Aardy Manager (Mac)

Manager settings

Port, passwords, photo storage, 4K enhancement, weather, devices and more.

Settings holds the things that apply to the whole Mac. Each card has its own explanation; these are the highlights.

The Settings page
The Settings page

Server

  • Listen port is what the Apple TVs connect to (8737 by default). Changing it takes effect the next time the Mac app launches, and the TVs must be able to reach the new port.
  • How TVs reach this Mac shows the addresses to type into a TV that cannot find the Mac by itself.
  • The Sync-All code protects pushing one TV's settings to every TV. A TV asks for it when you copy its settings to all TVs.
  • The admin password protects the manager.

Photo storage

Importing copies photos into the storage folder, so this is where the space is used. Pick an empty folder, a new one, or one that already holds an Aardy library. A folder with unrelated files is refused.

Changing the folder takes effect on the next launch, and so does moving your library. When the Mac shares Aardy with every user, the library lives in /Users/Shared/Aardvark ScreenSaver and cannot be changed here. Stop sharing first.

Photo resolution and enhancement

Every photo is prepared at two sizes, 4K and 1080p, and each TV gets the one that matches its screen.

Photos smaller than a 4K screen can be upscaled on this Mac, in the background, with a model called Real-ESRGAN. 4K TVs are sent the enhanced copy and your originals are never changed. It skips tiny images, screenshots and GIFs, and any pack with Enhance low-resolution photos turned off.

The card counts photos that are 4K-ready, enhanced, pending, too low-res, and failed. Enhance now wakes the job, and Retry failed tries the failures again. The first run after an update also prepares new 4K copies of every photo, which takes a while on a big library. On a laptop it waits while you are on battery.

Photo details (EXIF)

Camera, lens and exposure details shown in a photo's info are read once and stored. Re-read photo details reads photos not yet read. Re-read all reads every original again.

Aardy for iPhone: Devices

Lists every paired phone, when it was last seen, and how many albums it has sent. Revoke cuts a phone off at once. Its albums and packs stay on this Mac, and it can pair again. To pair a phone, see Pairing with a Mac.

Weather

Search for and add cities, and put them in order. Choose °F, °C, both, or automatic. Each TV picks its own first city. The data comes from MET Norway and needs no sign-up.

Home country

Tells captions which country to leave off a place. Automatic follows this Mac's region.

Backup & restore

See Backups, updating and going back.

Sharing with every user of the Mac

Choose Share with All Users on This Mac… from the menu-bar icon so whoever logs in runs the server. Network drives and folder permissions belong to each user, so have each user mount the drives.

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