plexamp-lite/README.md

# Minamp

A small Plexamp-style music player for Plex, built for the Samsung Galaxy Mini (GT-S5570:
Android 2.2/2.3, 240×320 ldpi screen, 600 MHz ARMv6, 384 MB RAM). Runs on any Android 2.2+ phone.

## Language

The interface is in **Galician** by default, whatever language the phone is set to. English is
available under *Axustes → Idioma*. All text lives in `tools/strings.py` (key → English, Galician),
which generates `res/values/strings.xml` (Galician) and `res/values-en/strings.xml`; the connection
log stays in English since it's meant for troubleshooting.

## Install

1. On the phone: **Settings → Applications → Unknown sources** (tick it).
2. Copy `Minamp.apk` to the SD card (USB cable, or download it in the browser) and open it
   with a file manager, or from a computer: `adb install Minamp.apk`.
3. The app can live on the SD card (Settings → Applications → Manage → Minamp → Move to SD card),
   which helps with the Mini's tiny internal storage.

## Sign in

Open Minamp → **Sign in with Plex**. It shows a 4-character code; on any other device go to
**plex.tv/link** and type it in. Minamp then lists your servers (owned and shared) and music libraries.

*Connect to a server address* is the manual fallback: an IP/hostname plus an optional X-Plex-Token.

## Streaming from anywhere

After sign-in Minamp knows every address Plex advertises for your server and picks the best
working one, re-checking whenever the phone switches network:

| Order | Connection | When it's used |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Whatever worked last time | Tried alone first, so a normal start costs one request (if that was a remote address, the home addresses get 2 s first) |
| 2 | Home network, plain HTTP | On your Wi-Fi (fast: no encryption work for the phone) |
| 3 | Home network, HTTPS (`*.plex.direct`) | On your Wi-Fi if plain HTTP is refused, or if *Settings → Encrypt at home too* is on |
| 4 | Remote, HTTPS | Away, if Remote Access is set up on the server |
| 5 | Plex Relay | Away, when the server isn't reachable directly (bandwidth-capped; Minamp caps itself at 192 kbps) |

Secure addresses are tried one at a time: on a 600 MHz phone a TLS handshake takes seconds, and
several at once make each of them time out. Minamp uses TLS 1.2 with session resumption, so only
the first connection to each server pays the full cost; later ones resume in a fraction of it.

For the best remote experience enable **Settings → Remote Access** on your Plex Media Server.
Without it, Relay still works.

Android 2.x can't do modern TLS, so Minamp bundles its own TLS 1.2/1.3 stack (Bouncy Castle,
renamed to `com.minamp.bc` so it doesn't clash with the old copy inside Android) and verifies
certificates against Mozilla's root store (from `certifi`). A tiny loopback proxy feeds the
phone's media player, so HTTPS streams and relay work the same as local ones. If the phone's
clock has been reset to before 2024 the certificate date check is skipped rather than failing.

## Playback and quality

* MP3, AAC (M4A) and Ogg Vorbis play directly. FLAC, ALAC etc. are transcoded to MP3 by the
  server (Android 2.2/2.3 can't decode FLAC).
* **Menu → Settings**: separate quality for home Wi-Fi (default *Original*) and for away/mobile
  data (default *192 kbps MP3*); 320/256/192/128/96 kbps available.
* Seeking in a transcoded track restarts the transcode at the new position.
* If a stream fails, Minamp re-picks the connection and resumes; if it fails again it downloads
  the whole track first and plays from the SD card. "Download tracks before playing" forces that
  mode (useful on flaky mobile data).
* Plays are reported to Plex (Now Playing in the Plex dashboard, play counts, resume position).

## Features

* Home: Library radio, Loved radio (rated 4★+ / loved), Time-travel radio (pick a decade),
  Random album, Recently added and Recently played shelves.
* Artists / Albums (5 sort orders) / Playlists tabs with paging and fast scroll; Search.
* Artist page with *Play all* and *Artist radio*; album and playlist pages with *Play*/*Shuffle*.
* Long-press anything: Play next, Add to queue, Go to album/artist, Love.
* Now Playing: big art on a backdrop coloured from the cover, seek bar, shuffle, repeat
  (queue/track), love, sleep timer (15–90 min or end of track), where it's streaming from.
* Up Next queue: jump, play next, remove, clear; the queue and position survive restarts.
* Downloads for offline listening: long-press a track, album, artist or playlist -> *Download*;
  *Menu -> Downloads* shows progress, space used and free, play/shuffle, retry and remove. Files go to
  the SD card. MP3 originals are kept as they are (unless above a lower *Download quality* in
  Settings); everything else is transcoded to MP3, 320 kbps by default. Downloaded tracks play from
  the SD card, offline too, and plays made offline are reported to Plex later.
* *Menu -> Close Minamp* stops the music and closes every screen.
* Wired headset button: 1 click play/pause, 2 next, 3 previous; Bluetooth media keys;
  pauses for calls and when headphones are unplugged.

## Building (no Android SDK needed)

```
tools/setup_toolchain.sh      # once: fetches aapt2, the API 8 android.jar, builds dx, renames Bouncy Castle
./build.sh                    # -> build/Minamp.apk
```

`build.sh` runs `aapt2` (resources), `javac` (Java 8 bytecode checked against the API 8
`android.jar`), `dx` (dex 035) and `tools/signapk.py`, which writes the v1 signature in the
classic Android SignApk format and aligns the APK. (Modern `jarsigner` output does *not* install on
Android 4.2 and older: it names digests `SHA-1-Digest` and labels the PKCS#7 signer algorithm in a
way old `JarUtils` can't read, so the phone treats the APK as unsigned.) The debug key in `signing/` (password `minamp123`) is what this APK is
signed with, so rebuilt APKs install over it.

Tests (desktop JVM, no device):

* `test/PlexTest.java` + `test/mock_plex.py`: PIN sign-in, server discovery, connection
  picking/fallback, TLS with a wildcard plex.direct-style certificate (ECDSA leaf, RSA root),
  untrusted-root rejection, browsing, search, artwork, and the stream proxy (Range requests over
  TLS, de-chunking transcodes, aborting).
* `test/QueueTest.java`: shuffle/unshuffle, repeat modes, play next, remove, move, clear.

## Limits

* No gapless playback (Android 2.2/2.3 have no API for it).
* Notification has no playback buttons (pre-Android 3 can't); tap it to open Now Playing.