theme.json files require the following properties:

• name: string - The name of the theme

• description: string - Brief description of the theme

• version: string - Version of the theme

• author: string - Theme authors

• github_repo: string - The source repository of the theme, this is required for Cider to automatically update the theme. Formatted <owner>/<repo_name>

• pack: array - (optional) Declare individual LESS files as styles within the package

  • Pack Object Format:

    • name: string

::alert{type="note"} This is essential knowledge for the debugging process, please read these before creating an issue. ::

How to find the Application Data Directory

The location of your application data varies depending on your operating system, see your platforms path below:

• MS Store: %localappdata%\packages\27554FireDevElijahKlauman.CiderEA_270bejk4xgzqp\LocalCache\Roaming\C2Windows

• Windows (non-MS Store): %appdata%\C2Windows

• Linux: $HOME/.config/sh.cider.genten

• MacOS: /Library/Application Support/sh.cider.genten

Why is my DiscordRPC status not appearing?

Try the following if Discord Rich Presence is not appearing on Discord.

Cider is Skipping or Not Playing Explicit Songs

If you are experiencing this issue, your account might have content restrictions set to "Clean". Login to , go to Profile Picture > Settings, then login again and check the "Content Restrictions" under "Parent Controls".

Make sure that Music is set to Explicit.

::alert{type="note"} It could potentially be a case where explicit playback is restricted in your country, in this case you may need to change your Apple Account region to resolve this. ::

Why do I keep getting 'localtunnel.me connection refused' on macOS?

This is a fairly rare case and can be resolved fairly easily. Follow the steps below and it should resolve your issue:

1. Disable any Antivirus and/or Firewall present on your device. These can conflict with the WebSocket API in the client and will cause this error. (ESET is a known offender for this.)

2. Ensure you do not have a VPN on or any policies enabled on your device that can affect network traffic. Company managed devices may also have policies blocking this.

3. Check that you do not have Cider running already - and that nothing is running on the same port that Cider operates under - 10767.

Outside of this advice, there is an for it, unfortunately we are stuck with it as one of the key components in Cider uses it as a dependency. We cannot help further on this issue.

Why is the app launching with a blank screen on Linux?

This is a somewhat common issue for those on OpenSuse and other distro's that require their /etc/hosts file to manually set. To resolve this issue, you will need to ensure that your /etc/hosts file is set up correctly. See the example below for how it should look:

Cider Documentation

This repository contains the documentation of the Cider app. This serves as the central hub for all documentation related to the Cider Client, providing comprehensive guides, best practices, and reference materials for end-users and developers alike.

If you are interested in contributing to this project, please read the .

The client uses a set list of protocols, including custom and overriding ones for AM apps. This is a list of all the protocols that the client uses.

• cider

• itms

• itmss

• music

• itunes

URL Schema

The URL schema is as follows: protocol://{action}/{type}/{id}

The available actions are:

• play

• open

The available types are:

• s (song)

• a (album)

• p (playlist)

• r (radio)

The ID must be the catalog ID of the item as the library item may not be available.

Additional Protocols

The client also handles additional protocols such as:

• Apple Music URLs: protocol://music.apple.com/...

• Our Discord Server: protocol://discord

• Our GitHub: protocol://github

Support (Releases)

Support is fully provided to all releases made on any of our release platforms (Itch, Microsoft Store and Taproom). Please open an , and we will try and fix the issue ASAP. Upon issues being fixed, you will need to wait until the next release if you wish to experience the fixed version in a stable state.

Getting Started

Recommended / Required Development Utilities

• NodeJS 14.0.0 or greater

• (Optional, but highly recommended)

• Basic Command Line Knowledge

::alert{type="warning"} While not required, PNPM is recommended for compiling Cider, and you can install it by using:

npm install -g pnpm ::

Cloning the repository

Open a terminal window in the directory you'd like Git to clone to and enter the following command

Optionally, if you'd like to use the Development branch of Cider to test upcoming features switch your branch by moving your terminal into the directory and using git to checkout the branch by entering the following commands

::alert{type="note" title="Success"} If you'd like to update your repository in the future to keep up to date, use the command (Make sure you're in the directory, you originally cloned in)

git pull

Installing Dependencies

Now for the fun part, by using pnpm, npm or yarn (we'll be using pnpm in this case) enter the following command to automatically obtain all required dependencies for installation.

::alert{type="note"} This step could take a little while on some machines. ::

Compiling Cider

This step takes a little while on the first compilation so bear with it as it does what it needs to do.

Compiling Cider for specific CPU architectures is a smart thing to do and you can do it by adding switches to the dist argument as displayed.

::alert{type="warning"} On some low-end machines this process could take up to ~10 minutes. ::

::alert{type="warning"} This command would build three separate packages of Cider, AppImage, .deb, and .snap packages ::

Compiling Cider from AUR

If you are on an arch-based Linux distribution and have an AUR helper (pacman/yay/paru/etc.), then you are in luck. Cider has 2 PKGBUILD's in the Arch User Repository.

Assuming you already have access to the AUR and have a friendly AUR helper (we will use yay for this example) enter the following command to automatically obtain all required dependencies for installation.

::alert{type="tip"} If you like to live on the bleeding edge, use the cider-git package, this will compile directly from the branch. :;

::alert{type="warning"} Running this on Node.js 17 or later will fail. This is due to Node.js 17 no longer writing openssl_fips to config.gypi so it's not there in Node.js 17's process.config. It is suggested to downgrade to nodejs-lts-gallium to resolve this issue. ::

Installing Cider

Your new Cider installation setup file is ready for you! You can find your setup executable in your cloned folder directory on your system in the subfolder dist/ and from there you'll see your new Setup files. Choose the installer that best matches your distro.

::alert{type="note" title="Success"} Congrats! You've successfully compiled your own build of Cider! ::

Getting Started

Recommended / Required Development Utilities

• NodeJS 14.0.0 or greater

• (Optional, but highly recommended)

• Have an Apple Developer Account and be a member of the . This is necessary to play music through the app.

• Basic Command Line Knowledge

::alert{type="warning"} While not required, PNPM is recommended for compiling Cider, and you can install it by using:

npm install -g pnpm ::

::alert{type="caution"} To remind you again, if you don't have an Apple Developer account to sign the Cider binary after building, it WILL NOT work. ::

Cloning the repository

Open a command prompt window in the directory you'd like Git to clone to and enter the following command

Optionally, if you'd like to use the Development branch of Cider to test upcoming features switch your branch by moving your terminal into the directory and using git to checkout the branch by entering the following commands

::alert{type="tip"} If you'd like to update your repository in the future to keep up to date, use the command (Make sure you're in the directory, you originally cloned in)

git pull ::

Installing Dependencies

Now for the fun part, by using pnpm, npm or yarn (we'll be using pnpm in this case) enter the following command to automatically obtain all required dependencies for installation.

::alert{type="note"} This step could take a little while on some machines. ::

Create an account to VMP-sign Cider.

What is this for? MacOS doesn't like development Widevine DRM keys for some reason. Therefore, we need to sign our own production keys here. This can be done as follows:

Remember your account name and password because you will need it later.

Once in a while, you may need to re-authenticate the VMP account. If that is the case:

Create Apple signing keys and app-specific password.

1. In Xcode: Under Xcode > Preferences (⌘,) > Accounts, you may add your Apple ID. With your team selected, the View Details... in the bottom right could find you the available certificates for generation/download.

2. After that, select all of the certificates in Keychain Access to generate as a .p12 file. Remember the file location and the .p12 password.

3. the app-specific password of your Apple Developer account

Setting up environment variables.

You can set the environment variables permanently by edit the ~/.bash-profile file and add the above lines at the bottom of the file.

Final fixes

Electron-Packager doesn't like MacOS notarization. You need to manually patch the files in order for it to work properly:

Compiling Cider

This step takes a little while on the first compilation so bear with it as it does what it needs to do.

This will generate a universal signed and notarized binary. (Don't mind the "not working" command line, it works)

::alert{type="warning"} On some low-end machines this process could take up to ~20-30 minutes. (It will look like it hangs at the notarization part, don't exit it). ::

Installing Cider

Your new Cider installation setup file is ready for you! You can find your setup executable in your cloned folder directory on your system in the subfolder dist/ and from there you'll see your new Setup file.

::alert{type="note" title="Success"} Congrats! You've successfully compiled your own build of Cider! ::

Getting Started

Recommended / Required Development Utilities

• NodeJS 14.0.0 or greater

• (Optional, but highly recommended)

• Basic Command Line Knowledge

::alert{type="warning"} While not required, PNPM is recommended for compiling Cider, and you can install it by using:

npm install -g pnpm ::

::alert{type="caution"} You need windows-build-tools to be able to compile the native modules Cider uses for Windows. It should be installed with Node.js through the chocolatey package manager. If the installation fails you can install it using pnpm/npm in an administrator powershell/cmd window and entering:

pnpm install -g windows-build-tools

or

npm install -g windows-build-tools ::

Cloning the repository

Open a command prompt window in the directory you'd like Git to clone to and enter the following command

Optionally, if you'd like to use the Development branch of Cider to test upcoming features switch your branch by moving your terminal into the directory and using git to checkout the branch by entering the following commands

::alert{type="tip"} If you'd like to update your repository in the future to keep up to date, use the command (Make sure you're in the directory, you originally cloned in)

git pull ::

Installing Dependencies

Now for the fun part, by using pnpm, npm or yarn (we'll be using pnpm in this case) enter the following command to automatically obtain all required dependencies for installation.

::alert{type="tip"} This step could take a little while on some machines. ::

Compiling Cider

This step takes a little while on the first compilation so bare with it as it does what it needs to do.

Compiling Cider for specific CPU architectures is a smart thing to do and you can do it by adding switches to the dist argument as displayed.

::alert{type="warning"} On some low-end machines this process could take up to ~5 minutes. ::

Installing Cider

Your new Cider installation setup file is ready for you! You can find your setup executable in your cloned folder directory on your system in the subfolder dist/ and from there you'll see your new Setup file.

::alert{type="note" title="Success"} Congrats! You've successfully compiled your own build of Cider! ::

Hostname and Port

All API endpoints are accessible at http://localhost:10767.

We've observed that using 127.0.0.1 when IPv4 is disabled tends to break and not connect. We recommend you do not turn off IPv4, but if you are required to do so, try using [::1]:10767

Example Plugin

Electron App Documentation

Electron BrowserWindow Documentation

Communicating with the Renderer instance from Main (IPC Main)

Communicating with main instance from the Renderer (IPC Renderer)

These are some unsorted quirks and features about Cider that will be moved later

• Cider is built with the following frameworks and technologies

  • Electron

  • Vue 2

  • Express

  • EJS

  • MusicKit.js

  • Some components from Bootstrap 5 (mainly grids and modals)

  • Bootstrap Vue

  • Bootbox

  • Notyf

Once you have completed your plugin its time to publish! Create a new repository for the plugin and upload the files.

To have the theme indexed into Cider's built in plugin explorer, add cidermusicplugin as a topic on the repository.

Cider offers a simple REST API to remotely control the app.

URL: http://localhost:9000/api/

Endpoints

Attributes are applied to elements to expose app state information to CSS

Backend Development

Once you have completed your plugin its time to publish! Create a new repository for the theme and upload the files.

To have the theme indexed into Cider's built in theme explorer, add cidermusictheme as a topic on the repository.

Resources in the theme can be accessed by their filenames in the theme folder.

Examples:

background: url("my_image.png")

@import url('another_less_file.less')

If one does not already exist, create a new theme directory in the user data folder.

• Windows: %appdata%/Cider/themes

• Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Cider/themes

• Linux: ~/.config/Cider/themes

Create a new folder in the themes directory with the name of your theme.

• This folder needs to contain the following files:

  • index.less - The main theme file

  • theme.json

In Cider, select the theme in the settings.

Cider has automatic hot reloading for themes in the userdata folder.

Useful Resources

• The default styles.less can be found in: