How to enable PC-To-PC casting feature?

• Install kawaii-player on two computers say master and slave.
• On master, enable master mode: Preferences->Other->PC To PC Casting->Master.
• On Slave, enable slave mode: Preferences->Other->PC To PC Casting->Slave
• Start media server on both.
• Select any playlist of master. From its contextmenu, start casting files or playlist from master to slave. For more details, refer this issue

New contextmenu item 'PC To PC Casting' added to the playlist of master after enabling master mode.

Above contextmenu has 'Show More Controls' option. This option will open up web interface of slave within master using internal browser. It will allow master to control other playback activities on slave. Following is a screenshot with qtwebengine as browser backend. If internal browser is not working as expected (most probably with qtwebkit backend) then users can open up web interface of slave using any external browser of choice. Note: In order to use above web interface make sure to enable remote-control mode on slave

New Features:

1. Added support for live seekbar preview

   • Two Modes: slow and fast
     • slow mode will try to show preview in stop-motion manner.
     • fast mode will generate thumbnail preview in faster manner by skipping some intermediate results (recommended)
   • Two styles: tooltip and float widget
     • Tooltip style is available only in higher qt version (maybe in v5.7+). It has somewhat fluctuating performance depending on window manager and system theme.
     • Float widget style has consistent performance on every platform and window manager on which it has been tested. So, float widget style is recommended for preview.
   • option added to change quality of thumbnail preview image.
   • Once seekbar is focused, keyboard shortcuts ctrl+right and ctrl+left can be used to seek preview +/- 5 seconds, without changing current seek position of video.

   How to enable this feature?

   Go to Preferences->Player, there users will find options related to live preview. Select options, then start video and after that hover mouse pointer over seekbar to see live preview. If there are some problems in displayed preview images, consider clearing cache folder (option available in TitleList ContextMenu)

Bug fixes:

1. fixed gapless playback of local files on windows.
2. catch errors when removing temporary files in cache folder
3. looping of playlist fixed in gapless mode

This is mainly bugfix release

1. Somewhat fixed gapless playback of network (http) streams in which ytdl fetches separate audio and video urls. Fix is working only with mpv v0.28+
2. Few bugs fixed in gapless playback of network (http) streams in Music section playlist.
3. Playlist with Mix of local files and network streams is possible in gapless mode.
4. Offline mode fixed for playlist
5. Gapless playback fixed in case playlist is modified
6. Gapless playback fixed for thumbnail mode
7. Dropping url on float window (i.e. detached mode window) will add item to already selected playlist instead of TMP_PLAYLIST.
8. Stylesheet fixed for playlist when toggling between normal mode and detached mode.
9. Set minimum height of buttons in config and shortcut settings boxes.

How to enable gapless mode for playlist with network (http) streams (especially supported by ytdl)? See release notes of v3.3.0

1. Fixed dark theme for music mode and detached video mode.

2. (Major Update) New Extra Toolbar with some general settings and subtitle settings added. General Toolbar to the right. This is screenshot from last beta version, now toolbar has changed a bit more.

Subtitle Toolbar to the right. This is screenshot from last beta version, now some more options have been added to it.

3. Controls in extra toolbar will allow applying settings on-the-fly on playing video.

4. A button has been provided on main control frame to activate detached video mode.

5. Float window (i.e. detached video) now allow drag and drop of local files, urls including torrent and magnet links. Float Window shown at the bottom of screen on top of firefox. One can make float window of any size, hide/unhide video and fix it anywhere on the screen. In above screenshot, float window has been resized (with titlebar removed) and made to look like bottom panel.

   Normal float window positioned at bottom right corner without titlebar and playing video.

6. All external urls dropped on float window will be saved in TMP_PLAYLIST. Users can save this playlist later on. This temporary file will be overwritten once user will drop local files on it. (Drag and drop of urls from browser to floating window will require higher qt version most probably 5.9+)

7. Dropping a single local file on float window will add other media files present in the directory to TMP_PLAYLIST

8. In case only audio is playing in float window then background is properly filled with either thumbnail or artist image.

9. Added feature to sanitize titles. (Available in titlelist contextmenu) This feature will try to remove all unnecessary characters and information from title, which will make it easy for tvdb/tmdb scraper to find information about them. Users can sanitize single title or entire titlelist.

10. (Major Update) New Gapless mode (or almost gapless) has been implemented for smooth playback of network streams. In this mode kawaii-player will start process of fetching/buffering next network stream before playback of previous stream has ended. This mode is useful when media server of kawaii-player is being accessed by another kawaii-player client in p2p mode. It is also useful for prefetching and buffering ytdl supported links. At the moment, it is not applicable to addons.

How to use this gapless (or almost gapless) playback?

Goto preferences->Player. There users will find three options on gapless playback. Enable them and read tooltips on them for more details.

For using this feature with ytdl, set YTDL path to automatic or write full path of ytdl (in preferences->Other). By doing this application will disable internal ytdl hook of mpv. mpv allows prefetching of network streams in playlist, but it won't resolve and prefetch ytdl links beforehand. kawaii-player will resolve link to the second url after half of first stream has played (this duration might change in future) and then will give resolved link to mpv for prefetching and buffering.

Now go to PlayLists section, and then either open url or simply drop urls to add them to temporary playlist which later on users can save with some other name.

Some Caveats: The above method has some problem when ytdl gives separate audio and video urls. After loading separate audio and video file for second url, mpv remembers first loaded external audio and sometimes switches to it. Therefore, an option has been provided in preference box to fetch only single file with combine audio and video. It is not required when playlist is being played from music section, since in music section, video is automatically disabled for all playlist entries.

For other details see commit history

1. Fixed music mode and detached video mode for dark theme.
2. Implemented extra toolbar which will allow applying some general settings and subtitle settings instantly.

If users have any other idea about settings options in this extra toolbar, then they can open isuue to discuss about its feasibility.

Major changes since last stable release (i.e. v2.9)

• Application has now three themes: Default, Dark and System. Normal mode with arc dark system theme

• A unified settings box has been implemented. Now there is no need to fiddle with kawaii-player config files manually.

Settings box in dark theme

Settings Box in Default theme

• Application now remembers audio track, subtitle track, last quit position, volume and aspect ratio per video.

• Ability to change appearance of each theme in terms of fonts, font color and boldness.

• Almost full support for mpv's default keybindings.

• Users can change config file and keyboard shortcuts for mpv directly from settings box.

• Ability to execute multiple mpv commands per key stroke.

• New single column mode for video viewing.

Single column view (Available in dark and system theme): users just have to hide either playlist column or titlelist column, and then video can be played inside fanart by clicking on it.

• Default thumbnail mode has been improved in terms of speed and navigation.

• New Thumbnail Wall mode added which is lot quicker and faster to navigate.

• Recent Section added in video category.

• History section added in MyServer Addon (used for peer to peer mode)

• Faster video database update method.

• Thumbnail modes 2 and 5 have been optimized.

• Search as type functionality added for thumbnails and list.

• Better filtering option in thumbnail wall mode.

• Improved Offline mode.

• History of Video Section now arranges shows in last watched order.

• Orientation of dock to right has been improved

• Ability watch video diretcly inside fanart frame in dark theme and system theme.

• Faster tooltip for progress slider

• Display warning message box when using UpdateAll option.

• ctrl+8 now arranges background image in tiled mode in default theme.

• Drag and drop support added for external subtitles, media files and local torrent files

• Global shortcuts now won't interfere with video shortcuts

• bug fixed in fullscreen mode when moving dock to right

• Apart from above, lot of code cleaning and bug fixes.

Note: If users have already installed any of previous kawaii-player versions then they are advised to backup and then remove following configuration files, before launching the application.

1. ~/.config/kawaii-player/other_options.txt
2. ~/.config/kawaii-player/config.txt
3. ~/.config/kawaii-player/src/input.conf
4. Windows users might need to remove ~/.config/kawaii-player/src directory completely

If users have setup previously MPV_INPUT_CONF=True to load shorcuts from global input.conf, then now it is not required. This option has not been removed but no longer required. Users can change shortcut keys and commands from settings box, along with ability to execute multiple commands per key stroke.

Upto v2.9, the application was mainly focussed on organizing and sharing aspect of multimedia, and provided mutiple options to users in terms of managing and accessing their collection in variety of ways. In this version i.e. v3.1, more emphasis has been placed on giving more options to users in terms appearance customization and managing video playback capabilities.

• Three themes Available: Default, Dark and System.

• A unified settings box.

• Application now remembers audio track, subtitle track, last quit position, volume and aspect ratio per video.

• Partial support for mpv's default keybindings.

• Users can change config file and keyboard shortcuts for mpv directly from settings box.

• Ability to execute multiple mpv commands per key stroke.

• Default thumbnail mode has been improved in terms of speed and navigation.

• Faster tooltip for progress slider

• Display warning message box when using UpdateAll option.

• ctrl+8 now arranges background image in tiled mode in default theme.

Note: If users have already installed any of previous kawaii-player versions then they are advised to backup and then remove following configuration files, before launching the application.

1. ~/.config/kawaii-player/other_options.txt
2. ~/.config/kawaii-player/config.txt
3. ~/.config/kawaii-player/src/input.conf
4. Windows users might need to remove ~/.config/kawaii-player/src directory completely

If users have setup previously MPV_INPUT_CONF=True to load shorcuts from global input.conf, then now it is not required. This option has not been removed but no longer required. Users can change shortcut keys and commands from settings box, along with ability to execute multiple commands per key stroke.

This release is for testing purpose and does not contain any binaries. Those who want to test new features will have to build package for their distribution from source as given in documentation. Binaries will be made available during relase of v3.0.0. The v3.0 will be relased (most probably) in next 2-3 weeks.

New Features:

• Ability to use system theme, instead of default theme. Application can follow system theme instead of using its own stylesheet.

• Special Thumbnail Wall mode, which is lightweight compared to default thumbnail mode.

• History section of Video Category modified, which can arrange series in last watched order. The section will automatically remember audio/subtitle track information and last quit position.

• New 'Recent' section added in Video Category, which will contain items in recently added order.

• Ability to use 'shift+q' to remember position on quit similar to mpv's default keybindings

• various bugs fixed in tvdb scraper

• Remebers queued items between session

• History section added in p2p mode

• Thumbnail mode 2 and 5 are optimized

• Faster Video update method

• Stylesheet of buttons in thumbnail mode and browsers modified

• Search as type functionality added for TitleList, Playlist and Thumbnail Widget

• Better offline mode

• Lot of code cleaning and bug fixes. See the commit history to know more about details

How To Apply New Settings? Before testing the application, remove or backup 'other_options.txt' file available in ~/.config/kawaii-player directory (if old version of the application has already been installed). New file will contain few more settings options. Users can setup theme and other parameters in it.

• Media Player

1. Thumbnail Mode for Titles with posters improved

Screenshot of improved Thumbnail Mode for Titles

2. Separate settings for Title thumbnails and episode thumbnails
3. New thumbnail mode added (direct fullscreen on click)
4. Allow getting metadata for entire collection present in Title list in one sweep (ctrl+a: find posters for all), including episode thumbnails/overview from tvdb. Make sure to rename episodes in proper format as given in documentation (Users can mass rename episodes in database without affecting original files)
5. In thumbnail mode=3 for episodes, ability to increase or decrease size of thumbnail on the fly using keys w and e (for mpv).
6. Multiple bugs fixed when using mplayer as backend in remote control mode.
7. new shortcuts, ctrl+q: quit after current file and shift+j: load external subtitle added.
8. critical bug fixed when deleting empty entry from addons history.
9. show wait message on resolving external links
10. Allow selecting and adding multiple items to categories and playlist.
11. Use threading when updating music section on start
12. Application remembers fullscreen mode (entered with shift+f: fullscreen main window not video) along with thumbnail settings.
13. Auto restart video when mpv/mplayer quits abruptly
14. Allow setting aspect ratio for mplayer
15. Sorting fixed for alphanumeric keys

• Web Interface

16. No need to setup local ip before starting media server. Application will find the local ip automatically on starting media server. Only change local port as per convenience.

17. option added to autostart media server on launch of the application. Set 'MEDIA_SERVER_AUTOSTART=True' in other_options.txt file.

18. Thumbnail mode is default for web interface.

19. kawaii-player extension kcast for casting to kawaii-player can follow authorization of web server. Once remote control mode is enabled from web interface, kcast can cast to kawaii-player till that mode remains enabled.

20. Multiple minor bugs fixed. See commit history for details.

1. better handling of fetching episode summary from tvdb
2. allow editing episode summary in summary box
3. summary tooltip added to thumbnail grid
4. keyboard shortcuts added for renaming to default
5. keyboard shortcuts added for fetching episode summary
6. more options added to context menu of playlist
7. separate meta_engine
8. tmdb bug fixed
9. a new command ytq: added, for quick casting of ytdl and torrent links from web interface
10. Support added for opening links to ytdl supported sites
11. Internal browser can be used for ytdl supported sites
12. default background image changed