User Guide

Not for New Users

The User Guide is not intended to be an introduction to TitleCardMaker for new users - it is a detailed reference for those already familiar with the basics. New users should follow the Getting Started tutorial.

Pages

The TitleCardMaker interface is separated into various pages which can be navigated to via the sidebar or buttons on the header. Each page is detailed below, grouped by how you are likely to use them.

Library & Series

Series

All Series-specific customizations and actions.
Adding Series

Manually adding a Series or Blueprint.
Recently Added

Viewing recently created Title Cards and recently added Series.
Missing Summary

Summary of missing Title Cards, missing Logos, and unloaded Title Cards.

Design

Templates

Create, customize, and view Templates for bulk-editing settings.
Fonts

Create, customize, and view custom Fonts.

Automation

Sync

Creating and editing Syncs to automatically add Series to TCM.
Scheduler

The schedulable Tasks which automatically perform all major operations.

Configuration

Settings

In-depth descriptions of all global settings.
Connections

Add connections to external services like Plex, Sonarr, Tautulli, or TMDb.

Monitoring

System Summary

Viewing the system details.
Logs

Viewing and filtering logs within the UI.
Graphs

Visualizing database snapshots and scheduled task durations over time.

Other

Changelog

Release notes and version history for TitleCardMaker.
Command Line Image Creation

Create Title Cards and posters from the command line for testing, debugging, and one-off image generation.

Selecting a Branch / Tag

TitleCardMaker follows the typical design pattern of lots of software packages, separating changes which are "in development" and "finalized". As a result, you have the option of selecting between either of these branches (or tags) for your version of TCM.

Develop Branches / Tags

If using the develop version of TCM, expect to encounter bugs which may require frequently updating. If this sounds cumbersome, stick to the main branch.

Backwards Compatibility

If there are changes to the TCM database schema, these are often irreversible - meaning swapping from develop to main is not possible.

Docker

Tag Name	Description	Recommended For..
`latest`	The most up-to-date (stable) release	Most users¹
`main`	Same as `latest`	It's recommended to use `latest`
`develop`	The most feature-rich (unstable) release	Those wanting to try the latest features
`main-armv7`	Same as `latest`, but for those on an ARMv7 architecture	See `latest`
`develop-armv7`	Same as `develop`, but for those on an ARMv7 architecture	See `develop`

Non-Docker

Branch Name	Description	Recommended For..
`main`	The most up-to-date (stable) release	Most users¹
`develop`	The most feature-rich (unstable) release	Those wanting to try the latest features

Environment Variables

Specifying an Environment Variable

Docker Compose Docker Non-Docker

Add all environment variables under the environment section of your compose file, like so:

docker-compose.yml

name: titlecardmaker
services:
  tcm:
    # etc.
    environment:
      - TZ=America/Los_Angeles
      - TCM_CONSOLE_LOG_LEVEL=WARNING
    # etc.

Specify the environment variable with the -e commands in your Docker run command, like so:

-e TZ=America/Los_Angeles -e TCM_CONSOLE_LOG_LEVEL=WARNING

The easiest method is to create a file named .env in the main TCM installation directory (where you type your python command) - like so:

.env

TZ=America/Los_Angeles
TCM_CONSOLE_LOG_LEVEL=WARNING

All TitleCardMaker environment variables use the TCM_ prefix. Variables are read from the process environment and, when present, from a .env file in the application root.

See the Environment Variables reference for every available variable, defaults, and constraints.

Unless you've encountered a bug which you personally require and is only available on develop. ↩↩