Coming soon: Playlist Sorting!

As we get closer to the end of the month, and the team goes heads down to finishing up what we have in the hopper, I want to start to do some discussions of the progress we have and some features that are sliding in as we work through things.

Playlist 'order' has been a pain point for a while.  It turns out the default order on Linux is 'file system' order which is...however the files go into memory most efficiently (for those that code, it appears it may be a binary tree algo or something related...).  What this means in english is...it's simply unpredictable.

Long term, the playlist editor UI will take care of this, as you'll have the ability to choose pictures, put them into a certain order, and then have it shown in that order (and beyond that we're looking at custom transition timings per picture so that if you want to REALLY tune in a show you can).  That work will happen, but we have some things to finish up first.

The picture at the top of this post is showing what will be a stopgap solution...we're going to show images in a sortable way...initially alphabetical descening or ascending.  I'm looking at doing something fancy with the date taken based on Exif data as well.  This should give some basic sorting to help make things predictable until we can get the rest of the work in.

Update on offline mode

The networking for the frame has been totally rewritten, and is now based on standard raspbian networking.  What this means for advanced users is that you can use wpa Supplicant files on the sdcard to have the frame connect to wifi without needing anything further.  

For those that want to add the frame to wifi, when you first start the frame you'll have a page which will let you connect to wifi, change wifi, set your password and such.  This functionality is all tested and ready to go into the next alpha build.

We added one more thing...the ability to choose which wifi device you're wanting to use.  This should help with deployments where wifi is not great, and someone wants to add a (raspberry pi compatable) wifi dongle...and then choose that.  

New Store View (and store packs)

The new store is in and working. We fixed some bugs around the packs, and there's now an easy workflow to update the store with new content.  

Easier access to underlying OS

We are always balancing ease of use with the 'look' of the system.  One thing we're experimenting with is exposing the default Raspbian menu and wifi, but in a very minimalist way...they are simply icons in the corner, and are hidden once the first image shows.  The impact of this however is if a user wants to access say wifi settings or something related, they can hit 'escape' to exit Dynaframe, and then they have access immediately to wifi/networking or the start menu.  We don't expect this to be needed, but when a power user does want to use these features, it'll be much easier for them to service the system than having to restore the desktop from scratch.  We will see how feedback on this goes, and likely will have a toggle to hide them again, but have it shown by default.

Again, they only would be showing if someone exits the software, or during bootup they show as two icons in the upper left for a few seconds. Below shows the icons after you hit the 'start' button, and what it looks like when you have exited Dynaframe.  The wifi icon is handy for showing you if you're connected or not to a network.

Below shows what the icons look like when they're not selected.

Other work we're trying to complete

While the offline mode that we've talked about is working great, the 'ad hoc' mode to configure the system directly is not completed yet. We have some prototypes and will try to get it in by end of month, but it's currently at risk to be pushed to next month. If that happens we'll push the offline mode we have to unblock those that need it, and then finish up the rest for a beta and release that as soon as it's ready.

An audio endpoint selector is almost complete.  We are doing a code jam tomorrow to try to finish this up, but this will allow users to switch from the HDMI audio endpoint to the headphone / aux out jack. We had some requests to do that in the past to output to speakers or another audio system, this should allow that.

The automation for on/off and other commands at certain times is in progress, and I'm working to get at least an alpha of it out by end of the month.  We have alot of time, we'll see if I can make it.

Feedback from the overlay system for usability is going to (mostly) make it in.  Thankyou to those that opened issues and tried the alpha out to provide feedback.  Some of it involves moving options around to make it easier, some involves better date formatting options, and others involve the ability to modify the images that are uploaded according to scale or rotation.  Most of this should make it in, and we'll attack the next set next month.  Since Overlays are a new feature they'll get alot of attention so we can dial in the experience. There's ALOT of usability improvements that we know we need to make.

Wow, this ended up being alot longer than I planned, but it also shows how much work is going into this project.  My goal is to promote the alpha to a beta with the above functionality. We'll likely have another alpha release in the next few days, with the goal of a beta by end of month.  The next month we'll go into bugfix mode and work to stabilize all that we've added.

Thankyou for the support, and a huge thanks to all providing feedback, stories of how you're using it, pictures, and more.  We continue to grow and improve each month and I can not believe how many awesome features are coming in so fast with this monthly cadence.  Thank you!  I'll try to get a demo video out soon.  Till then, see you in the discord!

Joe Farro
Geektoolkit