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Inorishio 192abe44ba research api next up is starting to write it

2026-05-01 11:22:38 +02:00

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Project Plan: Anime (Rust GUI)

A cross-platform (Arch Linux + Windows) GUI application for searching, browsing, and watching anime. Inspired by ani-cli.

Features

Core (MVP)

Search anime by name via the AllAnime GraphQL API
Display search results in a list
Select an anime and view its available episodes
Select an episode to play in the OS default media player
Watch history -- track what you've watched, resume from where you left off

Extended

Download episodes (mp4 direct download via reqwest, m3u8 via yt-dlp/ffmpeg subprocess)
Download progress bar
Sub/Dub toggle
Quality selection
Episode range selection for batch downloads

Tech Stack

GUI Framework

egui / eframe

Immediate-mode GPU-rendered GUI
Single binary, no runtime dependencies
Native look on both Linux and Windows
Easy to iterate on, good for list-based UIs

Crates

Crate	Version	Purpose
`eframe`	latest	Window management, OpenGL/wgpu backend for egui
`egui`	latest	Immediate-mode UI widgets (comes with eframe)
`reqwest`	latest	HTTP client for GraphQL API calls and mp4 downloads
`tokio`	latest	Async runtime (required by reqwest, keeps GUI responsive)
`serde`	latest	Serialization framework
`serde_json`	latest	JSON parsing for GraphQL responses
`open`	latest	Open video URL in OS default player (`xdg-open` on Linux, `start` on Windows)
`directories`	latest	Cross-platform paths for config/state (history file)
`anyhow`	latest	Ergonomic error handling with context
`indicatif`	latest	Progress bars for downloads (can integrate into egui)

Standard Library (no extra crate needed)

Module	Purpose
`std::process::Command`	Shell out to `yt-dlp` / `ffmpeg` for m3u8 downloads
`std::fs`	Read/write history file

External Tools (runtime, not compile-time)

Tool	Required?	Purpose
`mpv` / `vlc` / system default	Yes (any player)	Video playback
`yt-dlp`	For m3u8 downloads	HLS stream downloading
`ffmpeg`	Fallback for m3u8	HLS stream downloading (if yt-dlp unavailable)

Architecture

src/
├── main.rs              -- App entry, eframe::run_native() setup
├── app.rs               -- Main App struct implementing eframe::App
│                           Holds app state, routes between views
├── views/
│   ├── mod.rs
│   ├── search.rs        -- Search input + results list view
│   ├── episodes.rs      -- Episode list view for a selected anime
│   └── player.rs        -- "Now playing" view (current episode, next/prev controls)
├── api/
│   ├── mod.rs
│   ├── client.rs        -- Shared reqwest::Client setup (user-agent, referer)
│   ├── search.rs        -- search_anime() -- GraphQL search query
│   ├── episodes.rs      -- episodes_list() -- GraphQL episodes query
│   ├── sources.rs       -- get_episode_url() -- GraphQL embed query + provider decoding
│   ├── providers.rs     -- Provider-specific link extraction (wixmp, hianime, etc.)
│   └── cipher.rs        -- Hex substitution cipher for decoding provider URLs
├── download.rs          -- Download logic: direct mp4 via reqwest, m3u8 via subprocess
├── history.rs           -- Read/write watch history to local state file
└── player.rs            -- Launch video in OS default player via `open` crate

Data Flow

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                         GUI (egui)                           │
│                                                              │
│  ┌─────────┐    ┌────────────┐    ┌────────────────────┐    │
│  │ Search  │───>│  Episodes  │───>│  Play / Download   │    │
│  │  View   │    │    View    │    │       View         │    │
│  └─────────┘    └────────────┘    └────────────────────┘    │
│       │               │                  │         │        │
└───────┼───────────────┼──────────────────┼─────────┼────────┘
        │               │                  │         │
        v               v                  v         v
   search_anime()  episodes_list()  get_episode_url()│
        │               │                  │         │
        └───────┬───────┘                  │    ┌────┘
                v                          v    v
        AllAnime GraphQL API         ┌──────────────┐
        (api.allanime.day)           │   Playback   │
                                     ├──────────────┤
                                     │ open crate   │ -> OS default player
                                     │ reqwest      │ -> direct mp4 download
                                     │ yt-dlp/ffmpeg│ -> m3u8 download
                                     └──────────────┘

API Details

See ani-cli.md for full documentation of:

GraphQL queries and variables
Hex substitution cipher mapping
Provider-specific link extraction
Video source formats (mp4 vs m3u8)

Key Constants

const USER_AGENT: &str = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/121.0";
const ALLANIME_REFERER: &str = "https://allmanga.to";
const ALLANIME_API: &str = "https://api.allanime.day";
const ALLANIME_BASE: &str = "allanime.day";

History File

Linux: ~/.local/state/anime/history.json
Windows: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\anime\state\history.json
Resolved via the directories crate (ProjectDirs::from("", "", "anime"))

Format (JSON for easy serde):

[
  {
    "show_id": "abc123",
    "title": "Cyberpunk Edgerunners",
    "episode": "5",
    "mode": "sub",
    "last_watched": "2026-04-14T12:00:00Z"
  }
]

Download Strategy

Direct MP4 links

Use reqwest to stream the response body to a file
Show progress via content-length header + bytes received
No external tools needed

m3u8 / HLS streams

Shell out to yt-dlp (preferred) or ffmpeg (fallback) via std::process::Command
Pass referrer header as argument
Capture stdout/stderr for progress reporting
This avoids reimplementing HLS segment fetching, concatenation, and remuxing

Download directory

Default: current working directory (or configurable)
File naming: <anime_title> Episode <number>.mp4

Build Targets

Platform	Target Triple	Notes
Arch Linux	`x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu`	Primary dev target
Windows	`x86_64-pc-windows-msvc`	Cross-platform support

Both are tier 1 Rust targets with full support.

Implementation Order

Project setup -- Add dependencies to Cargo.toml, basic eframe window
API client -- reqwest client with correct headers, test connectivity
Cipher -- Implement hex substitution decoder
Search -- GraphQL search query, parse results
Episodes -- GraphQL episode list query, parse results
Sources -- GraphQL embed query, decode providers, extract video links
Playback -- Open video URL in default player via open crate
GUI: Search view -- Text input, results list, selection
GUI: Episodes view -- Episode list, selection, play button
GUI: Now playing view -- Current episode info, next/prev/replay controls
History -- Read/write history file, continue watching flow
Downloads -- Direct mp4 download, m3u8 via subprocess, progress reporting
Polish -- Error handling, loading states, quality selection, sub/dub toggle

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