Usage¶

This page is a tour of the AniPlay interface, the configuration options that live in Settings, and the keyboard / accessibility affordances available in the player and the Watch Together companion.

UI walkthrough¶

The app shell (src/App.tsx) is composed of a draggable title bar and the following tabs. Each tab is mounted only when active (the Settings page is loaded with React.lazy).

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  AniPlay                            [Watch Together]  Nav  │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Remote notice banner (provider status, dismissible)        │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                             │
│  Active page (AniList / Browse / Player / History / …)    │
│                                                             │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Notifications stack  ·  Watch Together setup dialog        │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

AniList workspace (default tab)¶

The AniList workspace bundles three sub-views:

Overview — your AniList profile, stats, achievements, and the 1200×630 profile card exporter.
Discover — trending, seasonal, and recommended anime.
Library — your full list across CURRENT, PLANNING, COMPLETED, PAUSED, DROPPED, REPEATING. Edit progress, score, and repeats from the inline controls.

Browse¶

The Browse tab is the catalog search surface. Pick a provider (Anikoto 1, Anikoto 2, AniDB.app, Desu, Docchi), choose sub or dub, and switch between compact-list and poster-grid layouts. The Docchi provider exposes an opt-in for adult entries; toggle it under Settings → Adult content.

Player¶

The Player page is opened whenever you select an anime. Controls include:

Source switcher (provider-specific servers, resolutions, subtitles).
Native HTML5 video or HLS.js playback (depending on what the provider returns).
Picture-in-picture, fullscreen, and an optional native browser video control overlay.
Resume from the local history (up to 100 entries).
Try torrent button on each title — opens the torrent source picker with the title prefilled.

History¶

Lists every anime you have watched with a resume timestamp. The page also handles legacy entries from the now-removed miruro provider: it prompts for an AniDB.app match and rewrites the entry in place.

Downloads¶

Shows the single-job download queue, the active target directory, and a Reveal action that opens the OS file manager at the resulting file.

Settings¶

Settings is a single long page split into themed sections. The exact section list is rendered from a config object; the available sections are documented below.

Settings reference¶

The Settings page is rendered from the sections config in src/pages/SettingsPage.tsx. The sections, in their on-screen order, are:

Section	What you can change
Language	English / Polski
Appearance → Accent color	Custom Material 3 accent
Appearance → Notification sounds	`off`, `important only`, `all`
Appearance → Safe graphics mode	Disable hardware acceleration
Search defaults	Default translation (`sub` / `dub`)
AniList → AniList-first search	Use AniList to seed catalog queries
AniList → Adult content opt-in	Allow Docchi adult entries
Player → Discord Rich Presence	Toggle, requires Discord Desktop
Downloads → Torrent streaming	Cache folder, cache limit, deletion, bandwidth, mpv path, privacy consent
Embedded players → Ad blocking	EasyList-only / uBlock presets, block known ad hosts
Updates	Check / download / install from GitHub releases

Each toggle writes through to the Electron main process via the IPC handlers documented on the Architecture page.

Keyboard shortcuts¶

AniPlay does not define a global keyboard shortcut layer — the BrowserWindow title bar uses the standard Windows / Linux controls and the renderer favours native HTML5 video controls (focusable media chrome). However, the following browser/Electron-level affordances always apply:

Shortcut	Effect
`F11`	Toggle fullscreen in the active BrowserWindow
`Esc`	Close the torrent source dialog, the Watch Together setup dialog, or any open modal
`Space`	Play / pause when a native video element has focus
`←` / `→`	Seek ±5 s in the native player (default Chromium media keys)
`Ctrl+R` / `Cmd+R`	Reload the renderer (dev builds only)
`Ctrl+Shift+I` / `Cmd+Opt+I`	Open DevTools (dev builds only)
Drag the title bar	Move the window
Double-click the title bar	Maximize / restore

The Watch Together setup dialog accepts Esc to cancel and closes itself once the room connects. The companion drawer can be collapsed with the Close room chat button.

Watch Together workflow¶

Start playing a direct HLS or progressive-MP4 source from any provider.
Click Watch Together in the header.
Create a room from the active player, or Join with a 10-character room code from an invite link (aniplay://watch/<code>).
Share the invite. Guests sign in to AniList, join the room, and resolve their own stream.
The host controls play / pause / seek / episode / sub-dub. If the host disappears for 10 seconds, control transfers to the longest-connected guest.

Privacy

Watch Together never sends media URLs, provider headers/cookies, watch history, or AniList OAuth tokens to the coordination worker. Guest volume, mute, subtitles, fullscreen, and picture-in-picture remain local.

Torrent workflow¶

Open any title in the player, click Try torrent.
Optionally fill in a season and episode.
Review the ranked Nyaa releases. Exact episode matches, trusted uploads, seed count, resolution, and codec influence the ordering. Batch releases surface a file picker.
Confirm the consent screen (peer-to-peer is opt-in).
Stream the selected file in AniPlay, or hand it off to mpv for MKV.

BitTorrent is peer-to-peer: other peers can see your public IP address, and AniPlay uploads pieces while a torrent session is active. You are responsible for following the laws and content licences applicable in your region.

Customizing the experience¶

Accent color — picked from the Material 3 color utilities; stored in renderer state and applied through Tailwind theme variables.
Notification sound level — off (silent), important only (updates and room events), all (every toast).
Safe graphics mode — disables GPU compositing; useful when running on a remote desktop, a virtual machine, or a host with broken drivers.
Ad blocking — strict presets can break fragile embeds; switch to EasyList-only if a provider stops loading.

Exporting data¶

Watch history — kept locally in Electron's user-data directory as viewing-events.v1.jsonl (append-only) and a rebuildable viewing-summary.v1.json aggregate. Both can be copied for backup.

Where data lives¶

AniPlay keeps application state in Electron's user-data directory. In a packaged Windows build this is normally under %APPDATA%\AniPlay.

Stored data includes:

Encrypted AniList authentication token, short-lived API cache, and playback mappings.
Download queue/history and the selected download directory.
Torrent consent and settings; cached torrent pieces are stored in the configured local cache directory.
Ad-block settings, remote-notice state, Discord setting, graphics setting, and synchronized cipher data.
An append-only viewing-events.v1.jsonl ledger and rebuildable viewing-summary.v1.json aggregate.
Renderer preferences and up to 100 resume-history entries in Chromium local storage.

Pre-built releases¶

AniPlay is published on GitHub Releases with Windows installer, Windows portable, Linux AppImage, and tar.gz artefacts. Every release carries SHA-256 checksums; see Installation → Pre-built releases for the exact filenames, sizes, hashes, and a curl/Invoke-RestMethod snippet that fetches them from the GitHub API.

Need historical artefacts (1.0 → 1.17.2)? Browse https://github.com/vorlie/AniPlayV2/releases.