Glucose_media_player

A brutally minimalist, cinematic media viewer

glucose is a modern media viewer that strips away complexity to deliver a pure, immersive viewing experience.

✨ Features

🎬 Cinematic Mode

Enjoy your media with a beautifully blurred background and centered content for truly immersive viewing.

🖼️ Universal Media Support

• Videos: MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV, WebM, WMV, FLV, M4V
• Subtitles: SRT, VTT, ASS, SSA, SUB
• Images: JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, BMP, SVG, AVIF, HEIC, HEIF

🎯 Minimal by Design

No clutter, no distractions. Just your content and elegant controls that appear when you need them.

⚡ Blazingly Fast

Built with Rust and Tauri for native performance with a tiny footprint.

🎮 Keyboard-First

Complete keyboard navigation for power users who value efficiency.

📂 Smart Gallery

Automatically scans and displays your recent videos in a beautiful grid layout.

🎨 Modern Interface

• Frameless, transparent window design
• Smooth animations and transitions
• Audio output device selection
• Volume control with visual feedback
• Timeline scrubbing with video preview
• Fullscreen and cinematic viewing modes

📥 Installation

Pre-built Binaries

Download the latest release for your platform:

• Windows: glucose_0.2.0_x64_en-US.msi or .exe
• macOS: glucose_0.2.0_universal.dmg
• Linux: glucose_0.2.0_amd64.deb or glucose_0.2.0_amd64.AppImage

Build from Source

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18 or later)
• pnpm (recommended) or npm
• Rust (latest stable)
• Platform-specific requirements:
  • Windows: Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Build Tools
  • macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools
  • Linux: libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev, build-essential, curl, wget, file, libssl-dev, libayatana-appindicator3-dev, librsvg2-dev

Building

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/rudi-q/glucose-media-player.git
cd glucose

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Run in development mode
pnpm tauri:dev

# Build for production
pnpm tauri:build

The built application will be available in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/.

🚀 Usage

Opening Media Files

glucose offers three convenient ways to open your media:

1. Drag & Drop — Simply drag a video or image file into the glucose window
2. File Dialog — Click the "Open Video" button in the gallery screen
3. File Association — Set glucose as your default media player and open files directly from your file explorer
4. Recent Gallery — Browse and play recently accessed videos from the home screen

Keyboard Shortcuts

Playback Controls (Video Mode)

Navigation

Advanced Features

• Subtitle Support:
  • Automatically loads .srt files in the same folder as the video
  • Manually load subtitle files from anywhere
  • Toggle subtitles on/off during playback (C/S keys)
• Timeline Scrubbing: Hover over the progress bar to see video preview thumbnails
• Audio Device Selection: Click the audio device icon to switch between output devices
• Volume Popup: Click the volume icon for a vertical volume slider
• Cinematic Mode: Enjoy videos with an elegant blurred background
• Fullscreen Mode: Press F to toggle fullscreen for maximum immersion

🛠️ Development

Project Structure

glucose/
├── src/                    # SvelteKit frontend
│   ├── routes/
│   │   └── +page.svelte   # Main application component
│   └── app.html           # HTML template
├── src-tauri/             # Rust backend
│   ├── src/
│   │   └── lib.rs         # Tauri commands and logic
│   ├── Cargo.toml         # Rust dependencies
│   └── tauri.conf.json    # Tauri configuration
├── static/                # Static assets
└── package.json           # Node.js dependencies

Available Scripts

# Development
pnpm dev              # Start Vite dev server
pnpm tauri:dev        # Start Tauri in dev mode with hot reload

# Code Quality
pnpm check            # Type-check Svelte/TypeScript code
pnpm check:watch      # Type-check in watch mode
pnpm tauri:check      # Check Rust code (cargo check)

# Building
pnpm build            # Build frontend only
pnpm tauri:build      # Build complete application
pnpm preview          # Preview production build locally

Tech Stack

Frontend

• Svelte 5 — Reactive UI framework with runes
• SvelteKit — Application framework
• TypeScript — Type-safe JavaScript
• Vite — Lightning-fast build tool
• Pure CSS — Custom brutalist/minimal styling

Backend

• Rust — Systems programming language
• Tauri v2 — Native desktop framework
• Plugins:
  • tauri-plugin-opener — Opening files and URLs
  • tauri-plugin-dialog — Native file dialogs
  • tauri-plugin-process — Process management

Contributing

Contributing guidelines coming soon.

🎨 Design Philosophy

glucose embraces brutal minimalism:

• Content First: The media is the star. UI elements fade away when not needed.
• Performance: Native performance with minimal resource usage.
• Transparency: Literally — frameless, transparent windows that blend with your desktop.
• Efficiency: Keyboard shortcuts for everything. Mouse is optional.
• Beauty in Simplicity: No unnecessary features. Every element serves a purpose.

🐛 Known Issues

• Image playback controls (play/pause, timeline) are inherited from video mode but not applicable to static images
• Recent gallery only displays videos, not images
• Some HEIC/HEIF images may not display depending on browser codec support

📋 Roadmap

• Playlist support for sequential playback
• Image-specific controls and transitions
• Image gallery with thumbnail view
• Slideshow mode for images
• Subtitle support for videos (SRT, VTT, ASS, SSA, SUB)
• Custom keyboard shortcut configuration
• Multiple window support
• Folder watching and auto-refresh
• Video playback speed controls
• Chapter markers support

📄 License

Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL-2.0)

This Source Code Form is subject to the terms of the Mozilla Public License, v. 2.0. If a copy of the MPL was not distributed with this file, You can obtain one at https://mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/.

Copyright (c) 2025 glucose

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Built with Tauri and Svelte
• Inspired by minimalist design principles
• Thanks to all contributors and users

📞 Support

• Issues: GitHub Issues
• Discussions: GitHub Discussions