Atrium — a native tvOS app for your Emby server

[Grumpy1 50]

3 hours ago, vdatanet said:

One thing from 1.8 that's easy to miss, because it ships switched off: there's a new look for the home screen, and you have to turn it on — Settings ▸ Home ▸ Enhanced home.

With it on, the header stays put and only the row strip below it scrolls. The background goes full screen and follows the focus: move down onto a row and the header becomes whatever card you're on — its name and details — with that card's artwork behind it. The strip shows just the focused row and pins it to the top, so the row title is always visible and you never get half of the next one creeping in. For an episode, the header is what tells you which one is waiting: series name on top, the episode below it, and the synopsis. Same idea for an album — artist on top, album underneath.

If it isn't for you, turn it off and you get the old home back exactly as it was: the featured title inside the scroll, every row on screen, and captions under the cards. Nothing else changes, so it costs you one toggle to try it.

I'd genuinely like to know which one you end up leaving on. That one isn't a bug I can find from here — it's a taste question, and the only people who can answer it are the ones looking at that screen every day.

I do leave it on ( was going to request something like this ) .

about the enhanced home , is it possible to have it pick random order from the lists ? right now it always shows the same 5 since i don't always get to the movies right away

 

[vdatanet 1710]

1 hour ago, Grumpy1 said:

I do leave it on ( was going to request something like this ) .

about the enhanced home , is it possible to have it pick random order from the lists ? right now it always shows the same 5 since i don't always get to the movies right away

 

Yes — and it's worth saying why it's the same five, because what's missing isn't really the shuffle, it's that the rule picking them never varies.

Those five slots are chosen once, when the app opens, and always the same way: first whatever you're part-way through, then the newest unwatched item from each of your libraries, one each, then an unwatched favourite. Nothing in that changes until you either watch something or add something to the server. So your case — not getting to the movies right away — is exactly the one where it can sit on the same five for days. That's a fair thing to complain about.

The good news is the pot is already on the device. Since 1.8 each library's row is loaded 128 items deep instead of 16, so taking one of those at random rather than the newest costs nothing extra: no new request, same data already in memory, just a different item off the same list. If you're curious how big that pot is on your server, Settings ▸ Home ▸ What's In It already shows an "eligible" count next to each source — that's the number a random pick would be drawing from.

Two rules I'd keep. Only items with a proper wide backdrop can go up there: a poster stretched across 1920 looks bad enough that I'd rather show one slot fewer, so "random" means random among those, not random across the whole library. And it should keep skipping what you've already watched, same as it does now.

One thing I'd not do is reshuffle while you're looking at it. That header is rebuilt every time you come back to Home from a title, so a naive random pick would put a different film at the top every single time you back out of something — and there's already been a bug reported on this thread about that screen not sitting still. The draw wants to happen once per launch: different every time you open the app, steady while you're inside it. That's the version I'd build.

It fits in the section that's already there, next to What's In It and Rotation. No date and no version number from me, as usual — but this one is cheap and I know exactly where it goes.

And thanks for the other half of your message. You're the first person to tell me they left the new home switched on, and that's the one question I genuinely can't answer from here.

[vdatanet 1710]

@Grumpy1

Both halves of your message turned into something, so here's the report.

The random pick is built. It's a switch in Settings ▸ Home, next to What's In It and Rotation, and it behaves the way I said it would: the draw happens once, when the app opens. A new five every launch, and it holds still while you're in there — back out of a title and the header is where you left it. Flipping the switch re-draws as well, so if you don't like the five you got, off and on hands you another set.

What it deliberately doesn't change: the first slot is still whatever you're part-way through, it still skips what you've already watched, and it still only draws titles that have a proper wide backdrop. And it draws from the whole row, not the first handful of it.

Your message also found a second thing, which you never reported. Going through that screen to answer you, I noticed my rows were in a fixed order — continue, libraries, recently added — no matter what the account was set to. Your server stores that order per user, and the app had simply never asked for it. It does now: put your libraries above continue watching and that's what you get, on the old home and the enhanced one alike.

Two limits on that, both on purpose. It's the order only — which rows exist is still the app's call, so an account with every section set to "none" doesn't open into a blank screen. And Live TV and recordings aren't rows here, they're tiles inside My Libraries, so those two can't be moved on their own.

One measured note for anyone else building against this, since it cost me a probe to find: that section list only comes back if you ask for it under the client name "emby". Ask under any other name and you get a 200 with an empty payload — which is a memorable way to conclude that a user has configured nothing.

No date and no version number from me. I'll say here when it's out.

[furnibird 7]

I have been using the android app for over a week now. Works great. I have all my arr stack added running through tailscale with zero issues. 

[vdatanet 1710]

56 minutes ago, furnibird said:

I have been using the android app for over a week now. Works great. I have all my arr stack added running through tailscale with zero issues. 

Just so nobody reading the thread gets the wrong idea: Atrium is Apple TV only. There's no Android
or Android TV build of it, and none planned — so the app that's been working well for you this past
week is a different one.

Glad you've got something running nicely, in any case.

[furnibird 7]

I assumed by the name it was the same.

https://github.com/retransmit/Atrium

[vdatanet 1710]

5 minutes ago, furnibird said:

I assumed by the name it was the same.

https://github.com/retransmit/Atrium

Ha — that explains it perfectly, and it's a fair assumption: same name, same courtyard. Opposite
ends of the setup, though — that one drives your *arr stack, this one just plays things on the TV.

[vdatanet 1710]

Atrium 1.9 is on the App Store, and it's the guide.

When Live TV landed I said the guide was the next thing I was building. Here it is: what's on now
and next, in a grid of hours. You enter by the channel and walk it with the remote: up and down
always change channel, right steps into the grid, and going down keeps you at the same hour.
Channels with no schedule are there too, in a slimmer row — on a broadcast list of 340 channels
only 97 send one.

Recordings come with it, inside Live TV: the lot in posters, the latest in a list. It's what your
recording folders hold: watching only, no scheduling.

If your tuner tags its channels you can filter by group. Sorting and favourites are in the guide
too, and remembered.

Also reported here: the two channel sort options both sorted by name. There are three now: default
order, channel number and name, and the number sorts as a number.

Sound: on a film with several audio tracks, the one you pick is the one you hear. And the audio and
subtitles sheet scrolls, so a long list of tracks isn't cut off.

Home follows the section order from your server, and the Live TV tile follows your Library order.
Also asked for here: the featured row can draw at random, a new five every time you open the app,
and it holds still while you're in there. In Settings ▸ Home, off until you turn it on.

Genre tiles are bigger, with the name underneath, and so is the letter in the alphabet bar. The
remote no longer stops on a title's plot text or skips past an actor's portrait.

As always: what's missing or wrong, say it here.

Edited yesterday at 04:21 PM by vdatanet

[arrbee99 1877]

The odd nitpick -

LIve TV / Channels / Guide, the first 2 have options for groups, but Guide doesn't ?

and now the big ones -

maybe the timebar should go all the way to the bottom, AND... going left to right in guide - TV channel, program, program, program...the gap between TV channel and first program is smaller than between program and program.

Sorting of channels is great now - thanks. And Genre artwork 

Collections - font is way to big. Also, going into a collection the screen jumps down a bit and it won't go back to the top again. Personally (not my program), I'd love it if you'd move everything down in collections, to just show the Collections text, maybe the collections poster, and lots of backdrop, which you don't use.

Any chance of option for highlight colour. I think its actually the lowlight - the blue one. Personally (not my program), I might make unselected stuff have no colour but with a white border (kind of the inverse of how selection works).

[vdatanet 1710]

Atrium 1.91 is on the App Store, and it's your list — all five of them.

Groups in the guide. Live TV and Channels had the filter and the Guide didn't, and it was worse
than it looked: the grid was already being filtered by whatever group you had picked in the other
view, with no way to see that from there or undo it. The pill is in the guide now, next to
favourites and sorting.

The gap before the first programme. You were right, it was zero — the spacing between programmes
comes from each block being drawn a little narrower, and the first one had nothing to be narrow
against. It matches the others now.

The timebar goes to the end of the grid. It stopped short before. It now runs from the hours down
to the last channel row, and no further: with six channels it used to carry on into empty black.

Collections. The screen no longer jumps when you open one, and you can always get back to the top —
that was a focus dead end, not a scrolling problem: there was nothing above the posters to move up
to. The page now looks like a film's: backdrop across the screen, title over it, the titles it
holds below, and the text at the size the rest of the app uses. Collections without their own
backdrop borrow one from a film inside. And you can mark a collection as a favourite.

The highlight colour, and this one is your design: unselected stuff has no colour, with a white
border. Selection stays white, and blue is now kept for what's actually switched on — watched,
favourites, the season you picked, the filters in use. Before, every button was blue, so the blue
said nothing.

One thing you asked that I could answer: the buttons looking different on your 1080p set wasn't the
resolution. Two Apple TVs, same tvOS, different generations — the system was drawing those buttons
and drew them differently on each. That's why they're drawn by the app now, and why they look the
same on both.

As always: what's missing or wrong, say it here.

[Grumpy1 50]

loving the updates

One suggestion on the continue watching (episodes). Not sure if the name of the show is needed along side the season and episode number , it is right above the logo so kinda just repeats it . infuse and even emby doesn't have it and think it looks better . Just my opinion  though

[arrbee99 1877]

Thanks very much for all the hard work. Looks great especially collections. Really like the way on a details page the backdrop will slide up and the separate layer of text, buttons etc slides over the top of that a bit faster.

Must admit though, especially for collections, it does get stuck scrolling if you just sit there on the Collections page and hold down the down arrow. After a while it gets stuck with the spinning circle (or Apple equivalent) while it tries I think to fill in all the collection posters it missed, or its loading the contents of the collections, or something.

[arrbee99 1877]

3 minutes ago, arrbee99 said:

Thanks very much for all the hard work. Looks great especially collections. Really like the way on a details page the backdrop will slide up and the separate layer of text, buttons etc slides over the top of that a bit faster.

Must admit though, especially for collections, it does get stuck scrolling if you just sit there on the Collections page and hold down the down arrow. After a while it gets stuck with the spinning circle (or Apple equivalent) while it tries I think to fill in all the collection posters it missed, or its loading the contents of the collections, or something.

- Thats with about 200 collections. Don't know if thats a very realistic test, but I guess I'm not the only one who'll do it.

[vdatanet 1710]

1 hour ago, arrbee99 said:

- Thats with about 200 collections. Don't know if thats a very realistic test, but I guess I'm not the only one who'll do it.

Thanks — and don't apologise for the test, it was a good one. It's worse than you thought, and it
isn't really about collections.

What was happening: every poster that scrolls past starts its own download, and they were all fired
at once. The system serves about six at a time, in the order they were asked for — so the poster
you stop on goes to the back of the queue, behind every one you just scrolled past. It isn't the
server and it isn't the network: it's the order.

I measured it here on a library of 124 collections — fewer than your 200. A single poster, cold,
takes 0.25s. The one you're actually looking at took 10.6s.

It now asks for at most six at a time and serves the most recent request first, so the one under
your thumb goes first. Same measurement: 0.13s for the one you're looking at, against 1.12s for
the whole lot to finish arriving.

The ones you scrolled past aren't thrown away, they just wait their turn.

And the part worth saying: this was never a collections problem. Any large grid had it — your movie
library too, you just never sat on the down arrow long enough to see it. So thanks for sitting on
it.

Not out yet. I'll say here when it is.

[vdatanet 1710]

3 hours ago, Grumpy1 said:

loving the updates

One suggestion on the continue watching (episodes). Not sure if the name of the show is needed along side the season and episode number , it is right above the logo so kinda just repeats it . infuse and even emby doesn't have it and think it looks better . Just my opinion  though

You were right, and it was more literal than it sounded: on an episode page the big title IS the
show's logo — when your server has one, we inherit it from the series — and we were also writing
the show's name as text right above it. Same name twice, one on top of the other.

It now reads: the show on top, and under it S1:E4 - Episode title. Nothing else.

One thing you couldn't have seen from your end: when a series has no logo, the big title used to be
the episode's name, so the page was laid out differently depending on what your server happened to
have. It's the show either way now, which is also what the cards and the Home spotlight have always
done.

It's fixed but not out yet. I'll say here when it is.