🎬 Reel

A modern reactive media player for GNOME, built with Rust and Relm4 for performance and reliability.

Reel is a native Linux media player that brings your Plex and Jellyfin libraries to the GNOME desktop. Written entirely in Rust with a reactive Relm4 UI, it leverages the language's performance and memory safety to deliver a fast, reliable media experience without the overhead of web technologies.

Main Window	Show Details

Video Player

This project uses Nix flakes to manage the development environment, ensuring all dependencies (including GStreamer plugins) are properly configured.

• Nix with flakes enabled
• Git

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/arsfeld/reel.git
cd reel

# Enter the Nix development shell
nix develop

# Build the Rust project
cargo build

# Run the application
cargo run

Inside the Nix shell:

# Format Rust code
cargo fmt

# Run Clippy lints
cargo clippy

# Run test suite
cargo test

# Build optimized release binary
cargo build --release

Download the latest release from the Releases page.

• Ubuntu/Debian: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or newer (packages built against Ubuntu 24.04)
• Fedora: Fedora 40 or newer
• Other distros: Use the standalone binary or build from source for maximum compatibility

# Download the latest standalone binary (using getbin.io)
curl -fsSL https://getbin.io/arsfeld/reel?os=linux -o reel
chmod +x reel
./reel
# Note: Requires GTK4, libadwaita, and GStreamer to be installed
# MPV (libmpv2) is only required on Linux

# Download and install the latest .deb package (requires Ubuntu 24.04+)
# Get the latest release URL and download
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/arsfeld/reel/releases/latest \
  | grep "browser_download_url.*amd64\.deb" \
  | cut -d '"' -f 4 \
  | xargs wget -O reel.deb
sudo dpkg -i reel.deb
sudo apt-get install -f  # Install dependencies if needed

# Download and install the latest .rpm package (requires Fedora 40+)
# Get the latest release URL and download
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/arsfeld/reel/releases/latest \
  | grep "browser_download_url.*x86_64\.rpm" \
  | cut -d '"' -f 4 \
  | xargs wget -O reel.rpm
sudo dnf install ./reel.rpm
# or for older systems:
sudo rpm -i reel.rpm

# Run directly with Nix flakes
nix run github:arsfeld/reel

Flatpak support is available! You can build and install Reel using Flatpak for universal Linux compatibility.

# Build and install using the included script
./scripts/build-flatpak.sh

# Or manually:
flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build-dir dev.arsfeld.Reel.json

# Run the application
flatpak run dev.arsfeld.Reel

Reel is being prepared for official Flathub distribution. See docs/FLATHUB_SUBMISSION.md for submission guidelines and requirements.

UI Layer (src/ui/)
├── AsyncComponents (Pages with data loading)
├── Factory Components (Dynamic collections)
├── Dialogs (Modal interactions)
└── Main Window & Sidebar (Navigation)
    ↓
Worker Components (src/workers/)
├── ConnectionMonitor (Health checks)
├── SyncWorker (Background sync)
├── SearchWorker (Search operations)
└── ImageLoader (Async image loading)
    ↓
Service Layer (src/services/)
├── MessageBrokers (Inter-component communication)
├── Commands (Structured async operations)
└── Core Services (Auth, Media, Sync, Source)
    ↓
Repository Layer (src/db/)
├── SeaORM Entities (Type-safe models)
└── Repository Pattern (CRUD operations)
    ↓
Backend Trait (src/backends/)
├── MediaBackend Interface
└── Implementations (Plex, Jellyfin, Local)

The entire codebase leverages Rust's type system and ownership model to prevent common bugs at compile time, while the Relm4 reactive system ensures responsive UI updates without manual state management.

Migration Progress: ~85% complete

• Relm4 UI Foundation - ~85% complete migration to reactive component architecture
• Multi-Backend Support - Simultaneous Plex and Jellyfin with OAuth/credential auth
• Media Playback - MPV (Linux) and GStreamer (macOS/fallback) backends with OSD controls and keyboard shortcuts
• Library Browsing - Movies and TV shows with virtual scrolling and pagination
• Continue Watching - Progress tracking and resume functionality
• Offline-First - SQLite metadata cache for instant startup and offline browsing
• File Cache - Chunk-based progressive download with priority queue and fast seeking to any position
• Source Management - Add/remove/test/sync sources with automatic connection failover
• GNOME Integration - Native Relm4/libadwaita UI with proper NavigationSplitView

• macOS: Full support available (GStreamer backend), but pre-built binary coming soon - build from source using Nix for now
• GStreamer has subtitle color artifacts (use MPV player instead on Linux)
• Local files backend is 10% implemented (structure only)
• Some features require server-side support (e.g., Jellyfin chapter markers)

• Downloads - Download media for offline playback on demand
• Transcoding - Server-side transcoding for incompatible formats
• macOS Binary - Pre-built macOS application bundle

• Language: Rust 2021 edition
• UI Framework: Relm4 + libadwaita
• Database: SQLite with SeaORM and typed IDs
• Async Runtime: Tokio with MessageBroker for component communication
• HTTP Client: Reqwest with HTTP/2
• Video Playback: MPV (Linux default) via libmpv2, GStreamer (macOS default, fallback) via gstreamer-rs
• Caching: Three-tier (Memory LRU → SQLite → Backend API)
• Serialization: Serde
• Security: Encrypted SQLite credential storage with legacy keyring migration support

Contributions are welcome! This project uses Backlog.md for task management. To see available tasks and contribute, use the backlog CLI tool after entering the development environment.

• Run cargo fmt to format your code
• Run cargo clippy to check for common issues
• Ensure all tests pass with cargo test
• Update documentation if needed

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.

Built with excellent Rust crates and GNOME technologies:

• The Relm4 team for the reactive UI framework
• GNOME for the beautiful desktop platform
• The Rust community for an amazing ecosystem of crates