mmng-ui 1.3.1
The textual user interface to multimon-ng.
Requires Python: >=3.10

# mmng-ui

A TUI (text user interface) frontend for [multimon-ng](https://github.com/EliasOenal/multimon-ng).

`mmng-ui` will listen on a chosen UDP port for raw streams from software like SDR++, use `multimon-ng` to decode it,
and show you POCSAG/FLEX messages in a wonderful text interface.

You can also use it within a web browser!

## Table of contents

<!-- TOC -->
* [mmng-ui](#mmng-ui)
  * [Table of contents](#table-of-contents)
  * [Purpose](#purpose)
  * [Installation](#installation)
    * [Normal TUI (text console) mode](#normal-tui-text-console-mode)
    * [Web mode](#web-mode)
  * [How to use it](#how-to-use-it)
    * [JSON detection](#json-detection)
    * [sox conversion mode](#sox-conversion-mode)
  * [Example screenshot](#example-screenshot)
  * [Supported Python versions](#supported-python-versions)
<!-- TOC -->


## Purpose

Why not?  I know there are other frontends out there, but I haven't seen any for use in a text console.

I also wanted to learn both [Rich](https://github.com/Textualize/rich) and [Textual](https://github.com/Textualize/textual).

See `CHANGELOG.md` for all the latest updates. The links may not be clickable.

## Installation

### Normal TUI (text console) mode

The recommended way to install `mmng-ui` is to use [pipx](https://pipx.pypa.io/stable/).

After getting `pipx` installed, simply run:

```shell
username@host:~$ pipx install mmng-ui
```

Please [don't use pip system-wide](https://docs.python.org/3.11/installing/index.html#installing-into-the-system-python-on-linux).

You can of course also install it using [classic virtualenvs](https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html).

### Web mode

Thanks to Textual's [web serving support](https://github.com/Textualize/textual-serve), you can also run `mmng-ui` in a
web browser!

First, install `mmng-ui` with the `web` feature/extra:

```shell
username@host:~$ pipx install 'mmng-ui[web]'
```

Then run `mmng-ui` with the `--serve` option.  Your console will show you the URL to connect to!

By default, it will bind to all interfaces (and both IPv4 and IPv6 if enabled).  See the help screen for other choices.

If you supply either `--serve-host` or `--serve-port`, there's no need to specify `--serve` as well -- it is implied.

## How to use it

See `mmng-ui --help` for CLI options.

Run `mmng-ui`, and you'll be greeted with this screen:

![screenshot](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lingfish/mmng-ui/refs/heads/main/docs/initial%20screen.png)

Notice in the status pane, it says "Receiver: idle" -- it is now listening for UDP packets sent to the default port
of 8888.

Now go to your favourite SDR application, and send to where `mmng-ui` is running. If possible, make sure you encode and
send in the right sample rate that `multimon-ng` likes, 22050 Hz. It probably helps to send mono too.

If you can't send at 22050 Hz, [click here](#sox-conversion-mode) to read about using `sox` mode.

Alpha POCSAG messages will soon display in the top pane.  The bottom pane will show the raw output from `multimon-ng`,
as well as any errors or issues with decoding.

The status panel shows any incoming connections.  Receiver will transition between the following states:

| Receiver state | Description                                     |
|----------------|-------------------------------------------------|
| idle           | No UDP traffic yet seen, or seen in 5 seconds   |
| receiving      | Actively receiving a decode from `multimon-ng`  |
| waiting        | Traffic is coming in, but nothing to be decoded |

Just below the status panel is a sparkline -- this updates on each decode, and reflects character length of said
decode.

Underneath the log window in another sparkline, and this shows messages per second, for the last minute.

The footer shows available keyboard choices to quit the app, show a help screen, and clear all logging panes.

The mouse will also work!

### JSON detection

`mmng-ui` will attempt to auto-detect the output format from `multimon-ng`, and if it looks like JSON, it'll use it.

JSON output was merged into `multimon-ng` [version 1.4.0](https://github.com/EliasOenal/multimon-ng/releases/tag/1.4.0).  Support for older versions will eventually be dropped.

### sox conversion mode

With release 1.3.0, you can use the `--sox-rate` (optionally with `--sox-binary`) CLI arguments and `mmng-ui` will put
an instance of `sox` in the decoding pipeline, before `multimon-ng`. You can use the same format as `sox` accepts,
for example, `48k`, or `32000`.

## Example screenshot

Here's what a screen full of decodes might look like:

![screenshot](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lingfish/mmng-ui/refs/heads/main/docs/working%20screen.png)

## Supported Python versions

`mmng-ui` supports Python 3.10 and newer.