arsfeld/reel v0.4.0

v0.4.0 - Reactive Architecture & SeaORM Migration

on GitHub

🎉 Major Architectural Overhaul

This release introduces a complete rewrite of Reel's core architecture, migrating from a basic cache system to a production-ready reactive architecture with SeaORM. With over 26,000 lines added and 8,000 lines refactored, this is our biggest update yet.

🏗️ Core Architecture Changes

SeaORM Database Layer

• Replaced the crude caching system with proper SeaORM entities and repositories
• Type-safe database operations with structured migrations
• Three-tier caching strategy: Memory (LRU) → SQLite → Backend API
• Proper relationship handling between entities

Reactive Event System

• Central EventBus using Tokio channels for system-wide event broadcasting
• Event-driven ViewModels with observable properties
• Incremental UI updates during sync operations (no more full refreshes)
• Debounced refresh to prevent UI flicker

✨ New Features & Improvements

Authentication Flow

• 🎯 Visual progress indicators for Plex and Jellyfin authentication
• ✅ Success confirmation pages with status messages
• 🔄 Better error handling and recovery

Performance Boosts

• ⚡ Major UI performance improvements across the board
• 🚀 Background loading service with pagination and progress reporting
• 🔄 Synchronous property access for snappier UI responses
• 🎨 Increased image loader concurrency for faster thumbnail loading
• 📝 Virtual scrolling infrastructure (experimental, disabled by default)

Video & Playback

• 🎮 Experimental video upscaling shader support (needs more testing)
• 📺 Improved video widget handling in player
• 🖼️ Better aspect ratio management

Multi-Platform Groundwork

• 🖥️ Platform abstraction layer for future macOS support
• 📁 Cross-platform config path handling
• 🎯 Modular GTK implementation

🔄 Technical Improvements

• Direct media retrieval by source and backend ID
• Optimized logging (moved sync operations from info to trace)
• Better multi-backend coordination
• Modernized PlayerViewModel with cleaner state management
• Comprehensive test updates using Config and EventBus
• Major code cleanup and removal of dead code

⚠️ Breaking Changes

ID Format Change

Domain model IDs now use the full cache key format:

• Before: item_id
• After: backend_id:library_id:type:item_id

If you have any scripts or integrations, you'll need to update them to handle the new ID format. Split on ':' to extract individual components.

📊 By The Numbers

• Commits: 25 since v0.3.0
• Files changed: 121
• Lines added: 26,857
• Lines removed: 8,080
• Architecture migration: ~75% complete

📦 Installation

Package Managers

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo dpkg -i reel-v0.4.0-amd64.deb

# Fedora/RHEL
sudo rpm -i reel-v0.4.0-x86_64.rpm

# AppImage
chmod +x reel-v0.4.0-x86_64.AppImage
./Reel-0.4.0.AppImage

From Source

nix develop
cargo build --release

📝 Full Changelog

See the complete diff for all changes.

Note: This is a major architectural release focusing on infrastructure improvements. While the UI should feel significantly snappier, some experimental features (virtual scrolling, video upscaling) are still being refined.