PiraChest Beta 0.1.0

A major overhaul of PiraChest focused on making the app faster, more polished, more customizable, easier to use, and much more stable.

New

Home

• Added a new Home page.
• Added a central starting point for discovering content and accessing the main parts of PiraChest.
• Improved navigation and page organization throughout the app.

Global Search

• Added Sailseek, a fast global search system.
• Search across the content and functionality PiraChest offers from one compact interface.
• Search and quickly access movies, shows, games, music, anime, manga, settings, and more.
• Added a customizable keyboard shortcut for opening Sailseek.
• Compact result cards provide relevant metadata such as artwork, name, source, and date where available.

Picture-in-Picture

• Added Picture-in-Picture support to the video player.
• The PiP window can stay above other windows.
• Added controls for enabling/disabling PiP behavior.

Video Playback

• Added movie and TV playback.
• Added Watch Later support for movies and shows.
• Improved the overall playback experience.
• Anime playback continues to work alongside the newer movie and TV playback systems.
• Anime now includes discovery functionality.
• AniPub is the default anime streamer.

Downloads

• Added and unified the dedicated Download page.
• Improved download management and presentation.
• Improved download controls and download-related interactions.
• Added more consistent download state handling throughout the application.

Settings Backup & Restore

• Added the ability to back up PiraChest settings.
• Added settings restoration.
• Makes moving or recovering a PiraChest configuration significantly easier.

Updates

• Improved the update system.
• Update dialogs now show changelogs before an update is accepted.
• Added a Don't Show Again option.
• Added a proper cancellation option.
• Updates preserve existing settings and downloaded content.

RSS

• Added RSS checking.
• Allows PiraChest to check supported RSS sources for updates/content.

Context Menus

• Added context menus across many parts of the application.
• Provides quicker access to relevant actions without requiring users to navigate through the interface.

Keyboard Navigation

• Added broader keyboard navigation.
• Added customizable keyboard shortcuts.
• Improved keyboard accessibility throughout the interface.

Customization

Themes

• Completely expanded the customization system.
• Added highly extensible custom themes.
• Themes can support:
  • Custom colors
  • Custom interface properties
  • Custom icons
  • Images
  • GIFs
  • Videos
  • GPU shaders
  • Custom title bars
  • Additional theme-specific settings
• Added theme-specific settings that appear when a theme provides configurable properties.
• Themes can independently control their appearance instead of being restricted to the global accent color.
• Added support for themes following the user's accent color when desired.
• Added more control over sizing and other interface properties.
• Improved theme loading and switching.
• Fixed issues where switching to shader-based themes could incorrectly close and reopen the application.

Backgrounds

• Added customizable application backgrounds.
• Supports photos, GIFs, and videos.
• Added blur and darkness controls for backgrounds.

Interface

• All major page interfaces were remade and refined.
• Improved consistency between pages.
• Improved title bar design.
• Added donation and Discord buttons directly to the title bar.
• Expanded settings organization.
• Split Settings and About into their own modules for better maintainability.
• Added expandable settings sections.
• Added toggleable page tabs.
• Added more polished dialogs, cards, controls, and empty states.

Subtitles

• Added customizable subtitle settings.
• Improved subtitle configuration and presentation.

Donations

• Redesigned the donation dialog.
• Added multiple donation options.
• Added clearer donation information.
• Added donation access directly from the title bar.

Performance & Stability

Core Improvements

• Major internal performance overhaul.
• Broad improvements across caching, artwork rendering, threading, and other core systems.
• Reduced unnecessary work during navigation.
• Improved resource handling throughout the application.
• Improved page loading and switching.
• Reduced unnecessary repeated operations.

Rendering

• Optimized grid rendering.
• Improved artwork loading and caching.
• Reduced unnecessary artwork processing.
• Improved performance when dealing with large collections.
• Added list views to pages where large grids are inefficient.

Memory & CPU

• Reduced unnecessary memory usage.
• Improved CPU efficiency.
• Improved threading across the application.
• Reduced freezes and UI stalls.
• Improved behavior on lower-end systems.
• Improved cleanup of temporary and no-longer-needed application state.

Stability

• Major stability improvements across the application.
• Fixed crashes and issues caused by rapidly switching between pages.
• Improved handling of background operations.
• Improved error handling and recovery.
• Reduced situations where the UI could become unresponsive.

Page Improvements

Movies & TV

• Added movie and TV playback.
• Added Watch Later.
• Improved discovery and browsing.
• Improved metadata presentation.

Anime

• Improved anime browsing.
• Added anime discovery.
• Improved playback integration.
• AniPub is now the default streamer.

Manga

• Continued development and refinement of the existing manga functionality.
• Improved browsing and presentation.

Music

• Continued improvements to music browsing and playback.
• Improved player integration.
• Improved lyrics customization.

PC Games

• Improved the PC games/repack experience.
• Improved page performance and rendering.
• Added toggleable page access through the navigation system.

Downloads

• Continued improvements to the unified download experience.
• Improved controls, navigation, and presentation.

Navigation & Usability

• Added customizable page tabs.
• Added keyboard controls throughout the app.
• Added customizable shortcuts.
• Added context menus across many pages.
• Improved navigation consistency.
• Improved onboarding.
• Improved settings organization.
• Improved dialogs and notifications.
• Improved toasts throughout the application.
• Improved page transitions and general responsiveness.

Onboarding

• Completely revamped onboarding.
• Improved first-launch setup.
• Improved configuration flow.
• Reduced unnecessary work after onboarding is completed.
• Improved cleanup of onboarding resources after they are no longer needed.

Experimental Features

Added an Experimental settings category containing features that are still being tested:

• Experimental install-on-download.
• Experimental theme maker.
• Other experimental functionality that may change or be removed before stable release.

Debrid

WIP / Testing

• Added initial Debrid integration work.
• Debrid support is currently unfinished and requires testing.
• Functionality may change significantly during the beta.
• Some providers, links, downloads, or playback scenarios may not work correctly yet.
• Feedback and testing are needed before this can be considered stable.

Localization

• Added Russian.
• Added Dutch.
• Continued improvements to the localization system.

Other Improvements

• Improved the overall visual polish of PiraChest.
• Improved page consistency.
• Improved loading behavior.
• Improved error handling.
• Improved internal architecture.
• Improved caching and resource management.
• Improved responsiveness throughout the application.
• Numerous smaller fixes and refinements across the app.

Beta Notes

This beta represents a substantial step toward the first stable release of PiraChest.

A lot of the work is not immediately visible: navigation, caching, threading, rendering, resource management, stability, and internal architecture have all received significant improvements.

Some features remain experimental or unfinished, particularly Debrid support, and may change as testing continues.

PiraChest is still being actively developed, so bugs are expected during the beta.

Download the ZIP, extract it, and run PiraChest.exe.
The .sha256 file contains the checksum used by the built-in updater.