ffflow (Foss Flow)

ffflow is a powerful, open-source terminal user interface (TUI) for FFmpeg. It is designed to streamline professional media workflows by providing a clean, interactive surface for running complex encoding, probing, and filtering jobs.

Built with Rust, it emphasizes reliability, observability, and ease of use for both casual users and media engineers.

✨ Key Features

• Interactive TUI: Real-time progress monitoring with speed, frame count, and time estimates.
• Batch Processing: Run sequential jobs defined in simple .flw text files.
• smart Wrappers: Simplified commands (encode, probe) for common tasks with preset support.
• FFmpeg Passthrough: Full support for raw ffmpeg commands, including complex filtergraphs and multiline commands.
• Interactive Prompts: Handles FFmpeg interactive queries (like "Overwrite? [y/N]") directly in the UI.
• Session History: Scrollable history of all commands and outputs within the session.

🚀 Installation

Ensure you have Rust and ffmpeg installed.

git clone https://github.com/yugaaank/ffflow
cd ffflow
cargo install --path .

📖 Usage

Start the TUI:

ffflow

Basic Commands

Inside the TUI, you can type commands just like in a shell:

• Encode Wrapper:

  encode -i input.mp4 -o output.mp4 --vcodec libx264 --preset fast
  

• Probe Wrapper:

  probe -i input.mp4
  

• Raw FFmpeg:

  ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -crf 28 output.mp4
  

Batch Processing (.flw files)

Create a workflow file (e.g., jobs.flw) to run multiple commands in sequence.

Example jobs.flw:

# Convert to simple MP4
ffmpeg -i raw.mov -c:v libx264 -c:a aac output.mp4

# Extract Audio
ffmpeg -i raw.mov -vn -c:a libmp3lame audio.mp3

# Complex Filtergraph (Multiline supported with \)
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 \
       -vf "scale=1280:720,format=gray" \
       -c:v libx264 bw_720p.mp4

Run it: From the terminal:

ffflow jobs.flw

Or interactively inside ffflow:

batch jobs.flw

⚡ Interactive Input

ffflow intelligently detects when FFmpeg asks for confirmation (e.g., file overwrite) and allows you to respond with y or n directly from the TUI, preventing jobs from hanging in the background.

⚠️ Known Limitations

• Shell Features: Piping (|), redirection (>), and globbing (*.mp4) are not supported.
• Complex Prompts: Only standard overwrite prompts are currently interactive. Password prompts may hang.

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! This project is FOSS and we believe in community-driven development.

1. Fork the repo.
2. Create feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature).
3. Commit changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature').
4. Push to branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature).
5. Open a Pull Request.

📜 License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.