v8.1.0-1

This is the last PyQt5 based release with fix some bug-fixes

• Fix Master navigation via web remote control
• fix showing total duration while transcoding
• reset episode-info also during series-info reset
• add episode info reset buttonn in series details page
• allow bulk episode renaming
• update extract_episode_number
• fix bulk-episode edits

Note: Next Release will be based on PyQt6. There will not be any support for PyQt5 going forward.

v8.0.0-1

• Fully new web UI for admin, browse, details and player-control
• New end-points

  • /admin - Consider this as CMS for local video management - from where one can add/update most of the information/metadata about Videos

    • Features:
      • The admin interface is behind simple password based auth
      • Bulk update series metadata
      • Bulk fetch series metadata
      • Update info about single episode or series manually
      • Search/Filter

  • /browse

    • Once information updated via /admin interface, the collection can be browsed via /browse endpoint
    • Search/Filter/Sort collection based on various criteria
    • Pagination support
    • Supports for both text view and thumbnail grid view
    • mobile responsive layout

* Series-details page
    * contains series-info, summary, episode list and fetch metadata if needed
    * control watch/unwatch status
    * set different preview thumbnail for each episode

* player controller page

    * Three tabs, with ability to watch video inside browser or on master or cast video from master to slave
    * Generate M3U playlist from the page which can be played on any local video player

• Experimental Live Video Transcoding - for viewing non-html5 compliant videos inside browser

  • videos will be transcoded using ffmpeg. One needs to have ffmpeg and ffprobe installed on the server side.
  • Videos wil be transcoded to mp4 (for firefox), webm (for chrome/chromium based browsers), m3u8 playlist for (iphone/ipad platform/safari browser)
  • transcoded will be cached and stored in ~/.config/kawaii-player/tmp folder and requires to be removed manually if needed
  • subtitles and audio will be extracted and can be selected separately

• Server Backend is updated accordingly to support all the new WebUI features

• Fixed issues in database migration - when installing for the first time

• Added series metadata fetcher mainly for Anime, Cartoons and TV shows by using publicly available APIs

• Added simple passowrd based login auth to protect new web end-points, old/legacy web-ui won't be controlled by it

• some legacy Code cleanup and muliple bug-fixes for the destop client

v7.1.0-1-beta

Major Experimental features added on the Web UI for managing and browing video collection

• Two new end-points

  • /admin - This will be used for managing video collection from the web UI itself - Major focus on managing Anime/Cartoons.

  • /browse - This will be used for browsing your collection with filtering capability

  • Both these end-points will be behind simple useraname/password auth. Username is admin and password needs to be created from the web UI itself.

  • To reset the password, delete config files admin_password.json and admin_sessions.json from the config directory ~/.config/kawaii-player/

• Multiple smaller Bug-Fixes

v7.0.0-1

---

• Web UI

  • Full revamp of web ui
  • Added scraper for fetching Anime info and metadata can be updated from the web ui itself.
  • Added responsive sidebar for better navigation
  • Better queue management
  • Added sticky widget at top for playback information
  • Ability to change thumbnails from the playlist right click menu
  • Access History/Recent Options from the web ui itself
  • On browser refresh restore the last playlist
  • Ability to toggle watch/unwatch status from the right click menu
  • Added easier way to play content on mobile using vlc/mpv
    • from web ui, open any playlist without enabling remote-control
    • click on any item - html5 compatible content will be played in the ui itself, but for non html5 compatible content like mkv files can be played on vlc/mpv directly by opening server url on the mobile version of vlc/mpv. So that content can be played without requiring any transcoding on the server side

• Main Application

  • Added new table series_info for managing series information
  • Added option to migrate collection from one server to another server
  • some fixes related to libmpv and cython build issues
  • Added following configs in other_options.txt
    • AUTO_SET_IP_ADDRESS_ON_START=True/False (sets IP address automatically on start)
    • AUTO_BROADCAST_SERVER=True/False (Starts broadcasting server itself over the local network so that other kawaii-player instances can recognize)
    • AUTO_DISCOVER_SLAVES=True/False (Master server can start auto-discovering slaves)
  • updated logic for fetching history and recently added
  • Fix display of incorrect sid/aid when toggling audio/subtitle

kawaii-player-v6.0.0-1

• Update buiild/install process for kawaii-palyer to make it compatible with mpv opengl-render API. Please check updated installation instructions.
• completely remove support for mpv opengl-cb API
• Consolidate support for libvlc as an alternate backend and make it reliable for playback
• add support for yt-dlp and deprecate youtube-dl
• changes in web-ui
  • added button for casting url
  • allow changing playback engine from web-interface
• make installation easier and performance robust of kawaii-player on raspberry-pi (4B+) devices
  • script for installation of kawaii-player on raspberry-pi
• minor bug-fixes - please check the commit history

kawaii-player-v5.0.0-1

Major features for this release

• Added support for Raspberry-Pi 4+
• Added support for libvlc as playback engine (mainly for raspberry-pi)
• Added support for INPUT_IPC_SERVER for mpv binary (tested only on GNU/Linux and OSX)
• One can change default config directory. Add new config directory path to ~/.config/kawaii-player/new_home.txt and restart application.

Deprecating

• Deprecating Slave mode for mpv binary. Users should use mpv input ipc server. In other_options.txt set MPV_INPUT_IPC_SERVER=True.
• Removing support for mpv binary on windows, since using input ipc server on windows is cumbersome. For Windows only libmpv will be supported from this release onwards.
• opengl-cb api will be deprecated and no longer will be supported from now on. Users need to install pympv to use libmpv backend

For installation on raspberry-pi see this repository

For list of all changes see this commit history

Note: libvlc support is mainly to support hardware accelerated video playback on RPi. All the controls on the application GUI won't work nicely with it. libvlc should be used in conjuction with web-ui for controlling player remotely.

kawaii-player-v4.2.0-1

New Features

1. When using libmpv, it is possible to show transparent widgets (ie playlist, titlelist, control frame etc..) directly on video. This property is available in Preferences->Appearance->Widgets on video.

2. In dark theme, users can manually change color of background and control frame. Few combinations are available by default Preferences->Appearance->Try. Users can choose any color, but most likely only dark shade of any color may look good on this theme (along with bold fonts).

3. Added Playlist Continue option in Preferences->Player

Bug fixes and modifications

1. fixed: cache pause seconds option when using libmpv

2. fixed: irregular global font size by fixing stylesheet

3. It is possible to pass http headers as dictionary to ccurl function

4. No need to restart the application whenever changing mpv config options from Preferences, when using libmpv. (However, changing some options like vo/ao may need restart)

Feature removal

1. Setting external player from Preferences has been removed. Option is still available, but user will need to manually edit the config files.

2. Music mode deprecated. As one can use detached video mode as music mode, the music mode somewhat became irrelevant. Moreover it became buggy and difficult to maintain over the time.

Sample Screenshot:

kawaii-player-v4.1.0-1

New Features

• Thumbnail wall mode now applicable for both titlelist and playlist. (Thumbnail wall mode is lighter and faster compared to regular thumbnail grid mode, press F1 to switch to this mode).

• Change number of thumbnails in each row using keys - and =

• automatic resizing of thumbnails in thumbnail wall mode on widget resize

Bug fixes

• Fixed: constant reappearance of cursor after fixed duration (in full-screen mode) on linux
• Fixed: UI lock when libmpv could not generate thumbnails/preview due to corrupted file
• Fixed: Automatic subtitle loading in pc-to-pc casting mode when using libmpv
• Fixed: Maximum recursion depth limit error when window title is not available
• Fixed: UnicodeEncodeError when sending playlist in pc-to-pc casting mode from master to slave

Modifications and improvements

• Allow setting timeout in wait_for_property
• Generate new tokens for every playlist, when sending items from master to slave in pc-to-pc casting mode
• Allow adding external audio by using command add-external-audio. Add keyboard shortcut to this command in the Shortcuts settings.

Apart from above, multiple bug-fixes when using libmpv backend in gnu/linux, windows and mac.

For full list of changes see the commit history

Note: Distro based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, might not package latest libmpv. In such cases, users should use only mpv binary. Using old version of libmpv can be unstable. For older mpv versions (most probably 0.27 or earlier), users will need to change vo to opengl from gpu in the config settings box.

kawaii-player-v4.0.0-1

New Features

• Experimental support for directly using libmpv as backend, instead of binary.

• Proper support added for macOS when using libmpv as backend, allowing embedding of video within application.

• For generating preview and thumbnails, libmpv will be used by default.

• Automatically prevent screen turn off or screensaver when playing video.

• Removed variable_width_list property, since it is not required now. Application will automatically resize widgets when screen changes, on dual monitor/screen setup, even if application is placed on non-primary screen.

• Added Device Pixel Ratio property in preferences. By default it is set to 1.0. For high resolution displays, it will be grater that 1.0. For retina displays it is 2.0. If video is appearing smaller then increase this value, when using libmpv as backend. If not sure, set it to 0.0, and application will try to adjust this value automatically.

• Support added for both opengl-cb and opengl-render api of libmpv.

• Accurate live preview and improved gapless playback of network streams when using libmpv

• option added to switch on/off native fullscreen mode on macOS

• For full list of changes see this commit history

New Dependencies

Names are given as per PyPI packages, which may change depending on the distro.

• PyOpenGL

• PyQtWebEngine (This is separate package now and won't be included in default PyQt5 installation)

Optional dependency

• pympv (If user wants to use latest opengl-render api of libmpv)

Credits for integrating libmpv with kawaii-player

• It started with this gist by github user cosven

• python-mpv package, written by github user jaseg, with minor modifications. No need to install it separately. The main file with minor modifications is included in the kawaii-player.

• pympv. This package is optional and needs to be installed from PyPI, if user wants to use latest rendering api of mpv.

Note: Those who want to use mpv/mplayer binaries, they can still use it. Support for binary mpv/mplayer won't be deprecated in the application. Advantage of using libmpv (apart from making cleaner code) is that, it will make application work better and uniform across all platforms (gnu/linux, windows and mac).

Note: Playing video within thumbnails, won't work with libmpv as of now. So this feature has been disabled for libmpv, but it works as usual when using mpv binary.

Note: No binary of kawaii-player will be included in this release. Users have to install the application from source. Binaries of older stable version v3.8 is available here.

kawaii-player-v3.9.0-1

• Experimental support added for macOS
• Better global font resizing support, useful for large screens/monitors.
• Better support added for dual monitors and large screens.
• Added new option Variable Width List in Preferences->Appearance, which will allow various lists to resize themselves properly on dual-monitor setup, when kawaii-player placed on non-primary screen.
• Various bugs fixed when using web based remote-control
• Transparent cover will be used for posters in default theme
• High quality thumbnails will be displayed on the fanart-widget, in dark and system theme.

Note: This release i.e. v3.9.0 won't include any binaries. Users have to build everything from source, as explained in the README.

Note: Binaries for earlier version i.e. 3.8.0 are available here (only for Ubuntu and Windows 10).