January alpha release is ready! Welcome to Overlays

Happy New Years eve!  

We have an alpha quality release introducing the newest feature for Dynaframe...Overlays!  You can find the code in the discord in the Alpha-open channel.  We handle alpha releases there so that people have a place to place feedback that doesn't conflict with the released program feedback.  Also it gives us a place that is less confusing to communicate things like what will change from that to release.

The help section of the web UI has been updated for Overlays. We also have fixes to the webUI (for instance stretch/zoom/fill settings should maintain now) and an entire video engine rewrite for stability and performance.   These are all in the alpha, but since the Overlay engine is new, you may actually see some perf regressions while we sort that out.  The UI and such is all getting updated.

One final thing I slipped in...the store has been overhauled!  If you haven't checked the store for content give it a shot, there's a few new packs in there now, and I'll announce when I get a font pack and some plugins in next.


What can you do with overlays?
Well...you can now have a seperate date and time...they can each be their own fonts, colors, and locations.  If you want the time in the upper right and the date in long format in upper left..you can now!.  

You can also do 'static' text.  If you wanted a custom quote or logo or note...you can now place those on the frame.  If you're a museum or theater, you can have the name at the top, bottom, or whever.  Placement of each overlay item is totally flexiable.

If text isn't enough, you can now also place images!  You have to copy them manually right now to the pi, but you can place any image you want anywhere you want.  Want a 'now playing' at the top of the page? That's possible now.  Want to have an overlay logo or brand?  That's possible too.  Even a digital picture frame border can be overlaid onto the frame.  Please note we worked hard on functionality, but demos and more content will be coming soon to flesh this out and demo it better.  Also, animated gifs work...but are sometimes crashing it.  We're working on it. :)

The pause button fix didn't make it in, but that should be done before release.  Right now the team is going to take a break...we worked hard between Christmas and today to make this release, and we'll spend some time with family before going back at it.  The next big ticket item is implementing the spec from the last post to change how wifi is handled.  Then we'll move into automation scenarios and bug fixing.  I'll lay out my 2023 plan in a few weeks, but we have some great things coming.

If today is the last day of support, we thank you for all you've done.  If there's anything more we could've did, please let me know via a message or in the comments.  We're always taking feedback and working to improve.

For those that are continuing with us through January and February...I hope you like some fun surprises because I have a few cooked up. But first...New Years celebrations and then getting it to run smoothly 'offline'.

Thanks a ton for the support!  If there's any hot bugs you're curious for an  update on please let me know and I'll make sure to followup.

Joe, QWK, and Lou
Dynaframe team


Change List:
- New logger functionality (reload home & log pages  [CTRL-F5])
- will no longer autorun prompt on usb insert (aka now automounting silently)
- can modify available format names with appsettings.json
- 24 time now supported in system, and clock overlay
- Video Playback Controls (WIP)
- New Files and Folders with spaces have permissions set properly now.
- Video engine performance and efficiency update.
- New Overlay Engine!!  

Known Issue:
- Backgrounds not working in overlay engine (yet.)
- Placeholders for Video in Editor may still show as broken.
- Logger is duplicating it's list in the 'appsettings.json' file.
- Logger is duplicating it's list in the left margin of the UI.    
- SciFi doesn't have any of the new pages.
- There is no Resume button to restart playback on this page, go to experimental to get that for now.