# What Kartend can do

- **Your folders, your artwork.** Point it at the files you already have.
  Settings live in a plain-text config file, and a `.kart` package backs up
  or moves the whole library — collections, metadata, playlists, and
  optionally the media itself.
- **Any media, any launcher.** Films, music, books, games, documents: each
  collection opens with whatever program you choose, and titles, descriptions
  and cover art can be fetched for you from TMDB, MusicBrainz, Open Library
  and more.
- **As much at home on the couch as at the desk.** Keyboard, mouse or
  gamepad, all rebindable — plus an attract mode for when it sits idle and an
  optional marquee window for a second screen.

### A game and arcade frontend, too

Point a collection at a games folder and Kartend behaves like a dedicated
frontend:

- **Emulators and RetroArch** — a launcher per collection or per item, a
  RetroArch core picker, archives launched with automatic extraction, and
  multi-disc releases grouped into a single entry.
- **Accurate matches** — files are hashed and checked against No-Intro,
  Redump, TOSEC or MAME DAT files before
  [ScreenScraper](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Scraper) is asked,
  so region and revision variants land on the right title. Each system's
  collection gets its own logo and backgrounds.
- **A [DAT audit](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/DAT-Audit)** that
  shows what you have, what's misnamed, and what's missing.
- **Your PC library alongside it** — Steam, Lutris, Heroic, itch.io and
  Bottles games show up next to everything else.
- **Cabinet-ready** — full gamepad navigation, attract mode when idle, a
  marquee window for a topper display, a Now Playing overlay while a game
  runs, and play time per title.

- [**Collections**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Collections) — nest them, alias them across parents, aggregate them, or watch their folders for changes
- [**Artwork**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Artwork) — async, cached, scraped or hand-linked
- [**Scraper**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Scraper) — metadata and artwork from TMDB (films and TV), MusicBrainz, Open Library, Flathub, the Steam store, ScreenScraper and Wikidata; batch runs can be paused and resumed, and [credentials go to your system keychain](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Keychain) where one is available
- [**Four layouts**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/View-Modes) — grid, list, cover flow, horizontal
- [**Launchers**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Launchers) — per-collection or per-item, with archive extraction
- [**Import**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Launcher-Import) — pull in what Steam, Flatpak, Lutris, Heroic, itch.io, Bottles or your desktop's application menu already has installed
- [**Playlists**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Playlists-and-Favorites) — hand-picked or [rule-driven](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Smart-Playlists), spanning collections, plus favorites
- [**History & statistics**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/History-and-Statistics) — launch counts, last launched and optional play time, per item and library-wide
- [**Video previews**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Video-Previews) — per-item clips in the sidebar and in Cover Flow
- [**Attract mode**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Attract-Mode) and [**marquee**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Marquee) — idle auto-scroll, and a second-screen window that follows the selection
- [**Backup & migration**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Backup-and-Migration) — `.kart` packages, from the GUI or the [command line](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/CLI-Reference)
- [**Theming**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Themes-and-Appearance) — backgrounds, vignette, parallax, blur, fonts, tints
- [**Input**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Input-and-Controls) — keyboard, mouse and gamepad, fully rebindable
- [**Scale**](https://github.com/EtherAura/Kartend/wiki/Search-Sort-Filter) — virtual scrolling and search-as-you-type over thousands of items