Replace bundled static.gif with a live RGB-split glitch effect
Rebuilt the track-transition "static overlay" as a chromatic-aberration glitch on the *live* album art instead of a bundled, pre-baked animated GIF: two duplicate, differently-tinted copies of the actual art (via filter.Hue, confirmed real and working), each cropped to a shifting horizontal band, plus scanlines and viewfinder-style corner tick marks. Loosely modeled on SUB/WAVE's own web UI, which does something similar to its cover art on track change (found via its compiled CSS/JS: a .v3-cover-live class gating an RGB-split band glitch, sweeping scanlines, and corner tick marks). The exact keyframe timing past the first step wasn't visible in the minified output, so GLITCH_STATES is an original jitter sequence in the same spirit, not a reproduction of unseen code. This is the third design for this effect: sparse noise specks, then a version derived from a real "VHS glitch" stock-footage clip (dropped because recognizable footage content showed through at 32x32, and it compressed worse than procedural noise), now this. Since it needs no bundled asset, the app goes back to a single-file upload -- reverted the Deploy section accordingly. Verified: renders cleanly across all zoom-level/static-overlay combinations, payload stays well under the 460KB limit, and render.Sequence's lack of looping (confirmed in pixlet's own source) means the RGB-split jitter plays once per show_static window and settles to just scanlines/ticks over clean art for the remainder, not a constant distraction for the whole window.
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@@ -31,8 +31,8 @@ app's config when adding it to a device.
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to show off different sections of its art over time instead of being
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stuck on one spot for its whole runtime.
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- **Static overlay** — On (default) or Off. When on, shows a brief
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TV-glitch effect (a jagged horizontal static band, plus scattered noise
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specks) over the album art during the first/last few seconds of a
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chromatic-aberration glitch (RGB-split bands, scanlines, and corner tick
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marks) over the album art during the first/last few seconds of a
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track, as a transition cue.
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## How it works
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@@ -116,33 +116,39 @@ app's config when adding it to a device.
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its full module list) — so there's no way to pre-bake or crop-at-render-
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time from a source we don't have until the request hits the live
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station.
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- When enabled (Static overlay config), shows a brief TV-glitch effect
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over the album art during the first/last `STATIC_OVERLAY_SECONDS` (5s)
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of a track, as a transition cue. Implemented as a small bundled animated
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GIF (`images/static.gif` — a jagged horizontal static band plus
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scattered noise specks, over a transparent background, procedurally
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generated with Pillow, not sourced from any existing footage)
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composited over the zoomed art via `render.Stack`, not generated at
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render time: pixlet's Starlark sandbox has no per-frame procedural
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drawing hook, and `animation.Transformation` only interpolates between
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fixed keyframes, so there's no way to get genuine random noise out of
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it. `render.Image` plays back animated GIFs natively, looping
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independently of the zoom's own animation timeline. An earlier version
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tried deriving this effect from a real "VHS glitch" stock-footage clip
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(downloaded, downsampled, and thresholded for transparency) instead of
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generating it — dropped because, even licensed as free-to-use, cropping
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- When enabled (Static overlay config), shows a brief chromatic-aberration
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glitch over the album art during the first/last `STATIC_OVERLAY_SECONDS`
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(5s) of a track, as a transition cue: two duplicate, differently-tinted
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copies of the *actual* art, each cropped to a shifting horizontal band
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(RGB-split look), plus scanlines and viewfinder-style corner tick marks.
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Loosely modeled on SUB/WAVE's own web UI, which does something similar
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to its cover art on track change (found via its compiled CSS/JS — not
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published anywhere as a spec, and the exact keyframe timing past the
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first step wasn't visible in the minified output, so the specific
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jitter sequence here, `GLITCH_STATES`, is an original sequence in the
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same spirit rather than a reproduction of unseen code).
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Built from the live, already-zoomed art via `filter.Hue`, not a bundled
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asset — pixlet's `filter` module can recolor an arbitrary widget, so the
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glitch bands reflect whatever's actually on screen. The RGB-split jitter
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plays once per `show_static` window via `render.Sequence` (which doesn't
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loop — confirmed in pixlet's own source, it just stops painting once its
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total frame count is used up) and then goes quiet, while the scanlines
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and corner ticks persist for the whole window as a constant texture.
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Went through two earlier, discarded designs before landing here, both
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bundled pre-baked animated GIFs rather than working from the live art:
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first sparse noise specks, then a version derived from a real "VHS
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glitch" stock-footage clip (downloaded, downsampled, and thresholded for
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transparency) — dropped because, even licensed as free-to-use, cropping
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it down to 32x32 let recognizable footage content show through at any
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opacity that read as an actual "band" rather than sparse noise, and it
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compressed noticeably worse than procedural noise does. Like the
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progress bar, this only works correctly on a long-lived server
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with a persistent cache — a one-shot `pixlet render` CLI call always
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sees `elapsed=0`, so it'll always show the "starting" static, never the
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"ending" one. Tuned the GIF's frame count/density/flicker speed down
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(fewer, sparser, slower-changing frames) after an initial version came
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within a few percent of the 460KB device limit on some album art — more
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distinct frames changing more often give WebP less opportunity to
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dedupe near-identical frames, and that cost compounds with the zoom
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animation already using up dedupe headroom of its own.
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opacity that read as an actual "band" rather than noise, and it
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compressed noticeably worse than procedural noise. The current
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live-`filter.Hue` version needs no bundled asset at all, so this app is
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back to a single-file upload. Like the progress bar, this only works
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correctly on a long-lived server with a persistent cache — a one-shot
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`pixlet render` CLI call always sees `elapsed=0`, so it'll always show
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the "starting" static, never the "ending" one.
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- Shows the current show name (`context.activeShow.name`) and host name
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(`dj.name`) below the artist, separated by a thin divider line, and the
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local time/temperature (`context.clock`/`context.weather`) below that —
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@@ -215,12 +221,10 @@ ever changes.
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## Deploy
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On the Tronbyt server, go to the device's **Add App** page → **Upload app**,
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and upload a zip of this repo's contents (`subwave_nowplaying.star` +
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`images/`, zipped at the root, no extra parent folder) — it bundles
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`images/static.gif` for the static-overlay effect, so a single-file upload
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of just the `.star` file will fail. Configure the Station URL field when
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adding it to your device's schedule.
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Upload `subwave_nowplaying.star` directly through your Tronbyt server's
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"Upload app" button on a device's Add App page (single file, no bundled
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assets — no need to zip). Configure the Station URL field when adding it to
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your device's schedule.
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```
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zip -r subwave-nowplaying.zip subwave_nowplaying.star images/
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