Aurora Curator

A fast, cross-platform media renamer — a ground-up rewrite of FileBot (via its FB-Mod fork), built from scratch as its own project: new stack, new architecture, new branding.

Status: early scaffold, but the core loop works end to end. The naming-expression engine is ported and tested, the faithfully-recreated two-pane UI is wired to real native file/folder loading and drag-and-drop, local filename-based season/episode and movie title/year detection ("Match") is working, real online metadata lookups ("Fetch Data") are working for both TV episodes and movies — including fuzzy title disambiguation, so a search that returns several similarly-named results doesn't just take the source's top-ranked hit. TV episodes can resolve against TMDB, TVmaze, or OMDb, and movies against TMDB or OMDb — each picked independently in Fetch Data Settings, TMDB stays the default for both, TVmaze needs no API token at all (it has no movie catalog, so it's TV-only), and TMDB/OMDb each need their own free saved credential before a batch resolved against them will succeed. The actual on-disk operation is wired up (with a confirmation step showing the full old-path/new-path plan before anything touches disk, a per-row ✕ to drop an individual file from that plan at the last step, a Move/Copy/ Symlink selector for what to actually do at each target, and — independently — a Skip/ Auto-number/Override selector for what happens when the computed name already exists: leave it alone (the original, and still default, behavior), save alongside it as "Name (1).ext", or replace it outright). It can also organize files into subfolders — including ones that don't exist yet — when the naming scheme includes a /. Every completed batch is logged to a history panel that can undo it (moving files back for Move, or just removing what was created for Copy/Symlink — undoing always uses its own skip-on-conflict policy regardless of what the original rename used, so an undo can never overwrite something else as a side effect). A single loaded batch can freely mix TV episodes and movies — each file only fills in the fields that apply to it. "Match" also parses release-tag text straight out of the filename — resolution, source (BluRay/HDTV/WEB-DL/…), video/audio codec, release group — so naming schemes can reference {resolution}/{source}/{video codec}/{audio codec}/{release group} (or FileBot's own {vf}/{source}/{vc}/{ac}/{group}), and now also probes each file's own container header for its real resolution, frame rate, duration, and codecs — no ffmpeg/MediaInfo dependency required — filling in {resolution}/ {video codec}/{audio codec} whenever the filename itself didn't already carry that tag, plus {width}/{height}/{fps}/{duration}/{file size}, which have no filename-tag equivalent at all; see "Real media-file probing" below. The Align Up/Down buttons reorder the (shared) file list — the two panes always stay positionally paired — and up to 9 naming schemes can be saved as presets, recalled with a click or a 1-9 keypress (persisted locally, same pattern as Settings/History). The app can also be driven entirely from the command line — aurora-curator -rename --format "<naming scheme>" [options] <file-or-folder>... — for scripting batch renames without opening the window at all; see "Command-line usage" below. A new Subtitles panel searches and downloads subtitle files from OpenSubtitles — load a video, its title/season/episode (or movie title/year) auto-fills from the same local matching "Match" uses, pick a result, and the subtitle is saved right next to the video ready for any player to pick up automatically; see "Subtitles" below. A new Episodes panel searches a series by name and browses a full season's episode list — episode number, title, air date — using whichever TV source (TMDB/TVmaze/OMDb) is already configured in Fetch Data Settings, no separate credentials needed; see "Episodes" below. A new SFV panel computes and verifies CRC32/MD5/SHA1 checksums for a loaded set of files, and reads and writes the classic .sfv/.md5/.sha1 sidecar-file formats — entirely local, no network access or credentials of any kind; see "SFV" below. A new Filter panel loads a batch of files and narrows it down by extension, TV/Movie/Unmatched kind, filename text, and (for TV) season — all computed from the same local, filename-only matching "Match" uses, with a Copy File Paths export for whatever's left; see "Filter" below. A new List panel renders a user-editable naming-scheme-style expression per loaded file (the same { } syntax and render_expression engine the Rename panel's live preview uses, fed by the same local matching "Match"/Filter use), with a live "N of M lines rendered" count, a Copy List clipboard export, and an Export to File… button that writes the whole list to a .txt file via a native Save dialog — this closes out the full original panel set (Rename/ Episodes/Subtitles/SFV/Filter/List); see "List" below. Real media-file probing (real resolution, frame rate, duration, and codecs read straight from a video file's own container header, not guessed from its filename) is wired into the Rename panel's "Match" step, and now the Filter and List panels' own local scans too — Filter gained Resolution/Video codec filter chips from it, and List's expressions can reference the same probed fields — see "Real media-file probing" below. The naming-expression engine's Rhai scripting layer also gained a batch of FileBot-style string helpers — .pad(), .sort_name()/.sort_initial(), .upper_initial()/.lower_initial(), .acronym(), .validate_file_name(), .space()/.space_with(), .colon()/.colon_with() — callable inside any { } naming-scheme expression, e.g. {n.sort_name()}/S{s.pad(2)}E{e.pad(2)}; see "Porting roadmap" below.

The naming scheme is fully user-editable from the app (the "Naming Scheme" button next to the New Names list) — the default is {show name} - {season number}x{episode number} - {episode name}, but it's just a starting point, not a fixed template. Plain, human-readable, multi-word field names like {show name} work directly (no Rhai knowledge needed), FileBot's own short field names ({n}, {s00e00}, {t}) still work side by side with them, and real Rhai script is available for anyone who wants it (e.g. {show name.to_upper()}). See "Naming scheme syntax" below for how that's implemented. Every field name shown in the editor is also a clickable button — click one to insert it at the cursor instead of typing it out by hand. Whatever's currently in the editor is saved to disk as you type (debounced) and restored the next time the app opens, so a custom scheme survives a restart instead of resetting to the sample expression above; the 1-9 preset slots (a separate, explicitly-named save) are still there alongside this for switching between several schemes on purpose.

Why a rewrite, and why this stack

The original is a ~20k+ line Java/Swing app built with Ant. The goals were: faster startup and UI, faster matching/renaming, a codebase that's actually pleasant to work in, and a genuine rebrand — not a coat of paint.

Aurora Curator is Tauri: a Rust core (crates/aurora-curator-core, src-tauri) plus a TypeScript/React frontend (src), compiled to a small native binary per platform (Windows/macOS/Linux) with a system webview instead of shipping a bundled browser engine. That's the concrete "faster" win over both the original JVM/Swing app and an Electron-style rewrite: quick cold start, small binary, real OS-native windowing.

An earlier attempt used Kotlin + Compose Multiplatform to stay on the JVM and reuse FileBot's Java logic directly. That was abandoned (nothing was salvaged into this repo) after discovering the sandbox this was originally built in blocks Maven Central and the Gradle Plugin Portal, making it impossible to compile or test. Tauri was chosen as the replacement because both halves — Cargo via crates.io, npm via the public npm registry — are reachable, so every piece described as "done" below is actually compiled/tested, not just written and hoped for.

Compatibility notes

Goal: keep CLI flags, config file locations, and the outer { } naming-scheme template syntax compatible with FileBot conventions, so existing automation mostly keeps working.

One deliberate gap: FileBot's { } expressions ran arbitrary Groovy code (JVM-only). Aurora Curator's Rust core has no Groovy engine, so expressions are evaluated with Rhai instead. Simple bindings ({n}, {s00e00}, {t}) are identical. More complex chained-method expressions will need small syntax tweaks (e.g. Groovy's .toUpperCase() → Rhai's .to_upper()) — Rhai already ships most of the common string/array methods FileBot's expression helpers wrapped, so most patterns translate directly.

Naming scheme syntax

Every { } token in an expression is resolved in this order (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/format/expression.rs::compile_scriptlet):

1. A single bare identifier ({n}, {season}) is a direct binding lookup — the fast path, and how FileBot's own short field names keep working unmodified.
2. Otherwise it's compiled as Rhai script ({n.to_upper()}, {n + " " + t}) — real code, with every current binding available as a script variable.
3. If it's neither a valid identifier nor valid Rhai, but it still only contains letters, digits, underscores and spaces (e.g. {show name}, {episode number}), it falls back to a literal multi-word binding key instead of raising a syntax error — this is what lets a human-typed field name with spaces work as a plain lookup without anyone needing to know Rhai. Anything that isn't a plausible field name (stray punctuation, unmatched brackets, etc.) still surfaces as a real syntax error at that point, exactly as before.

An undefined binding contributes an empty string rather than failing outright (so {n}{missing} still renders); the overall expression only errors if the total rendered output would be empty.

/ between two { } scriptlets (or anywhere in the literal text) needs no special handling in the expression engine at all — it's just ordinary literal text, the same as a space or a dash. It only becomes meaningful one layer up, at rename time (see "Organizing into subfolders" below): a scheme like {show name}/{episode name} renders to a name containing a real /, and the rename engine treats that as "put this file in a subfolder" rather than rejecting it.

Organizing into subfolders

A naming scheme that includes / (e.g. {show name}/Season {season number}/{episode number} - {episode name}) moves the file into that subfolder as part of renaming, creating any missing intermediate folders automatically (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/rename/mod.rs::rename_one → fs::create_dir_all). This is still always scoped to the file's own directory tree — the target is resolved relative to the source file's parent directory, never as an absolute path, and every path component is validated (validate_relative_target) to reject empty segments (a leading, trailing, or doubled / — which also catches an absolute-looking /etc/passwd-style path), ./.. segments, and backslashes (Aurora Curator always uses / for the naming scheme's folder separator regardless of OS). If the resolved target already exists and isn't the same underlying file, what happens next is up to the chosen conflict policy — Skip (default), Auto-number, or Override; see item 6 of the porting roadmap below for the full behavior of each.

Project layout

crates/aurora-curator-core/   Pure Rust core: naming-expression engine (ported), local
                       filename-based season/episode *and movie title/year* matching
                       (ported, `matching/`), plus filename-based release-tag parsing in
                       the same module (`guess_release_info` — resolution, source, video/
                       audio codec, release group), text-similarity scoring for
                       disambiguating search results (`similarity/`, partial
                       `EpisodeMetrics` port), three web metadata clients — `web/tmdb.rs`
                       (TV search + episode lookup and movie search + lookup),
                       `web/tvmaze.rs` (TV search + episode lookup only — TVmaze has no
                       movie catalog, and no API key/auth at all), and `web/omdb.rs` (TV
                       *and* movie search + lookup, single flat root-URL REST API, plain
                       `apikey` query-param auth rather than TMDB's Bearer token) — all
                       three disambiguated via
                       `similarity/` and tested against a mocked HTTP server via
                       `mockito`, plus a fourth web client that isn't a metadata
                       lookup at all — `web/opensubtitles.rs` (search + login +
                       download against OpenSubtitles' REST API; search only needs an
                       app-level API key, download additionally needs the end user's own
                       account login, since downloads are quota-limited per account —
                       see "Subtitles" below). The Episodes panel adds no new core-crate
                       code of its own — it reuses `metadata::AnyTvClient::fetch_season`
                       (the same season-resolving call `AnyTvClient` already made available
                       to "Fetch Data" and the CLI) from the Tauri side, so `web/tmdb.rs`/
                       `tvmaze.rs`/`omdb.rs`'s existing season-episode-list methods are
                       exactly what it browses. `sfv/` computes CRC32/MD5/SHA1 checksums
                       (streamed in 64KB chunks so large video files aren't loaded whole
                       into memory) and parses/builds both sidecar-file conventions the
                       SFV panel supports — the traditional `.sfv` layout (CRC32 only,
                       `<name> <checksum>` per line) and the GNU coreutils
                       `md5sum`/`sha1sum` layout (`<checksum>  <name>`) used for `.md5`/
                       `.sha1` — dispatched on a shared `ChecksumKind` enum, plus
                       entry-verification against real files on disk (`Ok`/`Mismatch`/
                       `Missing` per entry). No network access, no credentials — entirely
                       local, unlike every other panel added this session. The on-disk
                       rename engine (`rename/` — Move/Copy/Symlink actions,
                       Skip/Auto-number/Override conflict policies, can also organize
                       into (auto-created) subfolders when
                       the naming scheme includes `/`), a rename history/undo log
                       (`history/`, a partial `HistoryDialog` port, undo-aware of which
                       action produced each batch), pure `-rename` command-line
                       argument parsing/file expansion (`cli/` — no Tauri or network
                       dependency at all, see "Command-line usage" below), and real
                       media-file container probing (`probe/` — real resolution, frame
                       rate, duration, and codecs read straight from a video file's own
                       header via two pure-Rust container parsers, the `mp4` crate for
                       ISO-BMFF containers and the `matroska` crate for EBML/Matroska
                       containers, no ffmpeg/MediaInfo system dependency; see "Real
                       media-file probing" below). Not yet ported: other web datasource
                       clients (TheTVDB/AniDB/etc), and everything MediaBindingBean
                       derives that neither a filename tag nor `probe/`'s two supported
                       container families can provide (other containers like .avi/.wmv,
                       audio-only metadata like bitrate/sample rate). No Tauri
                       dependency, so it builds and unit-tests standalone.
src-tauri/             Tauri app shell: exposes aurora-curator-core as commands to the frontend
                       (naming-scheme rendering, filename matching for both TV and
                       movies, metadata fetch — `metadata.rs` for TV episodes (against
                       whichever of TMDB/TVmaze/OMDb is the stored TV source) plus a
                       movie-fetch command alongside it (against whichever of TMDB/OMDb
                       is the stored movie source — independent of the TV source)
                       — executing a rename
                       plan, native file/folder dialogs, drag-and-drop expansion), plus
                       `settings.rs` (TMDB token, OMDb API key, OpenSubtitles API key +
                       account login, and which TV *and* movie
                       metadata source Fetch Data uses — independent settings; the
                       OpenSubtitles password is the one credential this module never
                       returns to the frontend, only whether one is saved),
                       `subtitles.rs` (search/download commands wrapping
                       `aurora-curator-core::web::opensubtitles`, saving a downloaded
                       subtitle right next to its video file), `episodes.rs` (the
                       `browse_episodes` command backing the Episodes panel — series
                       search + one season's episode list, via a `build_tv_client` helper
                       now shared with `metadata.rs`'s `fetch_metadata`, so both read the
                       same stored TV-source setting and credential), `sfv.rs` (three
                       commands backing the SFV panel — `compute_checksums` over a batch
                       of loaded files with per-file error isolation, `save_checksum_file`
                       via a native "Save File" dialog, and `verify_checksum_file`, which
                       reads and parses a picked `.sfv`/`.md5`/`.sha1` file and resolves
                       each entry's bare filename relative to that file's own parent
                       directory — all wrapping `aurora-curator-core::sfv`, which does the
                       actual algorithm/format work),
                       `history.rs` (rename history/undo
                       log), `presets.rs` (up to 9 saved naming schemes) — all three
                       stored as JSON in the OS app-config directory — `list.rs` (a
                       single `export_text_list` command backing the List panel's Export
                       to File… button: opens a native "Save File" dialog and writes
                       whatever already-rendered, newline-joined text the frontend hands
                       it to a `.txt` file — the only new Tauri surface List needed, since
                       matching each file and rendering its line both reuse existing
                       commands, see below), `probe.rs` (a single `probe_media_files`
                       command backing real media probing in the Rename panel's Match
                       step: batch-probes every loaded file's real container header off
                       the main thread, wrapping `aurora-curator-core::probe` — see "Real
                       media-file probing" below) — `cli.rs` (the
                       `-rename` command-line mode's orchestration: builds and executes a
                       rename plan against `aurora-curator-core::cli`'s parsed arguments,
                       with no Tauri `App`/window ever created for it — `main.rs` branches
                       to it before the GUI is touched at all), and app
                       metadata/icons/window config (tauri.conf.json).
src/                   React + TypeScript UI (Vite). Faithful recreation of the original
                       two-pane rename screen (Aurora theme) wired to real file loading,
                       drag-and-drop, live naming-scheme preview, local TV/movie
                       matching, real media-file probing (`probe_media_files`, batched
                       alongside the local matching calls in `RenamePanel.tsx`'s
                       `runMatching`), metadata fetch for both (behind a Fetch Data Settings
                       modal holding independent TV-source (TMDB/TVmaze/OMDb) and
                       movie-source (TMDB/OMDb) pickers plus the TMDB token and OMDb key
                       inputs), a
                       confirm-before-touching-disk modal for the actual
                       rename, a History panel that can undo a past rename, Align Up/Down
                       list reordering, and a Presets panel (plus `1`-`9` hotkeys) for
                       saved naming schemes. `SubtitlesPanel.tsx` is a separate top-level
                       panel (its own Subtitle Settings modal, its own credential state)
                       reached from the sidebar's "Subtitles" entry — the first sidebar
                       entry besides Rename to be a real screen rather than a stub.
                       `EpisodesPanel.tsx` is the second: a series-search + season-browse
                       screen with no settings modal of its own at all — it deliberately
                       has no separate credentials UI, reading whatever TV source/token
                       Fetch Data Settings (in the Rename panel) already has saved.
                       `SfvPanel.tsx` is the third: load a set of files, compute
                       checksums in any of CRC32/MD5/SHA1, save them as a sidecar
                       checksum file via a native Save dialog, or pick an existing
                       checksum file and verify the files it lists against what's
                       actually on disk (OK/mismatch/missing per entry) — no settings
                       modal at all, since the feature needs no credentials or network
                       access. `FilterPanel.tsx` is the fourth: load a set of files and
                       narrow them down with toggleable extension/kind chips, a
                       filename-contains text field, and a season number field (TV
                       only) — adds no new Rust/Tauri commands at all, reusing
                       `pick_files`/`guess_episode`/`guess_movie`/`guess_release_info`
                       exactly as the Rename panel's own "Match" does, just applied to
                       a second, independently-loaded file list and rendered as
                       criteria instead of a rename preview. `ListPanel.tsx` is the
                       fifth and last: load a set of files, edit a naming-scheme-style
                       expression (rendered per file via the same `render_expression`
                       command the Rename panel's live preview calls, fed by the same
                       local matching Filter uses), see a live "N of M lines rendered"
                       list, Copy List to the clipboard, or Export to File… via the one
                       new `export_text_list` command above — closing out the full
                       original panel set.
scripts/gen_icons.py   Regenerates src-tauri/icons/ from the real logo mark
                       (`scripts/logo/icon-source.png`, cropped from the supplied
                       lockup) — replace that source image to change the look.

Building

Prerequisites: Rust (stable) + Cargo, Node.js 18+, and Tauri's platform prerequisites (see https://v2.tauri.app/start/prerequisites/ — on Linux this means libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libgtk-3-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev and a C toolchain; macOS/Windows need Xcode / the VS Build Tools + WebView2 respectively).

# Rust core (no UI deps needed):
cargo test -p aurora-curator-core

# Full app in dev mode (opens a native window):
npm install
npm run tauri dev

# Production build (installer/bundle for your current OS):
npm run tauri build

Verified in the environment this was built in: cargo test --workspace (all 160 passing, including the TMDB, TVmaze, OMDb, and OpenSubtitles client tests — those run against a local mock HTTP server via mockito, no live network or API key needed to build/test), cargo check -p aurora-curator (compiles clean against real Tauri + GTK/WebKit system libraries), and npm run build (TypeScript type-checks, Vite bundles). The actual GUI window has not been visually verified anywhere yet — that sandbox has no display. Run npm run tauri dev on your machine to see and click through it for the first time.

Setting up metadata sources (for "Fetch Data")

Everything else in the app works fully offline; "Fetch Data" is the one feature that talks to the network, and it's the only one that needs any setup at all — and even that setup is optional for TV.

TV episodes and movies each have their own independent source picker in the app (click the key icon, "Fetch Data Settings", next to Fetch Data) — a batch can freely mix TV and movie files resolved against two different sources at once:

• TVmaze — TV only (it has no movie catalog). Free, no account or API token needed at all. Just pick it and go.
• TMDB — the default for both TV and movies. Needs a free account:
  1. Create a TMDB account, then go to Settings → API in your account and generate an API Read Access Token (not the older numeric "API Key" — Aurora Curator uses the Bearer token method TMDB documents as the default).
  2. In the app, open "Fetch Data Settings" and paste the token in. It's saved locally in the OS app-config directory and only ever sent to api.themoviedb.org.
• OMDb — TV and movies, an alternative to TMDB for either or both. Needs a free API key:
  1. Request a free key at https://www.omdbapi.com/apikey.aspx (OMDb emails it to you).
  2. In the app, open "Fetch Data Settings" and paste the key into the OMDb field. It's saved locally in the OS app-config directory and only ever sent to www.omdbapi.com.

A batch of TV-only files can run entirely on TVmaze with no credential configured at all. Otherwise, whichever of TMDB/OMDb is actually selected — for TV, for movies, or both — needs its own credential saved first; picking TMDB for TV and OMDb for movies (or any other mix) only needs the two credentials that combination actually uses. Note OMDb returns a normal-looking (HTTP 200) "no results" response for both a genuine no-match and an invalid API key, so a bad key currently surfaces as "not found" rather than a clearer credential error — a known OMDb API limitation, not something Aurora Curator can distinguish from its response alone.

Command-line usage

The same binary that opens the GUI can also run a batch rename straight from a script or terminal — a port of FileBot's net.filebot.cli flag surface (-rename, --format, --db, --action, --conflict), with a couple of deliberate differences noted below. Passing -rename (or -h/--help) on the command line skips the window entirely:

aurora-curator -rename --format "{show name} - {season number}x{episode number} - {episode name}" \
  --action move --conflict skip ~/Downloads/some-show/

• --format "<naming scheme>" (required) — the same expression syntax as the GUI's Naming Scheme field: FileBot short names ({n}, {s00e00}, {t}), human-readable aliases ({show name}, {episode name}, {movie name}, {resolution}, {video codec}, {release group}, …), or real Rhai script. {name}/{ext} fall back to the file's own current filename/extension when nothing else matched it.
• --db <tmdb|tvmaze|omdb> (optional) — resolves TV episodes against that online source before rendering names, the command-line equivalent of clicking "Fetch Data" after Match. Movies are also looked up online whenever this is tmdb or omdb — TVmaze has no movie catalog, so --db tvmaze only affects the TV half of a batch — and with no --db at all every file uses local filename matching only, same as Match without Fetch Data in the GUI. --db tmdb/--db omdb each need the matching token/key that's already been saved through the app's own Fetch Data Settings at least once — the CLI never accepts an API token or key as an argument, so there's nothing secret to leak into your shell history or a script.
• --action <move|copy|symlink|test> (default move) — what to do at each computed target; test prints the full plan and touches nothing on disk, useful for checking a naming scheme before committing to it.
• --conflict <skip|auto-number|override> (default skip, autonumber/auto also accepted) — what happens when the computed target already exists.
• -non-strict — accepted for compatibility with existing FileBot scripts, but is a genuine no-op here: the local matcher has no confidence score to loosen, and online disambiguation (similarity::best_title_match) always runs regardless of this flag.
• Every remaining argument is treated as an input file or folder; folders are expanded recursively (hidden files/dotfolders skipped), matching exactly what the GUI's own "Select Folder…" and drag-and-drop do.

Deliberately not ported: FileBot's --output <dir> flag. The rename engine is scoped, as a safety invariant, to never move a file outside its own source directory tree (see "Organizing into subfolders" above) — a naming scheme's own / already covers organizing into a subfolder, and relaxing that invariant just for --output wasn't judged worth it.

Episodes

The Episodes sidebar panel searches for a TV series by name and browses one season's full episode list — episode number, title, and air date — as a standalone reference, independent of whatever files (if any) are loaded in the Rename panel.

Type a series name, pick a season (the +/− stepper re-queries automatically once you've searched at least once), and click Browse. A season with a real series match but no episodes of its own (e.g. asking for season 99 of a 5-season show) comes back as a clear "no episodes found for season N" message rather than an error; a series name that doesn't match anything at all surfaces the underlying source's own not-found message. A Copy list button copies every row as plain text (Series Name - SxEE - Episode Title, one per line) to the clipboard — handy for pasting into a naming reference or anywhere outside the app.

Unlike Subtitles, this panel has no settings or credentials of its own: it reuses whichever TV source — TMDB, TVmaze, or OMDb — is already configured in the Rename panel's Fetch Data Settings, and the same season-lookup call ("Fetch Data" and the -rename --db CLI both already made) is exactly what it browses. If nothing is configured yet (only relevant for TMDB/OMDb — TVmaze needs no credential), Browse reports the same "open Settings to add one" message Fetch Data itself would.

Subtitles

The Subtitles sidebar panel searches and downloads subtitle files from OpenSubtitles — the first thing in Aurora Curator that fetches an actual media file (a subtitle) rather than title/air-date text.

Load Video File… picks one video, then reuses the exact same local filename-based matching "Match" uses (guess_episode/guess_movie) to pre-fill the search form with a show title + season/episode, or a movie title + year — all editable before searching, and usable on their own with no video loaded at all if you'd rather just type a title. Results show the release name, language, an HD badge, a Hash match badge when OpenSubtitles matched the file by an exact content hash rather than a text search (a much stronger signal than a title match alone), an HI badge for hearing-impaired tracks, the uploader, and the download count. Downloading saves the file right next to the video with the language code inserted before the extension (Show.S01E01.mkv → Show.S01E01.en.srt) — the convention most media players look for automatically, so there's nothing further to configure.

OpenSubtitles splits credentials in a way no other source in this app does:

• Searching only needs a free API key — register an account at opensubtitles.com and create one under Account → API Consumers, then paste it into Subtitle Settings.
• Downloading additionally needs your own OpenSubtitles account username and password, entered in the same Settings panel — OpenSubtitles logs you in to check a daily download quota tied to your account (shown after every successful download as "N/M downloads left today"; the exact number depends on your account's standing with OpenSubtitles and can change on their end, so Aurora Curator always shows the live figure it gets back rather than a hardcoded promise). Search works with no login at all, so you can browse what's available before deciding whether to save a password.

Like every other credential in this app, both are stored locally in the OS app-config directory and only ever sent to api.opensubtitles.com — with one extra precaution specific to a real account password: Aurora Curator never sends the saved password back to its own interface once it's saved (every other credential's "already saved" check does briefly see the real value; the password doesn't), and the Settings panel only ever shows whether a password is on file, never the value itself.

SFV

The SFV sidebar panel computes and verifies file checksums — CRC32, MD5, or SHA1 — and reads and writes the classic sidecar checksum-file formats, recreating original FileBot's SFV panel. Unlike every other panel added this session, it's entirely local: no network access, no credentials, nothing to configure.

Load Files… picks one or more files, then choose a checksum type from the segmented control (CRC32 defaults to the traditional .sfv file format; MD5/SHA1 use the GNU coreutils md5sum/sha1sum sidecar convention instead). Compute hashes every loaded file (streamed in 64KB chunks, so even large video files don't need to fit in memory) and lists each one's checksum, or an ERROR badge for any individual file that couldn't be read — one bad file never aborts the rest of the batch. Save Checksum File… opens a native Save dialog (defaulted to the loaded files' own folder name, e.g. movies.sfv) and writes every successfully-computed checksum out in the chosen format; only files that computed successfully are included.

Verify Checksum File… goes the other direction: pick an existing .sfv/.md5/ .sha1 file (no need to have loaded its files first) and every entry it lists is resolved against the real files sitting next to it on disk and reported as OK, MISMATCH (actual checksum shown alongside the expected one), or MISSING (the referenced file isn't there). Checksum comparison is case-insensitive, since some tools write hex digests in uppercase and others in lowercase.

Filter

The Filter sidebar panel loads a batch of files (independent of whatever's loaded in the Rename panel) and narrows it down before you decide what to do with it elsewhere — copy the matching paths out, or just get a sense of what's actually in a folder. It scans every loaded file with the exact same local, filename-only matchers "Match" uses (guess_episode/guess_movie/guess_release_info) and turns the results into filter criteria instead of a rename preview — no network calls, so scanning even a large batch is effectively instant. It also runs the same batched probe_media_files real container-header probe "Match" and List do (see "Real media-file probing" below), so a file's resolution/ video codec can come from real probing even when nothing in its filename says so.

Load Files… loads and scans a batch in one step. Toggleable chips then appear for every extension actually present (e.g. MKV/MP4/TXT) and every kind Aurora Curator locally recognized (TV/Movies/Unmatched) — click a chip to exclude that group, click it again to bring it back. Resolution and Video codec chip rows appear the same way whenever at least one loaded file actually has a value for either (a filename tag wins when present, otherwise a real probed value fills in — same override rule as everywhere else this delivery touches; files with neither fall into their own "Unknown" chip rather than being silently excluded). A filename contains field does a live, case-insensitive substring search, and a season field (shown only while the TV chip is enabled) narrows to a single season number, automatically excluding anything that isn't a TV episode in that season. Each result row's subtitle also shows a resolved resolution when one exists (e.g. Unmatched · 480p for a file Match couldn't identify as TV or a movie but still got a real probed resolution for). The results list updates live with an "N of M files match" count, and Copy File Paths writes every currently-matching file's full path, one per line, to the clipboard.

List

The List sidebar panel loads a batch of files (independent of whatever's loaded elsewhere) and renders a naming-scheme-style expression against each one, so the result can be copied or exported as a plain text list — a playlist, a batch-rename preview to check by eye, a checklist for another tool, whatever the expression is written for. It's the last of the six original sidebar panels (Rename/Episodes/Subtitles/SFV/Filter/ List) and, like Filter, adds no new local-matching logic — it reuses the exact same guess_episode/guess_movie/guess_release_info calls "Match" and Filter already use. The one genuinely new piece is a single Tauri command, export_text_list, which opens a native Save dialog and writes whatever text the frontend hands it to a .txt file — everything else (matching, and rendering each file's line) reuses commands that already existed.

Load Files… loads a batch and scans it locally, the same way Filter does — including the same batched real container-header probe (see "Real media-file probing" below), so List's expressions get real probed values too, not just filename-tag ones. The Format field holds the expression rendered against each file — the exact same { } syntax the naming scheme uses, run through the same render_expression command the Rename panel's live preview calls. {name}/{ext} always work (they're the file's own name/extension); {show name}/{season number}/{episode number}, {movie name}/{year}, and the release-tag fields ({resolution}/{source}/{video codec}/{audio codec}/{release group}) fill in once the local scan recognizes a file; {width}/{height}/{fps}/ {duration}/{file size} come straight from real probing (no filename-tag equivalent exists), and a probed {resolution}/{video codec}/{audio codec} fills in whenever the filename didn't already carry that tag — there's no Fetch Data step here, List stays local-only like Filter. A file whose rendered line comes out empty (e.g. an expression that only references a field this particular file never matched) shows an "(empty)" placeholder rather than blocking the rest of the list, and the results header tracks "N of M lines rendered" live as the expression changes. Copy List copies every line, in file order, newline-joined, to the clipboard; Export to File… opens a native Save dialog (defaulted to list.txt) and writes the same text to disk.

Real media-file probing

Unlike every panel above, this isn't a new sidebar screen — it's a naming-scheme binding source wired into the Rename panel's "Match" step, the Filter panel's scan, and the List panel's scan alike, closing (part of) the gap the porting roadmap has called out since the beginning: FileBot's MediaBindingBean doesn't just parse tags out of a release name, it also reads a video file's own container header for its real resolution, frame rate, duration, and codecs — a naming scheme can reference those even when the filename itself doesn't carry a tag for them, or came from a mislabeled/renamed-already release. Aurora Curator ships no ffmpeg/MediaInfo dependency for this — two pure-Rust container parsers do the actual reading: the mp4 crate for ISO-BMFF containers (.mp4/.m4v/ .mov) and the matroska crate for EBML/Matroska containers (.mkv/.webm). Any other extension, or a file that fails to parse as its container, just yields no probed values — probing is always a best-effort enrichment layered on top of filename matching, never a hard requirement, so an unsupported or corrupt file can't break Match.

Clicking Match (Rename), or loading a batch into Filter or List, now also probes every loaded file's real container header (probe_media_files, one batched Tauri round trip off the main thread) alongside the existing filename-based guessing — all three panels call the exact same command the exact same way. The result feeds the same bindings the release-tag parser already populates — {resolution}/{vf}, {video codec}/{vc}, {audio codec}/{ac} — but only when the filename itself didn't already carry that tag; an explicit release-group tag always wins over a probed value, since a release group's own tag is usually deliberate. Five bindings have no filename-tag equivalent at all, so they're only ever available this way: {width}, {height}, {fps}, {duration} (h:mm:ss, or m:ss under an hour), and {file size} (human-readable, e.g. 1.4 GB) — all formatted once on the Rust side so the UI never reimplements that logic. Rename's Match status line, List's scan status, and Filter's scan status all report how many loaded files were actually probed ("N probed from file"), the naming-scheme editor's field-reference list has a "Real file probing" group listing all five width/height/fps/duration/file-size bindings, and the Filter panel adds its own Resolution/Video codec chip rows (populated from the same merged filename-tag-or-probed value) so a batch can be narrowed by either, not just by extension/kind/name/season.

Porting roadmap (not yet done)

Roughly in priority order — each references the original FileBot source file it's ported from, for anyone picking this up:

1. Full naming-scheme bindings — net.filebot.format.MediaBindingBean (1354 lines): all the {n}, {s00e00}, {airdate}, {vf} (video format), etc. binding properties. A filename-tag-based subset is ported and wired to "Match" (guess_release_info in crates/aurora-curator-core/src/matching): {vf}/{resolution}, {source}, {vc}/{video codec}, {ac}/{audio codec}, {group}/{release group}. Real container probing (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/probe, see "Real media-file probing" below) now covers the other half MediaBindingBean derives from actually reading the file — real resolution/video codec/audio codec fill in whenever the filename didn't already carry that tag, plus {width}/{height}/ {fps}/{duration}/{file size}, which have no filename-tag equivalent at all — for the two container families it supports (MP4/M4V/MOV and MKV/WebM). Probed bindings are now wired into all three panels that do local matching — Rename's Match step, and the Filter and List panels' own scans (Filter also gained Resolution/Video codec filter chips from it). Still missing: probing for other containers (.avi, .wmv, ...), audio-only metadata (bitrate, sample rate, channel layout), and file hashing ({crc32} reuses the SFV panel's own hasher today but isn't wired into naming-scheme bindings yet).
2. String/expression helper methods — net.filebot.format.ExpressionFormatMethods (636 lines): FileBot-specific Groovy string extensions like .pad(), .sortName(). Ported so far (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/format/functions.rs): any, all_of, concat, plus a newer batch of naming/scripting helpers — pad/pad_with (left-pad, non-mutating; note this is a deliberately different name collision-avoidance from Rhai's own built-in pad(length, char), which right-pads and mutates in place — not a fit for FileBot's zero-padded season/episode numbers), sort_name/sort_initial (moves a leading "The"/"A"/"An" article to the end, e.g. {n.sort_name()} turns "The Office" into "Office, The"), upper_initial/lower_initial, acronym, validate_file_name (strips characters illegal in filenames, collapses whitespace, trims trailing dots), and space/space_with/colon/colon_with (separator/colon normalization). Rhai's built-ins cover some of the rest already. Still not ported: FileBot's CSV/file-reading and shell-quoting helpers (csv, read_lines, quote_bash, quote_powershell, etc.).
3. Matching/similarity engine — net.filebot.similarity.*. Local filename-based season/episode detection is done (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/matching, ported from the pattern-matching half of SeasonEpisodeMatcher.java, adapted to Rust's regex crate which lacks lookahead/lookbehind — wired to the "Match" button), and so is a local movie title/year heuristic (guess_movie in the same module) used as a fallback whenever a filename carries no season/episode marker — a release name is either a TV episode or a movie, never both. Title disambiguation is also done (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/similarity, a partial port of the scoring idea behind EpisodeMetrics.java's fuzzy title-matching cascade — Sorensen-Dice similarity over normalized-title character bigrams), shared by both the TV and movie TMDB lookups: "Fetch Data" picks whichever TMDB search result is textually closest to the local guess rather than just trusting TMDB's relevance/popularity-ranked first hit, and reports "not found" instead of guessing when nothing in the results is a plausible match at all. DateMatcher (numbering/air-date-based identification, the other half of the original EpisodeMetrics) is not ported — Aurora Curator doesn't do date-based episode identification.
4. Media detection — net.filebot.media.MediaDetection (1356 lines): ties file-name parsing + matching together to auto-identify what a file is.
5. Web datasource clients — net.filebot.web.* (40 files): TheMovieDB, TheTVDB, AniDB, OMDb, TVmaze, OpenSubtitles, etc. Three are done: TMDB, for both TV and movies (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/web/tmdb.rs, reqwest + serde_json, Bearer-token auth) — search-by-name plus per-season episode lookup for TV, search-by-title (optionally narrowed by release year via TMDB's own primary_release_year filter) for movies — TVmaze, for TV only (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/web/tvmaze.rs, same reqwest + serde_json shape, no auth at all — TVmaze has no movie catalog to search, and its per-show episode endpoint returns every season in one flat list rather than TMDB's per-season lookup, so the client fetches once and filters locally, skipping any unnumbered/special episodes rather than panicking on them) — and OMDb, for both TV and movies (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/web/omdb.rs, same reqwest + serde_json shape but a single flat root-URL REST API rather than TMDB's per-resource paths, plain apikey query-param auth rather than a Bearer token, and human-text release dates ("16 Jul 2010"/"N/A") normalized to ISO form locally; a movie search result only carries a bare year, so lookup_movie follows up with a by-ID detail request to get the actual release date). All three are wired to "Fetch Data" — independent "TV episode source" (TMDB/TVmaze/OMDb) and "Movie source" (TMDB/OMDb) pickers in Fetch Data Settings choose which source a batch's TV and movie items resolve against respectively (TMDB stays the default for both; a batch can mix sources across its TV and movie halves) — disambiguating multi-result searches via the similarity-scoring pass described in item 3 above rather than blindly trusting any source's top-ranked hit. The same per-season episode-list methods these three clients already exposed for Fetch Data are also what the new Episodes panel browses directly (see "Episodes" above) — no new client code, just a new UI on top of what was already there. OpenSubtitles is also done, but as a subtitle source rather than a fourth title-metadata source — crates/aurora-curator-core/src/web/opensubtitles.rs, wired to the new Subtitles panel (see "Subtitles" above) rather than to Fetch Data's TV/movie pickers, since it fetches subtitle files, not episode/movie titles. All other sources (TheTVDB, AniDB) are not yet started — TheTVDB was deliberately skipped: as of this writing its v4 API requires either a paid commercial license or the "user-supported" model, where every end user needs their own paid TheTVDB subscription ($12/year) just to get the PIN its login flow requires, unlike the three free-to-use sources above — worth revisiting if that changes.
6. Rename engine + CLI — net.filebot.cli.CmdlineOperations (1235 lines) and ArgumentBean (415 lines, the full flag surface: -rename, --db, --format, --action, --conflict, -get-subtitles, -script, etc.). The rename operation is done (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/rename, wired to the UI's Rename button behind a confirmation step) including the move-into-subfolder --action variant — a naming scheme like {n}/{s00e00} organizes files into subfolders, creating any missing folders automatically, always scoped to the file's own directory tree. The copy/symlink --action variants are done too — an action selector in the confirmation modal picks Move/Copy/Symlink for the whole batch; Copy and Symlink both leave the source file untouched and produce a new file/link at the computed target, and both are undoable from the History panel the same as Move (undo for Copy/Symlink just removes what was created, since there's nothing to move back). The --conflict variants are done too — a second selector in the same modal picks Skip (default, leaves the conflicting file alone), Auto-number ("Name (1).ext", counting up to the first free slot), or Override (replaces the conflicting file outright — the one irreversible option, called out with red styling in the UI; undoing that batch later restores the source, never what got overwritten, since undo always uses its own fixed skip-on-conflict policy no matter which policy the original rename used). The CLI flag surface is done too — -rename/--format/--db/--action/--conflict/ -non-strict/-h (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/cli for pure argument parsing and directory expansion, src-tauri/src/cli.rs for the orchestration — local matching, optional TMDB/TVmaze/OMDb lookup, and the actual rename, all without ever constructing a Tauri App); see "Command-line usage" above. --output <dir> and -script/the rest of FileBot's non-rename CLI modes are not ported. -get-subtitles has no CLI analog yet — subtitle fetching (see "Subtitles" above) is GUI-only so far, reached from its own sidebar panel rather than a command-line flag.
7. The rest of the UI — the Rename panel (file loading, drag-drop, live preview, local TV/movie matching, confirmed rename with per-item exclude, rename history/undo, Align Up/Down reordering, naming-scheme Presets with 1-9 hotkeys) is built, and so are the Subtitles panel (search + download via OpenSubtitles, see "Subtitles" above), the Episodes panel (series search + season browse with a Copy list export, no credentials of its own, see "Episodes" above), the SFV panel (compute/verify CRC32/MD5/SHA1 checksums, read/write .sfv/.md5/.sha1 sidecar files, entirely local with no credentials at all, see "SFV" above), the Filter panel (extension/ kind/filename/season narrowing over a locally-scanned batch, no new Rust/Tauri surface at all, see "Filter" above), and the List panel (a naming-scheme-style expression rendered per file via the same render_expression engine, with a Copy List clipboard export and an Export to File… .txt writer behind one new export_text_list command, see "List" above) — all six of the original sidebar panels are now real screens, closing out the panel set FileBot itself shipped. Align Up/Down is button-based (swaps the selected file with its neighbor), not the original's drag-and-drop-within-a-list interaction.
8. Undo/history for renames — done, as a flat JSON-backed undo stack rather than a full port of net.filebot.HistoryDialog's session/element log (crates/aurora-curator-core/src/history, src-tauri/src/history.rs). Every successful rename is recorded to a history.json in the OS app-config directory (same location as settings.json); the History panel lists past batches and can revert one back to its original paths, skipping (never overwriting) any file whose original path now has something else at it. Capped at the 50 most recent batches.
9. Packaging — code signing, auto-update, installers per platform via npm run tauri build.