Gerbera UI

The Gerbera application provides a web browser user interface. When you launch the Gerbera application the system reports URL to the user interface. The interface is available for you to maintain your media library in Gerbera.

Enable/Disable

The Gerbera UI is enabled or disabled using the config.xml file.

<config>
  <server>
    <ui enabled="no" show-tooltips="yes">
      <accounts enabled="no" session-timeout="30">
        <account user="" password=""/>
      </accounts>
    </ui>
  </server>
</config>

When the Gerbera server starts successfully it reports the location of the web browser user interface

2018-01-28 17:05:28    INFO: The Web UI can be reached by following this link: http://127.0.0.1:49152/
Gerbera Home Page

Login/Logout

When the accounts section of the server configuration is enabled you can login to the UI with the associated user and password.

The UI supports entering the username and password in the top menu.

Note The system performs simple encoding of the password sent over HTTP to the Gerbera server. Do not consider the UI a completely secure data transmission.

Login username and password

If you choose to have the accounts disabled, then the UI automatically logs in and loads a new user session.

The menu is activated with successful login and you can choose from the following menu options:

Menubar Gerbera Home Page
  • Home

    Clears the view

  • Database

    Loads the Gerbera database

  • Filesystem

    Loads the local filesystem tree

  • Client

    Shows all connected clients

  • Config

    View and update Gerbera settings

  • Report an Issue

    Opens URL to Gerbera’s GitHub Issues

Features

The Gerbera web UI has several features to maintain your media.

  • Filesystem Items View

  • Database Items View

  • Clients View

  • Config View

  • Item Operations

  • Trail Operations

  • Notifications

Filesystem View

The filesystem view is accessible through the File System menu item. The filesystem view shows a folder tree representing the local filesystem. You can choose folders and items to add to your media library.

Filesystem view

You can add items to the database view, making them accessible to UPNP clients. A successful addition of a filesystem item results in that item being indexed and available in the Database view.

If the file is listed in “Database > PC Directory”, then Gerbera already knows about it, and clicking “add” does not do anything.

Database View

The database view is accessible through the Database menu item. The view represents the virtual layout of your media library. The database view displays a tree structure generated by the Gerbera import scripts. You can customize the database view structure by using the available scripts written using javascript (see Scripting).

You can maintain the database by removing items and editing existing items to manually keep your media library up to date.

List View

The list view offers full access to all modification commands.

Database view

Grid View

The small grid view is designed to display many items on one screen without scrolling. To avoid critical clicks, delete and edit actions are hidden.

Database view with small grid

Large Grid View

The large grid view is designed to display previews on items like images. To avoid critical clicks, delete and edit actions are hidden.

Database view with large grid

Clients View

The clients view is accessible through the Clients menu item. The view contains details on all clients that contacted the server. The second section contains statistics on the items played by the client groups.

Clients view

Config View

The config view is accessible through the Config menu item. The view contains the current gerbera settings.

Config view

You can switch between three different levels of details. Only expert´ mode gives you all config values and modification options. Be careful when changing values you do not fully understand. The server may fail to restart or become inaccessible. The new values are stored in Gerbera database and overwrite values from `config.xml.

Item Operations

The items list displays when a virtual item is selected in the database view tree. The UI supports the following item operations

  • Download Item

  • Edit Item

  • Delete Item

Item operations
  • Downloading the item retrieves the media directly from the Gerbera server.

  • Deleting the item removes it from the virtual Database View.

  • Editing the item updates the UPNP meta-data for the item.

Edit Item dialog Edit Item dialog with details

Item operations act upon existing database items. You can create new custom items using the Gerbera Trail.

PC Directory

When files are added to Gerbera, they first get added to “Database > PC Directory”. After that, virtual items are added in “Audio”, “Photos” or “Video”. The virtual items reference the entries inside “PC Directory”.

When deleting virtual items, only the virtual item itself is deleted. When deleting an item inside the “PC Directory” folder, all virtual items referencing this item are deleted.

After deleting an entry in the “PC Directory”, Gerbera does not know about the file anymore. It can be re-added in the “File System” view.

Edit Autoscan dialog Edit Autoscan dialog with details Edit Directory Tweaks dialog

Trail Operations

The Gerbera Trail shows the current database/filesystem path and provides a number of operations.

  • Add New Item

  • Add Autoscan

  • Add Tweak

  • Edit Container

  • Delete Container

  • Delete All

Trail operations Trail operations in Filesystem view Trail operations in Config view

The Gerbera Trail supports adding virtual item types including containers, items, internal urls, external urls. Adding an autoscan triggers the scan of a complete directory. Autoscan adds valid mime-type items to the Gerbera database. Edit and Delete of container removes the container. The Delete All icon removes a container and all sub-items from the Gerbera database.

Notifications

Gerbera runs all activities asynchronously. As you add content to the Gerbera database, the server scans and updates the items based on the media tagging. The Gerbera server reports busy activities to the UI in the form of 2 message bars.

  • Status Message

  • Task Message

The status message alerts upon operations to the server. The server reports success and failure messages to the status message bar at the bottom of the page.

Toast message

The task message bar is only visible when there is active processing on the Gerbera server. The active tasks display in the task message bar at the top of the page.

Task message