Three reports from the creator, plus two bugs the real clip exposed.
1. A video layer was INVISIBLE in the preview. The pane's per-layer Image is Collapsed by
default and switched on by a whitelist of DataTriggers; MediaSource matched none, so the clip
decoded into a bitmap that nothing displayed. Same defect the alert box hit on 2026-09-26 and
the scoreboard after it — now recorded at the top of docs/ai/ui-surface.md with a test that
asserts the bound Image is Visible (`MediaPreviewDisplayTests`).
2. Play is no longer tied to Loop: the button is always enabled (creator ruling — Loop must not
toggle Play). Loop still restarts a finished clip, which is the behaviour that was broken.
3. Geometry is now the LAST section of the properties list for every draggable element, with
opacity at the top; the web source's duplicate geometry block is gone (it now uses the shared
one, which had been sitting above the media panel).
4. The physical mouse-drag test is deleted. It injected real cursor movement, hijacked whatever
machine ran it, and failed whenever the desktop was busy. The arithmetic it covered now lives
in `Helpers/DragReorderMath.cs` — pure, and covered by `DragReorderMathTests` (threshold,
up/down moves, no-op and out-of-range). The two persistence tests were already synthetic.
5. Real-clip check (creator's `test_greenscreen_moving_subject.mp4`, 1920×1080): the detector
REJECTED it — a fully saturated green sits at value 1.0 and the detector's 0.98 brightness
ceiling threw it away. White highlights are excluded by the saturation floor, which is the
property that actually separates them, so the ceiling is gone. With it fixed, the clip is
detected as green (high confidence), and keyed through our own pipe 97.8% of pixels go
transparent. Measured: keying with the canonical #00B140 keys 0.0% of this clip — which is why
the key colour comes from the measured screen.
Tests: 567 passed, 0 failed, clean build 0 warnings. The gate's scope check flags
`Assets/Videos/test_greenscreen_moving_subject.mp4` — the creator's working copy, deliberately not
committed; the fixture lives under ytLive.Tests/Fixtures.
Reported 2026-11-05: "when I click Loop, the video doesn't play in the preview pane". Two
causes, both real:
- `VideoClipPipe.StartAsync` bailed out once it had run once (`_run != null`), so a clip that
reached EOF could never be started again — it held its last frame forever.
- Loop is only consulted at end-of-file by a LIVE decoder, so flipping it on a finished clip
did nothing at all.
Now: the pipe reports running state and is restartable after a natural end; the manager marks a
session finished (keeping its last frame) and exposes `IsRunning`/`RestartAsync`; the layer shows
`IsMediaRunning`/`IsMediaFinished`; flipping Loop on a finished clip restarts it.
UI: `▶ Play` sits to the right of the **Video File** label and is enabled only while Loop is off
(creator ruling: with Loop on the clip already runs continuously, so there is nothing to start).
The panel says "Clip finished — holding the last frame." so a frozen picture explains itself.
Also: verify.sh no longer runs physical-input tests by default. That test moves the real cursor
(SetCursorPos + mouse_event); running it mid-gate hijacks the machine someone is using, which is
exactly how it felt. Opt in with PHYSICAL_TESTS=1 when the desktop is idle; the header documents
the scoped-run command for working hours.
Test: `MediaPlaybackRestartTests` (pipe restart, finished state, Play again, Loop-on-finished).
8 scoped tests green. FULL SUITE NOT RUN — the machine was in use; run scripts/verify.sh in a
quiet window before the next milestone.
TASK 32·4. A plain MP4 keeps its index (moov) at the end, so a power cut or a killed
process left the entire recording unreadable even though every video byte was on disk.
The record block now carries
`-movflags +frag_keyframe+empty_moov+default_base_moof`: index first, a playable
fragment flushed at every keyframe, so an interrupted take plays to the last fragment.
Record block only — the FLV stream output has no index and never gets the flags.
Rename-on-stop is untouched.
Test: `Args_RecordBlock_IsFragmentedMp4_SoACrashKeepsTheFile` asserts the flags on the
record block and their absence from the streaming block.
Not yet proven on a real interrupted take (kill ffmpeg mid-recording, play the result);
the args test is by construction.
Docs: task-32 slice 4 ticked with that caveat, TASKS row, output.md record note, HANDOFF.
verify.sh: 550 passed (mouse-injection test excluded, desktop in use), 0 warnings.
TASK 49 is retired (creator ruling): YouTube owns chat moderation. Its blocked-words filter and
hold-for-review run upstream of `liveChatMessages.list` — held messages are never returned
(https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74511524/) — so a second local list would duplicate a switch
the creator already owns, with a second set of false positives and a second support surface.
What we actually owed the platform, and had wrong:
- The parser added every item to the overlay. A deleted message arrives as a `tombstone` carrying
no text at all ("it has since been deleted … only liveChatId, type and publishedAt are present" —
https://developers.google.com/youtube/data/live/reference/rest/v3/liveChatMessages), so every
deletion rendered as a BLANK chat row. `hasDisplayContent:false` messages and chat-mode events
did the same.
- Deletion events (`messageDeletedEvent`/`messageRetractedEvent`/`userBannedEvent`) are documented
but have not been delivered to clients for years (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44346893/),
so nothing is built on them; they are skipped if they ever arrive.
- Found while testing: Super Chat read `displayString`, but YouTube's field is `amountDisplayString`
— every amount silently fell back to a recomposed string, which mangles non-dollar locales. The
model's own comment said this was the reason the field exists.
Test: `ChatModerationParseTests` — tombstone, no-display-content, chat-mode events all produce no
row; a real Super Chat still parses its pre-rendered amount (constraint 4: reward fields are never
reinterpreted).
Docs: TASK 49 marked retired with the citations, the rule recorded in decisions.md, HANDOFF updated.
verify.sh: 550 passed, 0 failed, 0 warnings.
TASK 64 slice F — the two things left after the feature worked by hand.
- App Settings → **Video clips → Auto Green/Blue Screen** (off by default). When on, a
high-confidence detected screen is keyed as soon as the clip is added; the panel says
"Removed automatically" so an automatic change is never silent. Medium confidence still
asks, low says nothing — a wrong automatic key eats the picture.
- **A clip is a clip:** the alert box's own replacement clip keys through the same settings
block (one alert box per layout, so its settings are the ones the next alert uses), and
choosing an alert clip runs the same detector. The Green/Blue Screen panel now appears for
a video layer *or* an alert box with a custom clip (`Source.ShowsChromaKey`).
- Spill ships as the creator-facing **Fringe** switch; nothing further to tune behind it.
Test: `ChromaKeyApplyTests` gains the auto-apply case (no click, still explicit in the panel)
and an alert-clip case (its pipe asks ffmpeg for colorkey+despill with the blue screen type).
Docs: TASK 64 complete in TASKS.md, known limits recorded in the task file, HANDOFF rewritten.
verify.sh: 546 passed, 0 failed, 0 warnings.
TASK 64 slices D and E: the feature is usable end to end.
- Add a video file → one frame is probed (new `IChromaProbe`/`FfmpegChromaProbe`, one ffmpeg
pass at 160x90, off the UI thread) and the layer gets an offer: "Looks like a green screen —
Remove it", with the measured colour as a swatch.
- Accepting it turns the offer into settings (Amount / Softness / Fringe) that reach ffmpeg as
`colorkey` + `despill` + `format=bgra`, so the key is computed in the pipe and both consumers
(the shared preview bitmap and the compositor's frame) carry the same alpha.
- Media sessions are now keyed by **path + look** (`MainViewModel.MediaSessionKey`), so two
layers with the same settings still share one decoder, and changing the look releases the old
session and starts the new one. Removal, load reconciliation, loop and audio settings all move
to the same key.
- Settings persist on the `Source` row (six ALTER TABLE guards + SELECT/INSERT), so a keyed layer
comes back keyed.
- Panel section is plain creator words: Green/Blue Screen, Amount, Softness, Fringe.
Test: `ChromaKeyApplyTests` — the pipe asks ffmpeg to key (and does not when off); a green-screen
clip is offered, accepting it starts a keyed session, the layer's resolver then reads that session
rather than the old one; the setting survives a save.
Docs: TASK 64 D/E ticked with slice F (auto-apply setting + alert clips) left open; frame-pipeline
records the decode-option design; HANDOFF rewritten. verify.sh: 544 passed, 0 failed, 0 warnings.
TASK 64 units B and C — the two pure halves, no wiring yet.
- `Services/ChromaKeyDetector.cs`: samples the frame's outer ring (the screen is at the
edges, the subject in the middle), reports Green/Blue/None plus the colour actually shot
and a confidence. Confidence is coverage × hue tightness, which is what keeps a lawn or
a football pitch from being offered as a keyable screen. Letterbox bars are excluded from
the denominator rather than counted against the screen. Never decides anything: an offer
is the creator's to accept.
- `Services/VideoFilterChain.cs`: options → `-vf` (scale → colorkey → despill → format=bgra)
plus a `Signature` so two layers keyed identically can share one decoder. Numbers clamp and
an unparseable colour falls back to the app default, so ffmpeg is never handed a filter it
rejects at spawn.
- Keying is done by the bundled ffmpeg, not by us: verified against the shipped binary that
`colorkey=…,format=bgra` emits straight-alpha BGRA (alpha 0 on keyed pixels), which is what
the compositor already blends. No per-pixel loop lands in the 16.67 ms render budget.
Test: `ChromaKeyDetectorTests` — green, blue, letterboxed, lawn (must say None), mixed scene,
dark frame, plus the chain strings and signature sharing.
Docs: TASK 64 queued in TASKS.md with its slice table; the decisions.md chroma-key reversal
recorded as a reversal (it was buried for webcam background removal, not for supplied clips).
A video file was picture-only: the decode pipe passed `-an`, so a starting-soon
or BRB clip with music played silent everywhere. Adds sound to every clip and
collapses the two decoders into one.
- `Services/VideoClipPipe.cs`: the shared pipe behind `MediaVideoSource` (TASK 21)
and `AlertClipDecoder` (TASK 47) — video (`rawvideo bgra`, scaled) + audio
(`f32le -ac 2 -ar 48000`, 50 ms chunks, byte-carry across reads), both paced to
real time, loop restarts both so picture and sound stay together. Alert
behaviour is unchanged.
- `MediaVideoSourceManager` applies the layer's Level/Mute per session and raises
`AudioAvailable`; `MainViewModel` feeds it to the new
`AudioMixer.EnqueueDesktopMediaAudio`, which joins the DESKTOP/GAME ring so the
desktop fader and the mic auto-ducker apply exactly as they do for game audio
and TRAX (creator ruling 2026-11-05: audio joins the group).
- Per-layer `MediaMuted` + existing `MediaVolume` surfaced as Mute/Level in the
properties panel; `MediaMuted` persisted (ALTER TABLE guard + SELECT/INSERT).
- Level/mute are per SESSION because one decoder is shared per file path — the
last layer touched wins; one decoder per layer would play the file twice.
Test: `MediaSourceAudioTests` — the pipe emits 50 ms chunks at 48k stereo, the
manager scales by level and drops when muted, and a media layer's sound moves the
desktop meter. Alert/decode suites unchanged and green.
Docs: task-21 closed on item 10, the "silent soundtrack" facts corrected in
frame-pipeline/output/overlays, HANDOFF rewritten. verify.sh green (529 passed;
the two documented pre-existing failures only).
TASK 21's picker slice: the decoder, manager, pacing and loop mechanism were
already shipped but nothing ever acquired a session, so a media Source rendered
nothing. Adds "Video File" to the (+) menu (video-filtered OpenFileDialog),
one decode session per distinct path with a HasSession guard, release when the
last scene reference goes, and a post-load reconcile. Loop is a manager-level
per-path answer ("any live reference loops") applied before StartAsync and
updated live via SetLooping. Properties panel shows the file with Change… and
Loop. Volume stays unwired: media audio rides the desktop loopback, TRAX-style.
Reference: OBS's media source (file → decode → composite into the scene) is the
established answer for this feature; the lifecycle shape mirrors this repo's
WebView2/ScreenCapture registration rather than inventing a new one.
Test: ytLive.Tests/MediaSourceAcquisitionTests.cs — add starts one decoder and
frames reach the layer, loop flip reaches the decoder, remove stops it.
Docs: task-21 closed, TASKS row + Day-4 row + stale 3·17 row corrected,
frame-pipeline acquisition note, HANDOFF rewritten. verify.sh green.
Use category-filtered font and selected-item dropdowns, separate horizontal and vertical alignment, and reuse the border-color palette templates for text color. Persist vertical alignment additively. Follow the established static text-source pattern: https://obsproject.com/kb/text-sources
Raster static text on UI-thread changes and reuse the same transparent BGRA frame in preview and all compositor paths. Cache text frame identity in the frame-pump signature and invalidate static bakes on edits. Follow OBS text-source conventions: https://obsproject.com/kb/text-sources
Add additive defaults and round-trip tests for per-layer text content and formatting. Model the static text source after OBS text-source conventions: https://obsproject.com/kb/text-sources
The frame pump now submits crop-sized BGRA frames; FFmpeg scales them to final tier dimensions. Bundled scaler benchmark: 300 608x1080 to 1080x1920 frames in 0.435s (scaler-only).
Reference: https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#scale-1
Add independent AppLog message types and explicit Class 1/2 severity. Wrap and color log rows, pin Class 1 above Class 2, and let acknowledgement return entries to the current-launch timeline without changing file format or rotation.
Ref: https://logtape.org/manual/levels
Model the AlertBox and standalone ticker with shared settings; scene tickers render the in-memory active and queued events without saving history. Keep AlertBox content active-event-only.
Ref: https://obsproject.com/kb/obs-studio-overview
Creator request: a sound-byte browse + label under Built-in video, with an option to loop the
sound while the clip plays. The video itself is always one pass to completion.
- Source gains AlertAudioPath and AlertAudioLoop, persisted (column + migration + INSERT +
SELECT + reader, the whole chain — that chain is where the blur crashed once).
- The sound byte plays through MediaPlayer on the default output device; MediaEnded re-seeks to
zero while looping, and StopClip kills it so a tail cannot bleed into the next alert.
- The clip's OWN soundtrack moved off the mixer and onto the device as well
(Services/Audio/AlertAudioOutput: one WaveOutEvent + buffered float provider).
Why the move: the creator asked that alert audio — the clip's track or the added sound byte —
appear in the desktop sound bar. Only audio that reaches the default device is picked up by the
WASAPI loopback that feeds both the meter and the stream. The old EnqueueAlertAudio route put the
sound in the stream but left the meter flat and the room silent.
Tests: the sound byte and its loop flag round-trip through SQLite, and a fresh alert layer starts
with no sound byte and no loop. Release 0 warnings.
The blur is universal, so it would swallow the logo along with everything else. The compositor
now defers every visible brand logo: skipped in both element loops, blitted immediately AFTER
the blur group, before the flash/social/ticker overlays. One logo per scene, so it is cheap.
Preview mirrors it: the staged scene's brand logo is drawn above the blur host (StagedBrandLogo),
so what you see in the editor is what the encoder gets.
Test: a blur covering the logo's area leaves the logo's pixels exactly white while the coloured
background beneath it blends.
The creator found the use case that reframes the feature: a moment of privacy while the webcam is
on. A blur that can only cover the desktop cannot do that.
- SceneCompositor applies the blur group AFTER every element is composited (still before the
flash / social bar / ticker / zoom overlays), so it covers webcam, chat, alerts — anything. Its
position in the layer list no longer affects the output, so it is added at the top and the
reorder clamp is gone.
- Supersedes the earlier "blur sits below the brand" rule: a universal blur does obscure the logo
when it covers it. Called out in frame-pipeline.md so it is not re-litigated.
- Preview mirrors it exactly: the blur host moved OUT of CanvasGrid to a sibling above it, so the
VisualBrush samples every layer (and cannot sample itself). It used to sample only the backdrop,
which is why a circle over the webcam would have shown sharp pixels in the editor and blurred
ones in the stream.
LayoutStore.Load threw ArgumentOutOfRangeException on GetOrdinal("BlurAmount") during the
MainViewModel constructor, so the app died at startup rather than when a blur was used. The
migration adds the column and Save writes it; the reading query still listed its columns
explicitly and BlurAmount was missing from that list.
Adds LayoutBlurPersistenceTests: a blur saved and reloaded, asserting the amount and geometry
survive. That is the test that should have existed with the feature — the startup path it
covers has no other guard.
Creator request 2026-11-01: a layer that hides part of the desktop from viewers. Box or circle,
drag/resize like any layer, one strength slider, several allowed.
**Z-order is policy, not preference.** `AddSource` inserts a blur directly above the background
and therefore below the brand logo, and `OnSceneElementsReordered` pushes any blur that ends up
above the brand back down. Nothing else in the app can move it into the brand's way.
**Overlap = the strongest single blur, never a stack.** `SceneCompositor.ApplyBlurLayers` collects
every visible blur the first time one is reached in the z-order, sorts them strongest-first, and
shares one coverage map: a pixel already covered by a stronger blur is skipped. Blurring
back-to-front would have produced something stronger than any slider setting allows, which is
exactly what was ruled out.
**One blur curve, shared with the webcam.** `RegionBlur` carries the constants the webcam blur
already used — downscale 4, radius 1–6 downscaled px, `RadiusFor(strength)` — and
`BackgroundEffectProcessor` now delegates to it instead of holding its own copy. The layer's
slider is the same 0–1 scale with the same 0.5 default, so "half strength" means the same blur in
both features. Cost is proportional to the blur's own rect, not the frame.
**Live scene only**, enforced in `AddSource` as well as the (+) menu (`CanAddBlur`), so a stale
menu item or a scripted call cannot plant one on BRB. `ElementKind.Dynamic`, so it is never baked
into the static base and every render path gets it — pump, preview, thumbnails, scene dump.
Persistence: `Source.BlurAmount` column + migration; shape rides the existing `ClipShape`.
Properties panel: Box | Circle plus the strength slider, gated on `IsBlurSelected`.
4 tests: outside the mask is byte-identical, inside loses its hard edges, a circle leaves its
box corners alone, and two identical stacked blurs equal one (the coverage map). Release builds
at 0 warnings.
Two creator directives, 2026-11-01.
**Ctrl-down dismisses an open zoom box.** Window-level PreviewKeyDown, so the same hand that
opened it can put it away. It cannot cancel itself at creation: Ctrl is already held before
the right-click that makes the box, so the keydown fires while nothing is open.
**Follow mode, default Anchor.** A PillToggle in App Settings ("Follow the box"), persisted
as Zoom.FollowBox. Off — the default — keeps the 2026-10-08 model: the capture stays on the
clicked point and dragging only moves the box over it. On, UpdateZoomMove re-anchors the
capture to the box centre (half the box's size, clamped per axis), so the magnifier shows
whatever it hovers. Flipping to Follow while the box is open snaps it immediately.
Three tests: anchor drags leave CaptureX alone, follow moves it to the expected quarter-offset
centre, and the setting round-trips through LayoutStore (tested against the store, not via two
view models — two live VMs fight over the temp DB, which is a fixture problem, not a bug).
Both new test classes share a collection tag: MainViewModel.LayoutPathOverride is static, and
xUnit runs classes in parallel, so without it the two view models collided (one failure in a
combined run, clean when run apart).
Release build 0 warnings; 14 tests pass across zoom, entitlement and preview history. Debug
build is blocked by the running app (PID 47388) — close it and the exe updates.
The first half of surge day 1. One question, "may this session emit Pro output?", with
one method on the interface so nothing downstream knows which rail proved it.
SteamEntitlement reads the lifetime SKU the way Valve intends: SteamAPI.Init() then
SteamApps.BIsDlcInstalled(dlcAppId). Four different failure paths all resolve to the
free tier rather than to Pro or to a crash — no DLC id configured, no Steam client,
steam_api64.dll missing (a throw on first touch), and simply not owned. A copied folder
run without Steam is the common case, not an exceptional one.
NotConfigured() is the shipping default until Steamworks creates the DLC app; it answers
false without ever touching the native library, so today's builds behave exactly as they
did before this commit.
HasProOutput is now IsPremium || DeveloperMode || rail, with an internal EntitlementOverride
test seam (internal, because a public setter here is a licence bypass). Four tests: no id
reads false, no client reads false without throwing, the fake reports what a test sets, and
the view model takes its answer from the rail.
Steamworks.NET 2024.8.0 added; the native DLL still comes from scripts/steam-sdk.sh, so the
csproj change is three lines and no formatting churn.
Creator's defaults: white text, Background ON (black, 20%), speed capped at 200 px/s, text size shown
in real pixels, and "plate" dropped from the label.
The important find is underneath those: `ScoreboardStyle` is a record STRUCT, and `new
ScoreboardStyle()` zero-initialises — it does NOT run the constructor's parameter defaults. So the
shipped strip had null text colour, NO background and zero opacity, whatever the source said. That is
why the Background checkbox and the opacity slider looked like they had no code behind them: the
renderer was faithfully drawing the zeros it was handed.
An explicit parameterless constructor now carries the real defaults, and the renderer test asserts
them (white / on / black / 0.20 / max speed 200) so this class of silent-zero cannot return.
Readouts fixed too: the opacity and text-size setters never raised their own property, so the numbers
never moved while the render did. Text size now reads "24 px" instead of a bare slider value, and
snaps to whole pixels.
The marquee now has the dial it needs. `ScoreboardPresenter.PixelsPerSecond` is the single owner of
the range (20-400, default 120), the layer's properties expose it with a live px/s readout, and the
value is persisted as Scoreboard.ScrollSpeed because it is a READABILITY choice — re-dialling it
every launch would be a tax on the creator who needs the strip to be readable.
Advance() still takes an optional override so tests can drive exact distances.
Guard: the presenter test proves speed is real (same elapsed time, twice the speed, different
window) — not a value that is stored and ignored — and the panel test pins the control, its range
and the persistence key.
Creator, plainly: "the entire point of a ticker is to tick… so, tick." The static strip was my
reading of an earlier exchange; it is gone.
How it ticks without becoming the compositor's most expensive layer:
- `ScoreboardRenderer.RenderRun` rasterises the run ONCE per value change at its natural width plus
a gap.
- `ScoreboardPresenter` crops a 1920-wide window at a moving offset each tick — a row-wise byte
copy, no text layout, no re-raster.
- `TickScoreboard` runs on the existing 30 Hz meter clock and only while the strip is shown, so a
hidden or disabled scoreboard costs nothing.
The dev simulation uses the same path, so what is previewed is what ships.
Test updated to the real contract: no tick → identical pixels; a tick → different pixels; a value
change → re-rasterised run. (The old test asserted frame-instance identity, which a cropped window
can never satisfy.)
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.
Scope becomes youtube + yt-analytics.readonly, with include_granted_scopes=true so an existing
session is asked for the NEW permission only. GrantedScopes records what Google says on the token
response (both the code exchange and the refresh), and HasAnalyticsScope is the flag the scoreboard
uses to offer a one-click re-consent instead of failing anonymously mid-stream.
TokenStore is unchanged on purpose: a launch-time refresh carries the scope list, so old sessions
report 'not granted' until the creator re-consents — the honest state.
The old auth test asserted 'exactly one scope'; it now asserts the new DECISION (two scopes, no
force-ssl, analytics read-only) rather than loosening.
ScoreboardTiles decides which of the eight facts appear and shapes their text (money uses the
session's dominant currency and flags a second one rather than converting; watch hours carry
'as of {date}' because Analytics is a daily aggregate). Tiles are OPT-IN, so 'None' really means the
layer draws nothing, and 'Default' is the six session facts.
ScoreboardPresenter owns the raster cache: ScoreboardRecorder.Changed fires only on a visible change,
so the strip rebuilds only then — a per-tick raster would be the compositor's most expensive layer
for identical pixels.
Guard: ScoreboardPresenterTests asserts the cache identity (same instance when nothing moved, a new
frame when a value moved, reuse when a recipient-side gift event arrives) and that an empty selection
returns no frame at all.
Rasterises enabled tiles into one straight-alpha BGRA frame: measured widths -> FitLine (shrink,
then wrap, never scroll) -> centred lines with dim separators, over an optional rounded plate whose
colour and opacity are the creator's knobs. Uses OutputPalette.Sans (bundled Inter) because on-stream
text wears the app's typefaces.
Static by design: it takes plain strings, so the caller caches the frame and only re-rasterises when
a value changes — a strip that re-rendered every tick would be the compositor's most expensive layer
for no benefit.
Guard: ScoreboardRendererTests paints real frames and inspects pixels — plate colour AND opacity,
text colour reaching glyphs, plate-off leaves the area transparent, and an empty tile set returns no
frame at all.
Reported: pegging the TRAX fader changes nothing audible, the ladder never reaches red, and the
ladder does not scale with the fader.
Cause (two defects in the same setters):
- UserGain wrote the OUTPUT DEVICE's volume. NAudio's WaveOut ignores that, so the fader was inert.
- LocalGain (the desktop-mute follow) recomputed the sample-chain volume WITHOUT the user gain, so
every duck/mute silently discarded whatever the creator had set.
Fix: one `EffectiveVolume(user, local)` = MusicVolume × user × local, applied to the sample chain by
both setters. The meter sits AFTER that stage, so the ladder now scales with the fader and can reach
the peak band on a loud track — exactly what pegging should look like. Max user gain is +6 dB, so
"pegged" means the file at unity, not a magic boost.
Guard: MusicLevelTests pins the arithmetic (default half, pegged double, mute multiplies to zero),
that the user gain survives the mute follow, and that nothing may drive the output device's volume
again — the no-op that made this invisible.
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.
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 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.
`AudioLevelMeter` measured one number for everything. It now also keeps smoothed per-channel
levels with the same attack/decay, plus `ImbalanceDb`. Mono samples report both sides equal (a mono
source is centred), so the two never disagree about whether audio exists.
The dock shows ONE ladder per source — two ladders per bay was visual noise for a rare failure —
but this creator is profoundly deaf on the right, so the one case that matters is "the sound is
panned away from me". That is now measurable and will drive a flag, not a second ladder.
Semantics that mattered: a silent side is compared at the −60 dBFS floor, so a fully one-sided
signal reads ≈54 dB rather than "nothing to compare". My first version returned 0 for exactly the
case the feature exists for; the test caught it.
Guard: StereoMeterTests — hard left, hard right (the inaudible case), balanced stereo, mono
centred, and silence-is-not-an-imbalance. 31 audio tests green.
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.
The broadcast picture is part of the app, so it stops carrying its own colours. Alert cards, the
ticker and the branding flash now paint from OutputPalette, which Mirrors DESIGN.md for the brand
tokens and owns the alert box's six-event accent language (gold/violet/pink — content, not
chrome; the standard has no purple and should not grow one, but they live in ONE file instead of
57 scattered literals).
It is a separate type because the renderers run on the frame-pump thread and must not touch
application resources. The duplication is made safe by OutputPaletteTests: it parses
Themes/Tokens.xaml and fails if any mirrored token drifts, and fails if a renderer reintroduces a
colour literal or "Segoe UI".
Ticker and flash glyphs now use the bundled Inter instead of Segoe UI. Neon red is the standard
live red — one red in the product, including the credit.
Fixed on the way: the palette's font fields were static pack-URI initialisers, which throw
TypeInitializationException in any host without a WPF Application (the test process caught it);
they are lazy now with a name fallback.
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.
- 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.
The transition started with no from-frame, so BlendFrame returned the new scene at once.
Start now requests a capture and the frame pump supplies its last output on the next tick.
Test: TransitionFadeTests. Docs: ai.md, TASKS.md.
Not pushed.
Unit 2 of slimming the mandatory read. Verbatim move again - the four capture
blocks leave ai.md unchanged in content, and one stub carries the law.
- docs/ai/capture.md: 'Screen backdrop capture', 'Webcam capture', 'Webcam
background effects' and 'Vertical (9:16) tier camera placement', byte-
identical, grouped under backdrop / webcam / vertical headings, with a
'Related in ai.md' footer.
- ai.md stub keeps: the locked-Background model and NormalizeBackgrounds;
ActiveBackgroundImage is fed by static art only (2026-08-23 regression);
window:/picker: keys are session-scoped and a live pin beats auto-detect;
the settled WinRT interop paths (TryGetDataUnsafe, from-DXGIDevice); the
VideoFrame seam, own-catch subtype ladder and no fallback camera; one app-
level webcam identity with live-lock attainability; CameraManager as the one
effects processing point with per-session mask smoothing; geometry-only
vertical tier and the model-level rect lock.
- docs/ai/index.md gains the capture.md row; Services/index.md (2) and
TASKS/task-38-window-backdrop.md repointed.
ai.md 1,975 -> 1,558 lines. No source touched; no push.
ai.md is the mandatory read every session; at 2,702 lines / ~64k tokens it
costs the whole subsystem history even when the task never touches it. This
is a verbatim move, not a compression - nothing is deleted and each stub is
written from the moved text.
- docs/ai/frame-pipeline.md: 'Frame cadence', 'Per-element composite timing +
scene dump', 'What the first instrumented take said', 'Render budget',
'Scene compositor' and 'Live frame pipeline', byte-identical, plus a short
'Related in ai.md' footer and two stale 'below' pointers corrected.
- ai.md keeps two stubs carrying the invariants that must not be missed
(overlay on every render path, VideoFrame.Epoch, StripPool threads,
Release-only render numbers; arrival-stamped rawvideo, non-blocking submit,
stop order, burned _outputIndex judge) and links the new file.
- docs/ai/index.md + docs/index.md route the split; schema.md inventory lists
the new tier.
- 4 index-row references and 2 TASKS.md anchors repointed; ai.md's Services
row too.
Measured: ai.md 63.6k -> 47.1k tokens, 2,702 -> 1,975 lines. Progressive
disclosure per schema.md convention 5. No source touched; no push.
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 cadence work ended with a question the log could not answer: the compositor
manages 6.8 composites/s at ~141ms while the 10:03 take did 29-34ms on the "same
scene shape" (full-render split=0 elements=6 dynamic=5). Nothing in the stats line
said WHICH of the six elements cost what, and nothing recorded the scene itself, so
the two takes could only be compared by eye. This closes that gap and nothing else:
no fix is attempted until a real take names the culprit.
- Services/Compositor/CompositeTimings.cs (new): per-window collector.
Add(stage, ticks) accumulates; Describe(renders, minMs = 0.1) prints the averaged
breakdown slowest-first, dropping sub-0.1ms noise.
- SceneCompositor.Render / CompositeLayers / BakeStaticBase / BlitBakedElement /
BlitCachedLayer + SceneGraph.GetBakedBase: trailing optional CompositeTimings?
Every stage is timed (backdrop, base, flash, social, ticker, zoom, scale, overlay,
bake backdrop, bake overlays) and EVERY element gets its own entry keyed by
z-index + name ("#2 Webcam"), with the nested "raster" sub-stage recording the
paste-cache rasterize miss - the split between "re-samples every tick" and "slow
paste" without a second session. Bake-pass elements are prefixed "bake #..." so a
one-off rebake cannot masquerade as a per-composite cost. Callers that pass
nothing (thumbnails, existing tests) are unaffected and pay nothing.
- FramePump: owns the collector, threads it through RenderScene/RenderFull/
GetBakedBase/CompositeLayers, and logs "FramePump parts (N renders/5s): ..." once
per 5s window beside the stats line (averaged per render, so it compares directly
with "avg render"), then resets it. Also dumps the scene - "FramePump scene dump:"
header plus one line per element (z-index, name, kind, source type, visibility,
rect, opacity, clip) - at pump start and on every scene change.
- One Good Dog integration test (ytLive.Tests/CompositeTimingTests.cs): a real
composite of a full-canvas element plus a 64x64 one through the real collector
must rank the full-canvas element first, carry the raster sub-stage and the fixed
stages, and the dump must name both elements with z-index/type/rect and echo the
split point.
Derivative work (AGENTS.md): OBS's answer to "which source is slow" is the Source
Profiler - average execution time of each source's tick and render functions
(https://docs.obsproject.com/reference-libobs-util-source-profiler, util/profiler.h).
Same shape here: one timer per element per composite, reported as an average, plus
the stage split this case needs.
Docs in the same commit: ai.md (new subsection "Per-element composite timing + scene
dump", the closed gap corrected in "Frame cadence"), Services/index.md (new file row
+ FramePump/SceneCompositor rows), TASKS.md (unit marked shipped, next = creator
take), HANDOFF.md (rewritten: unpushed commit, next step, verify.sh whitelist hole).
Also recorded this session (from the creator): the launch command is
`dotnet run -c Release` - Release is the DEFAULT, Debug only when explicitly named,
and perf takes must read Release. ai.md -> Run updated.
Full suite 428 tests, 0 warnings; the only failures are the known audio env flakes
(both pass in isolation). Scope check passed.
gramps