Creator (2026-10-30): pre-1.0, use DEBUG — add a toggle that simulates the ticker so the strip can
be SEEN and its compositing verified before a real stream.
The sample travels the REAL ScoreboardRecorder a stream uses (one new member, a gift of three, a
milestone, a $12.34 Super Chat), so what the preview shows is exactly what live events produce — a
fake renderer would prove nothing. Toggling off clears to an empty session, so the empty state is
visible too.
Debug-gated at COMPILE time: `DevelopmentBuild` is a const true in DEBUG / false in Release, and the
checkbox binds its Visibility to it. A shipped Release build therefore has no dev control at all,
rather than one hidden by a runtime flag.
Guard: ScoreboardSimulationTests — the sample lands all four tallies through the recorder, off clears,
and the panel + const pair exist in the Dual (DEBUG/Release) form.
Creator: "even if it's not visible, we want to avoid polling."
ScoreboardEnabled is the layer's master switch in the properties panel. Off means two things:
- the strip frame is null in every scene (per-scene eye toggles stay independent), and
- the cadence policy returns None at every phase — a scoreboard nobody can see must not spend quota.
The switch is persisted (Scoreboard.Enabled), because one that resets would quietly resume polling.
The polling gate is ScoreboardPollsEnabled: master switch AND at least one scene with a visible
scoreboard — so hiding it in all five scenes also stops the polls.
Guards: ScoreboardCadenceTests adds the switch off across live/test/recording; ScoreboardProperties
pins the checkbox and the VM surface.
Creator ruling: the Scoreboard layer exists in every scene rather than being added five times.
ScoreboardHealer.Ensure keeps exactly one per scene — healed on load like the Background and Brand
logo — so a scene can never end up with two, and 'off' is the ordinary per-scene eye toggle rather
than a delete.
It is appended as the TOPMOST layer on purpose: a full-width strip draws over the scene, and
inserting it above the background would break the Brand logo's documented invariant (directly above
the background). That choice is also why the layer-reorder test still passes untouched.
Also: a layer-list icon for the type, so the row is not blank.
Guard: ScoreboardHealerTests — one per scene, topmost, exact strip geometry, idempotent, and a
duplicate healed back to one.
Both were mine, from the scoreboard units:
- ScoreboardLayout.FitLine null-forgave tileWidths on one expression and then iterated the field
anyway; it now binds a non-null local once and uses that throughout.
- the output resolver dereferenced _scoreboardPresenter, which is assigned in InitScoreboard — it
is nullable by construction, so the resolver reads '?.' exactly like the other optional services.
Clean build, 0 warnings, scoreboard tests green.
Unit 6 created the recorder and the session hook but nothing fed it — the strip would have stayed
empty through a whole stream. The poll's message handler now records each decoded event after the
chat and alert layers have seen it.
Caught by tracing the data path while wiring analytics, not by a test: the guards cover the tally
rules, not the seam into the poller.
Selecting a Scoreboard layer now shows its settings, using the app's own widgets only:
- eight fact checkboxes (subscribers, watch hours, Super Chats, new members, milestones, last member,
last Super Chat, last gift)
- text colour and plate colour via YtComboBox over BorderColorPalette (the app's one palette —
TASK 63's rule: a picker IS the app's drop-down, never a hand-built menu)
- plate on/off, plate opacity, text size 14-24
Every change pushes through the presenter (SetStyle/SetTiles) and repaints the strip, so the preview
and the output follow immediately. One look per layout, stored on the view-model: the scoreboard is a
single billboard, not eight independent widgets.
Guard: ScoreboardPropertiesTests asserts the panel is gated on SelectedElement.IsScoreboard, binds
all eight facts and the four look controls, uses YtComboBox/YtCheckBox only, and that the VM surface
exists for each name (a typo would otherwise bind to nothing in silence).
Adds SourceType.Scoreboard with the same per-scene eye toggle, drag and presence as every other
element — 'prominent on BRB, dialled back on Live' is geometry, not a second mechanism. Default
geometry is the strip: 1920 wide, 56 tall, bottom edge.
The output resolver returns the presenter's cached frame exactly like the chat box and alert box do,
and every session start clears the tallies. Preview publication writes one shared WriteableBitmap on
the UI thread (the pump thread must never touch one), refreshed only when a displayed value moves.
Guard: ScoreboardLayerTests pins the enum member, the geometry constants, the resolver case and the
session hook, so the layer cannot quietly become a special widget.
Reported: no activity in the master meter.
Cause: `MasterLevel` measures the buffer the ENCODER receives, and that buffer only exists while the
mix is being pulled — streaming or recording. Idle, nothing fills it, so the master read zero while
the bays below it moved. A master that is dead between sessions is a gap in the design.
Now: while a session runs the master shows the measured mix (unchanged); idle it shows an estimate
computed from the same measured sources and the same gains the mix applies
(`MeterScale.MonitorFraction`, pure + tested). Two ladders can therefore never tell contradictory
stories about whether audio exists.
Guard: MeterScaleTests pins the estimate — silence reads zero, a quiet source at unity is visible,
two sources add, and gain is applied in the LINEAR domain like the mix (scaling the display fraction
would be a different, wrong curve).
Creator ruling (2026-10-30): TRAX is background music and is controlled separately from desktop and
mic — so KISS it:
- TRAX loses its own ladder and slider. It is one number plus ±5 dB buttons, disabled at the ends
(−60 dB floor, +6 dB ceiling).
- It STARTS at −50 dB, taken from the creator's own meter readings, and moves in 5 dB clicks. If that
proves inaudible on their setup, six clicks lands at −20 — the buttons exist for exactly that, and
`TraxDefaultDb` is one constant.
- Layout follows: Desktop's volume now sits directly beneath its ladder, and the TRAX row (name,
play/pause, level) sits beneath that, inside the GAME bay. The bays are MIC | GAME+TRAX | LIP-SYNC.
- The metering tap on the player stays (it is how "is the music producing sound" is answered) but has
no ladder of its own; the desktop bed already shows the music.
Guards updated: TraxBayTests now asserts the stepper wiring and that the row has NO SegmentMeter;
GameBayTests asserts the desktop fader sits below the desktop ladder.
Reported: the TRAX bar moves, but its sampling looks far slower than the mic meter.
Cause: the TRAX number was a raw instantaneous peak per metering block — a stutter sampled by the UI
timer, with no smoothing. The mic looks fluid because it is smoothed at audio-callback rate.
Fix: the player now smooths its measured level with the SAME curve the mic uses
(MeterScale.NextLevel: fast attack, gentle decay), and the dock's meter clock runs at ~30 Hz instead
of 20. Two ladders that move alike, because they are the same ballistics.
Guard: MeterScaleTests pins the attack/decay behaviour alongside peak-hold.
Reported: TRAX plays audibly but no ladder registers anywhere.
Two distinct faults, one of them mine:
1. The meter readouts were refreshed only from the MIC's level callback. With a silent or absent
mic there is no tick, so a playing TRAX never updated its ladder — the level was measured, the
UI simply never asked for it. Meters now have a 20 Hz DispatcherTimer of their own.
2. If the player's own meter still reads 0 while playing, the samples are not reaching the device
(or metering is not attached). That now writes ONE line to startup.log after 2s — so the next
report says which side is broken instead of another round of guessing.
Note: TRAX rides the desktop loopback, so once the mix captures it the GAME ladder should move too;
if it does not, the loopback endpoint and the music's output device differ.
Creator: "why is there no meter for when trax is playing?"
Routing answer: TRAX rides the desktop loopback, so it already moved the GAME ladder — there was no
separate TRAX signal in the mix. But that ladder cannot answer the question a deaf creator actually
has: "is the music producing sound at all?" The play glyph cannot either — an open file with a dead
decoder still reports Playing.
So the player now measures its own output: \`MusicPlayer\` wraps the volume stage in an NAudio
\`MeteringSampleProvider\` and exposes \`Level\`; \`ITraxPlayer.Level\` keeps the fake honest. The VM maps
it through the same display scale (\`TraxMeterFraction\`), zeroed when not playing, and the TRAX bay
carries a 24-segment ladder above its fader.
This reverses my earlier "no ladder, nothing honest to show" — the honest thing arrived with a real
measurement. TraxBayTests flipped accordingly (it now asserts the ladder AND its source).
Unit 9, the one that matters most for this creator.
MASTER STRIP (top, nearest the preview):
- one ladder fed by the MEASURED mix — `AudioMixer` now measures the buffer the encoder receives
(`MasterLevel`, `MasterImbalanceDb`), so the master cannot show a source instead of the output
- `-12.4 dB` readout, and ONE L/R flag that appears above a 6 dB gap instead of a second ladder
- bitrate / FPS / dropped / duration from the existing health poll
MONO OUTPUT:
- `AudioFold.ToMono` averages each stereo pair into both channels, applied after the limiter and
the sync delay, so the stream AND the recording get what was folded
- `MonoOutput` is persisted (`Audio.MonoOutput`) and restored at startup: an accessibility switch
that resets each session is an accessibility failure
- one click in the strip, remembered forever
Guard: AudioFoldTests (hard-left reaches the right at half amplitude, hard-right — the inaudible
case — reaches the left, centred material keeps its level, mono buffers untouched) and
MasterStripTests (the strip binds the measured mix + the switch, the store round-trips it, and the
fold is the tested helper rather than new arithmetic). 33 audio tests green.
Unit 8. Re-houses the shipped TASK 22 offset in the dock:
- slider −200…+200 ms, snapping to 5 ms ticks (the existing property still clamps and persists)
- readable readout: "0 ms (aligned)" when right, signed otherwise ("+50 ms", "−120 ms")
- presets 0 / +50 / +100; 0 IS the detent — a button is easier to hit than a snap, and "the lip-sync
is right" deserves one click.
Guard: SyncBayTests pins the binding, the readout, the presets and the snapping, and that the
offset stays the persisted property (no second source of truth).
Unit 7. The bay shows the track name (left-click toggles playback, right-click opens the picker —
the label stays the control), a play/pause button, the duck badge, and a dB level.
No ladder here, deliberately: nothing measures the music bed, and a decorative ladder would break
the measured-not-painted rule. A test asserts the bay has no SegmentMeter.
The level is real: `ITraxPlayer.UserGain` is a new creator gain multiplied onto the fixed design
volume, separate from `LocalGain` (which follows the desktop mute). The VM's `TraxVolumeDb` is the
same dB scale as the other faders, so unity means the bed's design level.
Unit 6. Mirrors the mic bay for the desktop/game bed, plus the badge that matters to a creator who
cannot hear the duck: it shows while the ducker is actually attenuating, and it prints the gain the
mixer applied (−12.0 DUCK by design).
- `AudioMixer.DuckGain` exposes `AutoDucker.CurrentGain` instead of leaving it internal.
- VM: `GameVolumeDb` / `GameVolumeDbLabel` (fader face), `GameMeterFraction` (measured level),
`IsGameDucking` + `GameDuckLabel` refreshed on the level tick — the same moment the ducker runs,
so the badge cannot lag behind the mix.
- The bay: header chip + source, ladder, mute dot (uses the meter band, so mute reads at a glance),
dB readout, fader.
Guard: GameBayTests — the dock binds all four, `AutoDucker.DuckGain` is −12.04 dB and the label is
produced through the same dB scale as the faders, and the mixer property exists so the badge cannot
become a hardcoded number.
Unit 5. The dock's first working bay:
- 24-segment ladder fed by `MicMeterFraction` — the MEASURED display level (already scaled by the
volume and zeroed when muted), never the gain setting.
- Fader in dB via `MicVolumeDb` (−60 … +6, 0 = unity) with a mono-weight readout
(`MicVolumeDbLabel`), so "−6.0 dB" is what the creator reads instead of "0.50".
- Mute button whose dot uses the existing MicStatusBrush; clicking the device name opens the mic
picker, so the label stays the control (the KISS rule: one place to change the mic).
The preview's own mic row stays for now — it is removed in the final unit, after the dock bays are
complete, so nothing is lost if a bay misbehaves.
Guard: MicBayTests — the bay binds the dB face and the measured level (not the gain), the fader
range IS the scale's range, the VM surface exists, and mute still zeroes the ladder.
Reported: EDIT on + ON-AIR on, signed out → the button reads "Test Stream" and cannot be pressed.
Cause: the primary button bound straight to StartTestCommand, whose CanExecute needs a connection.
StartSession already routed signed-out ON-AIR to the sign-in flow; the test path bypassed it.
The route is now explicit and pure: RouteFor(kind, connected) → SignIn | Record | Live | Test. The
primary command calls SignInAsync for the SignIn route, BeginTestStream for Test, StartSession
otherwise — so the label, the action and the sign-in fallback cannot drift apart. Pinned in
SessionStartDecisionTests for both live and test, connected and not.
Creator ruling (2026-10-30):
- EDIT off + ON-AIR armed → the primary button reads "Go Live" and runs the livestream.
- EDIT on + ON-AIR armed → the same button reads "Test Stream" and runs the test broadcast.
- REC armed (or nothing armed) → "Start Recording", whatever EDIT says; there is no test
recording, and an unarmed start records locally rather than doing nothing.
So the fifth button was redundant: `ShowTestButton` no longer feeds any control. The decision is a
pure function (`Models/SessionStartDecision`) so the whole matrix is testable without a window;
`PrimaryStartCommand` follows the same kind, so label and action cannot disagree.
Guard: SessionStartDecisionTests pins the four cases, including the no-dead-ends fallback that my
first version got wrong (unarmed returned Live instead of Record — the test caught it).
Note for the v1 gate: the "hide TEST at v1" item is now satisfied by construction — the test path
is a mode of the primary button, not a separate control.
The two regressions that reached the creator both lived in preview XAML that no test loads: the
appearance controls painted nothing, then the bar vanished when the plate was off. Every existing
test was green through both.
This test drives the real drawer on a real MainWindow (hermetic temp DB, per the layout-pollution
rule) and reads the real preview elements:
- the bar is VISIBLE, whatever the plate switch says
- a drawer text colour reaches the glyph
- the plate carries its colour and ~50% alpha, and its 18,6 padding only when enabled
- the shadow is an actual DropShadowEffect on the glyph, and off by default
- Cancel restores the pre-edit look
It paid for itself on the first run: Cancel did NOT revert. The snapshot held the same config
object the live preview mutates, so "restore" restored the edited object. The snapshot is now the
six values, written back on cancel — entries untouched.
Also fixes the harness details that made the first attempts fail: everything runs on the app's STA
thread (window creation AND close), and the exception is rethrown with its stack so a failure is
diagnosable next time.
The state colours the view-models hand to bindings — top bar, REC/ON-AIR dots, health banner,
meter bands, toast tints — were hex literals in C#. They now resolve from Themes/Tokens.xaml
through `Helpers/ThemeBrush`, so the values live in one place. Without an Application (unit tests)
the helper returns a neutral grey: visibly wrong rather than silently plausible.
Four tokens the code needed and the document lacked, added to DESIGN.md (so the doc-is-the-contract
guard demanded their brushes): info-container #3a3b52, success-container #1d5c38,
warning-container #b8860b, test-container #9c6f1c (the test-stream gold bar).
Also fixed by this: the top bar still painted the RETIRED brand red #e94560 when live — the
standard's #ff5451 now, and `OnAirSignTests` (which pinned the old value) says so. BarOn/BarOff
became properties rather than static fields, because a static field would resolve tokens before
the Application exists.
Verified: DesignTokensTests, GameMeterHonestyTests, NotificationAreaIntegrationTests,
OnAirSignTests, SessionTeardownTests — 38 tests green.
My own regression from the previous commit: the plate Border WRAPPED the bar's content and its
Visibility was bound to BarBackgroundEnabled — so with the plate off (the default) the preview
collapsed the entire social bar. Nothing was wrong with the data; the element was there and
invisible.
Fix: the wrapper is always laid out. "Plate off" now means a TRANSPARENT background
(`SocialBarBackgroundBrush` returns Transparent when disabled) and zero padding, "on" means the
colour/opacity plate with 18,6 padding — which also matches what the renderer bakes for the
output, so preview and broadcast agree.
Guard (new fact in SocialBarAppearanceTests): the preview must never visibility-gate the bar on
BarBackgroundEnabled, the wrapper must bind SocialBarBackgroundBrush, and the plate's switching
must be Padding.
Two bugs from the creator's first look at the new controls.
1. CRASH — '{DependencyProperty.UnsetValue}' is not a valid value for property 'Fill'.
The token conversion deleted `YtSliderKnobHoverBrush` while two slider triggers still
referenced it. WPF does not fail that at build time: it substitutes UnsetValue and throws at
the next layout, inside `Ellipse.OnRender` — so the first slider touched (the new opacity one)
killed the app. The brush is back, as a glossier version of the rest state.
Guard: `ThemeResourceTests` scans every app XAML and proves each {StaticResource} key is
defined (theme/App resources or the same file). Proven by removing the key again — the test
names it.
2. PREVIEW DID NOTHING — the preview bar is its own XAML rendering (not the rasterized strip the
compositor overlays), and it was hard-wired white-on-transparent, so the drawer's controls had
nothing to move. Now:
- `SocialBarTextBrush` / `SocialBarBackgroundBrush` come from the same `SocialBarStyle` the
renderer bakes, so preview and output cannot disagree.
- the preview draws the plate (same colour + opacity) and the drop shadow.
- the drawer applies changes to the live config as you edit (`ApplyAppearancePreview`), and
Cancel restores the pre-edit snapshot — so the preview tracks the controls without
persisting anything until Save.
46 tests green (theme, socials, design tokens, layout store, real-MainWindow meter test).
In the Socials drawer, under the show/hide switch: text colour, an optional background plate
with its own colour and opacity, and a text drop shadow. The bar had been hard-wired
white-on-transparent since it shipped.
- `SocialsConfig` gains five additive properties (BarTextColor, BarBackgroundEnabled,
BarBackgroundColor, BarBackgroundOpacity, BarTextShadow).
- Persistence: five new Socials columns, added by the per-column idempotent migration pattern
(a half-migrated DB heals instead of failing), written in Save and read back in Load with
defaults for pre-existing rows.
- `SocialBarRenderer.Render(entries, SocialBarStyle?)` — the look is a separate value type so the
renderer stays a pure "entries + look" function and the preview can never read a half-applied
config mid-edit. A malformed hex falls back to white/black instead of throwing inside a render
tick.
- The plate hugs the entries (rounded 20px, padding) so it reads as a caption bar, not a band
across the frame. Off by default, because transparent is what creators have today.
- The colour pickers reuse `BorderColorPalette` — one catalogue of the app's colours, per the
TASK 60/63 rule.
Guard: SocialBarAppearanceTests paints the real strip and inspects pixels — default is white with
no plate, a red text colour reaches the glyphs, a 55% blue plate yields half-transparent blue
pixels, and the shadow adds dark pixels that were not there before.
The creator (2026-10-30): the brand-logo field in App Settings showed only a file NAME, so a
myopic user could not confirm which picture was set. Now a 28x28 thumbnail sits left of the
field showing the actual image, and hovering it opens an enlarged copy (up to 420x320) beside
the panel with the file name underneath. A click collapses it; moving the pointer away closes
it, unless the pointer walked onto the popup itself, where it stays so the creator can look
closely.
Mechanics:
- `MainViewModel.BrandLogoPreviewImage` decodes the stored asset ONCE and freezes it, so the
thumbnail and the enlargement share one bitmap and no dispatcher hop is needed. A corrupt
image returns null instead of taking the dialog down.
- The thumbnail is hidden when no image is set (NotNullToVis), so there is nothing to hover and
no empty frame can appear.
- The popup is a separate window: WPF refuses to open one until its placement target is in a
live visual tree, which is why the test hosts the control in a real window rather than
asserting on a detached control.
Guard: BrandLogoPreviewTests — the wiring (image binding, the no-image gate, the four gesture
handlers, the readable enlargement size) and the control's open/close behaviour.
Last inconsistency from the sweep: several VM-side state colours are still literals, and after
the palette moved they disagreed with everything around them — the top bar's LIVE state would
have painted the retired pink-red while the tile beside it used the standard red.
Values aligned (tokenisation of these sites is its own unit — they are strings bound to
Background/Foreground, so the fix is a VM->Brush refactor, not a find/replace):
- live / on-air / recorder dot: #e94560 -> #ff5451 (the standard red)
- error banner: #8f1f1f -> #93000a (error-container)
- audio meter bands follow the doc's stated thresholds: nominal cyan #38bdf8, caution amber
#ffb95f, peak #ff5451 — they were green/yellow/red, which contradicted DESIGN.md's own table
GameMeterHonestyTests pinned the old band colours; its intent (the meter scales by volume) is
unchanged, so the two colour expectations now name the new bands.
- Source.IsBrandLogo persisted (additive migration); layer healed on load, removal blocked
- Image stored as an asset; settings keep the asset id and file name
- App Settings: Brand Logo file field with Browse
- Default placement top-left; per-scene eye uses the existing element visibility
Test: BrandLogoTests; layout/background tests pass (34). Not pushed.
- Socials: the dialog is a right-rail drawer (same pattern as Stream Info/YPP/TEST); the live-screen button is removed
- Right rail: Stream Info (was Stream Settings) and YPP show the YouTube logo; Socials and TEST get icons; tab colors and label colors per spec
- Top bar: EDIT toggle beside REC (orange when on, blue when off); going live on YouTube turns it off
- Stream readouts (bitrate, FPS, dropped n (x.y%), Live hh:mm:ss, health) and the resolution dropdown moved to the top-left cell; bottom bar emptied at the same height
- Webcam border drawing restored (it was removed with the CRT bezel change)
- YouTube chat layer: border color, thickness, and opacity controls
- Vertical 1080p30 tier added
Not related to the fps gate yet; no gating is enforced.
- TopBar: EDIT ToggleButton, spaced from the REC/ON-AIR segments
- MainViewModel: explicit EditingActive drives IsEditMode; YouTube go-live turns edit off, stop turns it on
- SceneThumbnailStrip: tiles fixed 196x130 and centered; dark background fills the column so its edge does not move on resize; strip row fixed 154px
- MainWindow: left column fixed at 360px; WIDTHS diagnostic log on resize
Not pushed.
- LeftPanel: SCENE LAYERS header with layer count; per-type blue icons; properties header gear; layers list min/max height; properties placeholder; list and properties indent
- SceneThumbnailStrip: names/hotkeys over the tile; PROGRAM badge with blinking red dot on the selected tile; orange border on selected and live tiles; fixed the element border override that hid the style border; reflag tiles on load
- LiveScene is now set on go-live, record start, and live transitions (it was never assigned, so IsLive never fired)
- Startup stages the scene named Starting
- DESIGN.md: color roles (red = YouTube/on-air/record, orange #ff8c3a = attention, amber = game audio/Super Chat)
- Staged live tile uses background art instead of the green LIVE placeholder
Not pushed.
- PreviewPane.xaml: drop the OBS-style border Rectangle/Ellipse over webcam elements
- SceneThumbnailStrip: Viewbox scales the row; height follows width so it fills the preview column; staged+live tile has no border
- MainWindow.xaml: strip moved to column 1 only, leaving the layers cell empty; Margin 8,0 matches the preview
- MainViewModel.Background: stop seeding the CRT scene tiles and the on-air image
- ytLive.csproj: per-build counter (BuildCounter.txt, gitignored) replaces the commit-count stamp
Build stamp now increments on every build.
The creator's locked table (2026-10-17) gives the Chat scene its own rules in
the 9:16 tier: RECT ONLY - the circle option is not offered - and a size that
is either the normal small tile or ENLARGED to fill one whole 607x540 area
(top or bottom). Unit 1 shipped the per-scene placement; this unit is the Chat
scene's own variant of it.
The rule lives on the MODEL, not on the button:
- Models/SceneElement.cs: ClipShape and ToggleClipShape() are now virtual.
- Models/WebcamSceneConfig.cs: VerticalShapeLocked (set per scene by the VM)
OVERRIDES the ClipShape property, so no writer can slip a circle in - the
toggle, the Shape button and the placement swap all go through it. The lock
is cleared BEFORE the 16:9 layout comes back, so the desktop shape returns.
- ViewModels/MainViewModel.Webcam.cs: CanToggleClipShape (the circle is NOT
offered in the vertical Chat layout - the Shape button disappears, it is not
merely greyed out), IsChatSceneCamera, ResizeWebcamInVerticalTier.
- Models/VerticalCameraLayout.cs: FillsArea (the "enlarged" state, derived -
no new column) and SizeFor - the Chat camera's TWO sizes, the tile or the
whole area, whichever is nearer the requested width, so the resize handle
has two detents instead of any size in between.
- An enlarged camera FILLS the area its centre is in (top or bottom), so
dragging it up/down swaps the areas.
- The Chat camera is auto-tiled like the Live one when the vertical tier is
picked - otherwise the vertical chat stream has no camera at all.
- Controls/PreviewPane.xaml.cs: the resize routes through the VM; the drag
assigns, lets the model clamp into the band, then snaps (so the enlarged
camera can be dragged from the top area to the bottom one).
Test: ytLive.Tests/VerticalChatCameraLayoutTests.cs - the ONE Good Dog test for
the unit: the vertical tier is picked -> the Chat camera comes into the band as
a small RECT tile -> the circle option is not offered and cannot be set even on
the model -> dragged up and enlarged it fills the TOP area exactly -> back to
16:9 the desktop layout is restored exactly and the circle option is offered
again. 430/430 tests pass, 0 warnings.
Research (the creator's table is the established practice, not our invention):
- Streamlabs' vertical guide: "splitting the screen in half horizontally,
placing the camera feed in the top half and the main content on the bottom
(or vice versa) may be the bet", and a just-chatting vertical wants the
camera "to take up most of the screen"
(streamlabs.com/content-hub/post/overlays-vertical-and-horizontal-streaming)
- Bloopbot's vertical overlay docs describe the same per-layer model we use at
scene granularity: "move or resize a layer on Vertical and it stops being
Auto-placed. It keeps the place you gave it, and the horizontal layout is not
touched" (bloopbot.com/docs/vertical-overlays-twitch-dual-format) - our
swap-at-tier-change, stored per scene.
- Landmine recorded: "about the bottom 560 px of the vertical video can be
covered by Twitch's chat and player controls on phones" (Bloopbot) - the Chat
camera's enlarged BOTTOM area may be half-hidden by the platform chrome;
TASK 53's safe-zone work decides that.
Memory in the same commit: ai.md (the Chat rules, the shape lock, the tests),
TASKS.md + TASKS/task-57-vertical-camera-layout.md (TASK 57 complete), HANDOFF.md,
MyMistakes.md (3 recipes: lock the model property not the UI button; two detents
for a discrete size set; the edit tool cannot match an oldString with an em
dash), Models/ViewModels/Controls index rows.
The vertical tier is a centred band crop of the SAME 1920x1080 master (band x
656.25, w 607.5, h 1080), so the 16:9 camera placement (x~1408) falls outside the
cropped window and the creator is simply not in the vertical stream. Each scene
now keeps its own vertical position, size and shape; switching back to 16:9
restores the desktop layout exactly (the creator's locked table, 2026-10-17).
Geometry only - NO render-path change. The preview and the compositor both read
the element's own X/Y/W/H + ClipShape, so the tier switch swaps the LIVE geometry:
- Models/VerticalCameraLayout.cs (new): the pure math - the band, its two 607x540
areas, the six spots (top/bottom x left/centre/right), the 32px inset and the
270x152 default tile (480x270 in the 1080x1920 output) in the bottom-right spot,
the corner the 16:9 default webcam uses.
- Models/WebcamSceneConfig.cs: the vertical placement lives in seven additive
columns (VerticalX/Y/Width/Height/ClipShape/RectWidth/RectHeight; NULL = "this
scene has no vertical placement yet"). The 16:9 layout stays in the old columns
and is parked in the transient Landscape* fields while the vertical tier is
live; Begin/EndVerticalLayout + CommitLiveLayoutToVertical do the swap. The
X/Y/W/H overrides clamp every write into the band - outside it the camera is
invisible in the vertical output.
- Models/SceneElement.cs: X/Y/Width/Height became virtual so the derived element
constrains every writer (drag, resize handle, typed fields) in ONE choke point
instead of three writers each re-implementing the rule.
- ViewModels/MainViewModel.Webcam.cs + .Streaming.cs: IsVerticalTier/VerticalBand,
ResolveVerticalCameraLayout(s) (the tier swap), MoveWebcamInVerticalTier /
SnapWebcamInVerticalTier (the six-spot snap, by the tile's centre),
EnsureVerticalCameraLayout; ApplyStreamQuality is the tier-change hook. The
Live scene gets its small tile automatically on the first vertical switch (the
vertical stream would otherwise have no camera at all); the other scenes keep
their 16:9 placement until the creator drags them into the band.
- Controls/PreviewPane.xaml.cs: the drag/resize route through the VM snap under
the vertical tier instead of free-floating over the master.
Controls/LeftPanel.xaml: the webcam properties gained a Geometry section
(X/Y/W/H) for the manual entry the creator asked for, bound to the LIVE
placement, gated on the VM's IsWebcamSelected (NOT SelectedElement.IsWebcam -
the TASK 51 test finds that panel by binding text and would match twice).
- The store: seven guarded ADD COLUMNs, the INSERT/SELECT extended, and the
X/Y/W/H/ClipShape columns stay the 16:9 layout - while the vertical tier is
live the save writes the parked values there and the live ones into Vertical*.
Test: ytLive.Tests/VerticalWebcamLayoutTests.cs - the ONE Good Dog test. The
vertical tier brings the Live camera INTO the band as a small tile; dragging it to
the top-right lands it top-right inside the band; back to 16:9 the desktop layout
is restored exactly (1408/778/480x270); both placements survive a save + reload.
Full suite 429/429, 0 warnings. LayerReorderPersistenceTests.RealMouseDrag fails
ALONE on a clean tree in this environment - pre-existing flake, proven by stashing
this work, not a regression.
Derivative work: OBS has no built-in per-aspect-ratio layout storage - the
maintainers' answer is "create a second scene and add the scene you want to send
as source" (obsproject.com/forum/threads/161307) - and Streamyard's dual-aspect
guide says the same ("no built-in way to store separate layouts per aspect ratio",
so you rely on manual workarounds and plugins):
https://streamyard.com/blog/dual-aspect-ratio-streaming-tool
Our per-scene, per-tier stored placement, resolved on the tier change, is the
step past both.
Memory in the same commit: ai.md (new section), TASKS.md + TASKS/task-57-*.md
(Unit 1 shipped, Unit 2 = the Chat scene still open), HANDOFF.md, MyMistakes.md
(the per-tier geometry-swap recipe, the binding-text panel trap, the store's
webcam-identity rule) and the Models/Services/ViewModels/Controls index rows.
The zoom feature shipped without a task record while its index rows carried the
"TASK 51" label — which belongs to the webcam background effects (Remove + Blur).
For an honest catalogue and handoff:
- TASKS/task-52-zoom-box.md: feature provenance (creator-requested), the three
2026-10-08 corrections (loupe -> anchored capture over the full composite drawn
last -> never show the dim shading), shapes, implementation map, tests, DONE.
- TASKS.md: row 52 added (shipped); row 51 reworded — unblocked now that the
zoom build shipped.
- TASK 51 -> TASK 52 in Models/index.md, ViewModels/index.md, and the two code
comments that pointed at the zoom as "TASK 51".
- HANDOFF.md: pre-push readiness notes (5 commits ahead, push-safe).
Creator corrected the "loupe" zoom on 2026-10-08: the click anchors a fixed
capture region (box/2 centred on the click) and the box is a live 2x view of
that region — dragging the box never changes its content; it magnifies the
fully-composited frame (every layer, incl. webcam) and draws LAST (n+1).
Rectangle shape is 4:3 ("more of a 640x480 aspect").
- MainViewModel.Zoom.cs rewritten: ActivateZoom anchors CaptureX/CaptureY
(independently clamped); UpdateZoomMove relocates the box only; the per-frame
BuildZoomFrame/ZoomFrameBuilder path is gone.
- SceneCompositor: skips the active ZoomSceneElement in every layer loop and
BlitZooms it last via the new pure ZoomMagnifier (2x bilinear, temp snapshot
via ArrayPool, round clip).
- Preview: ZoomBox hoisted above CanvasGrid as a sibling; its brush samples the
whole composed preview at the fixed capture (2x).
- Tests: ZoomMagnifierTests (box-over-blue shows green capture at 2x incl. an
extra red "layer" — the loupe/backdrop-only regressions both fail it) +
round-clip; ZoomBoxInteractionTests rewritten (anchored capture, move-doesn't-
change-capture, 4:3/9:16/square). 404 pass, 2 known environment flakes.
Right-click now creates a transient ZoomSceneElement at z-index 1 whose pixels are a
genuine 2x magnified sample of the backdrop (live capture under art), composited into
stream/recording like any layer while the output crop stays the tier. All shapes are
centered on the click and clamped to frame; healed on load/scene-create, never persisted,
hidden from the layers list + element template (IsZoomLayer). BuildCompositorOptions is
now internal = always tier crop (test seam). ZoomFrameBuilder is a pure static sampler
(box/2 window centered on the box center, single-slot cache) proven by a banded-backdrop
test; LayerReorderPersistenceTests drag resolves rows by item since the collapsed zoom
row shifts container indices. Also books TASK 51 (webcam background Remove + Blur) and
syncs memory docs (HANDOFF, MyMistakes, indexes). Full suite: 405 passed, 0 warnings.
Right-click in the live preview now procs a box that is actually visible and
populated with the zoomed region, and each Zoom View Shape sculpts the box per
spec. OBS-style derivative: magnifier box shows the composited region and dims
the surroundings (same pattern as OBS "zoom" / preview region highlights).
Root causes of the invisible box (two WPF traps, recorded in MyMistakes.md):
- Empty <VisualBrush Stretch="None"/> used as an OpacityMask paints nothing,
so the mask alpha is 0 and the WHOLE box (border included) went transparent.
- ZoomBox lived inside CanvasGrid while its VisualBrush sampled CanvasGrid — a
circular reference WPF renders as nothing. Hoisted ZoomBox to a sibling of
CanvasGrid inside a new PreviewCanvas wrapper (same 1920x1080 space).
Shape semantics (MainViewModel.ActivateZoom):
- Circle: square, click point = center.
- VerticalRectangle (phone): tall 9:16, click point = top-left corner.
- HorizontalRectangle (tablet): wide 16:9, click point = top-left corner.
- Boxes stay fully inside 1920x1080 via Math.Clamp.
UI: ZoomRectOutline/ZoomCircleOutline shapes replace the square Border;
circle clips the box to an EllipseGeometry; brush Visual released when inactive.
Zoom View Shape dropdown now uses the standard YtComboBox style.
Test (Good Dog rule, one integration test): ZoomBoxInteractionTests verifies
aspect/anchoring/clamp per shape and the matching outline+clip in the real
MainWindow. Full suite 404 passed, 0 warnings.
Memory: HANDOFF.md zoom state updated; WPF VisualBrush traps appended to
MyMistakes.md.
gramps