Ollama Playground

A beautiful desktop application for interacting with Ollama language models, built with Tauri (Rust + Web technologies). Experience a book-like, elegant chat interface for your local AI models.

🌟 Key Features

🎨 Elegant User Interface

• Book-inspired design with warm amber/brown color scheme
• Responsive chat interface with smooth animations
• Real-time streaming responses for natural conversation flow
• Auto-resizing text input that adapts to your message length

🤖 Ollama Integration

• Model selection dropdown to choose from your installed Ollama models
• Direct communication with local Ollama instance
• Streaming chat responses for immediate feedback
• Full conversation history maintained during session

⚡ Performance & Technology

• Native desktop performance powered by Tauri framework
• Rust backend for efficient Ollama API communication
• Modern web frontend with Tailwind CSS styling
• Cross-platform compatibility (Windows, macOS, Linux)

💬 Chat Features

• Real-time message streaming with visual feedback
• Timestamped messages for conversation tracking
• User and assistant message differentiation with distinct styling
• Enter to send, Shift+Enter for new lines for intuitive input
• Automatic scrolling to latest messages

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

1. Ollama Installation

   # Install Ollama from https://ollama.ai
   # Then pull at least one model:
   ollama pull gemma3.1b
   # or
   ollama pull llama3.1

2. Development Environment

   • Rust (latest stable)
   • Node.js (v16 or later)
   • pnpm package manager

Installation & Running

1. Clone the repository

   git clone [email protected]:theArjun/ollama-playground.git
   cd ollama-playground

2. Start Ollama service

   # Make sure Ollama is running
   ollama serve

3. Run the application

   For development:

   pnpm tauri dev

   To build for production:

   pnpm tauri build

First Time Setup

1. Ensure Ollama is running with ollama serve
2. Verify you have models installed with ollama list
3. Launch the application - it will automatically detect your available models
4. Select a model from the dropdown and start chatting!

🛠️ Development

Project Structure

ollama-playground/
├── src/                    # Frontend (HTML, CSS, JS)
│   ├── index.html         # Main UI layout
│   ├── main.js           # Frontend logic & Tauri integration
│   └── assets/           # Static assets
├── src-tauri/            # Rust backend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── lib.rs        # Main Tauri application & Ollama integration
│   │   └── main.rs       # Entry point
│   ├── Cargo.toml        # Rust dependencies
│   └── tauri.conf.json   # Tauri configuration
└── package.json          # Node.js dependencies & scripts

Key Technologies

• Backend: Rust with Tauri framework
• Frontend: Vanilla JavaScript with Tailwind CSS
• AI Integration: Ollama-rs crate for Rust
• Styling: Tailwind CSS with custom book-inspired theme
• Build Tool: Tauri CLI with pnpm

🔧 Troubleshooting

Common Issues

"No models found" error:

• Ensure Ollama is running: ollama serve
• Verify models are installed: ollama list
• Check Ollama is accessible on default port (11434)

Application won't start:

• Verify Rust is installed: rustc --version
• Check Node.js version: node --version (should be v16+)
• Reinstall dependencies: pnpm install

Chat not working:

• Confirm Ollama service is running
• Check if the selected model is available
• Restart the application if models were added after launch

📝 Usage Tips

• Model Selection: Choose different models from the dropdown for varied conversation styles
• Message Input: Use Enter to send, Shift+Enter for multi-line messages
• Conversation Flow: Messages stream in real-time for natural conversation experience
• Performance: Larger models may take longer to respond depending on your hardware

🤝 Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Test thoroughly
5. Submit a pull request

📄 License

This project is open source. Please check the license file for details.