May End of month updates - Beta approaching
Added 2023-05-25 09:00:06 +0000 UTCI wanted to give an update of where we are with the next update. The beta is something we're working day by day to get out, but we have a few bugs that we want to finish up so that when we go to testing we can release...at this point the release would be early June. I'll do a feature walk through in a few days so you know what all is expected. I'm excited for features like HEIC support, and we've done a ton of work around EXIF data. We have some cool overlay work that's going in, and extension filtering as well.
I'm working on a padding feature for overlays that will make them much more useful. We also have some work that went in that wont light up for another month or so as it's groundwork for some bigger features that we want to ship, but they're taking time.
The biggest thing we have on our plate right now is a regression around video playback. It's most egregious if you have a video playlist and have a quick (5-10 second) transition time, or if you're on a pi2 or a pi with less memory (Pi3 a+ for instance). The error looks like a black screen for a bit, and then Dynaframe is crashing and you'll see the "Dynaframe" logo in the background. A restart of the device is required to get back into a good state. This is our hottest issue right now, and we have to fix it before doing much else. Unfortunately the investigation is taking time into what's causing it, so we may not have it fixed till June. I'll keep everyone updated on that feature.
I'm also working on the store, because we have 1,000 images including classic art pieces that I want to get distributed. That's a bigger change as we're working to make a proper store backend that we can upload image packs to and have them populate (Right now we hand edit an HTML file and create the image packs from scratch...it's not great, and definitely not something that will scale to the 1,000 images I want to get sorted and publish.
Please stay tuned, you'll see more chatter (as usual) as we end the month and get this release out.
Comments
YES! I have a design for what I'm calling the 'scheduler' which is what would allow for turning it on or off at certain times, but also doing other 'commands'. We built out the command engine to allow for the commands to be fired (this is work that will enable MQTT, REST, etc as well). There are two major portions that are not done: 1) The backend engine for the scheduler...I have a library to do it but it's not wired in yet. 2) The 'named playlist' feature. This is a bit tough for me to wrap my head around how I design the UI for it and such...but the idea is that you would be able to add a playlist selection and give it a name, and then that name would be what you'd point to in the scheduler. A playlist could be called "Halloween" and incorporate several folders that are turned on, and then the scheduler should have a command such as 'select playlist' that happens at a certain time. That, plugins, per playlist overlays, and some basic things like being able to import from a usb drive are the main things left before I consider this '1.0'. But we're working to not destabilize things. I got overambitious in December and we're still fixing bugs from the combination of overlay and video changes that we took. I think that some of this is necessary to move the project forward, but also we want to make sure that when you run the latest you can be confident it's going to work and be stable. That being said, I promise it'll happen. I want it, the project needs it, and we are working on it.
Joe Farro
2023-05-26 07:38:16 +0000 UTC
