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
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
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.
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.
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 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 creator confirmed the clip fix ("the video plays now"), then asked where the
scrolling text was — it was invisible, for a structural reason. AlertTickerFrame
existed only as a frame-pump callback blitted into the OUTPUT; PreviewPane.xaml had
no element for it, because the strip is master-width and global, not a Source, so it
cannot ride a per-element Image. Nothing was wrong in the renderer: there was no
consumer in the preview. Same class of defect as the missing IsAlertBox trigger, one
layer up (MyMistakes RULE 5/6).
- tickerPreviewSink on AlertOverlayLayer, published from RefreshAlertPreviews() so it
is always the UI thread; MainViewModel.AlertTicker writes it into one reused
WriteableBitmap bound to a new global AlertTickerElement, mirroring SocialBarElement.
- Source.AlertDisplayMethod + panel "Display" selector: TickerScroll / Flash / Solid.
Flash pulses 0.5s on / 0.5s off for the whole alert; Solid is centred and still.
- The marquee was also unreadable: a fixed 140px/s took ~17s per pass, so a 10s alert
showed the text once, entering from the right and never crossing. Paced in reads per
alert instead (TickerReadsPerAlert = 3 inside the alert's own length, speed derived
from it) — never px/s. Research (websearch: how do OBS/Streamlabs/StreamElements
alert boxes present announcement timing?) settled the unit: Streamlabs exposes "Alert
Duration: choose how long your alert stays on your stream" and "Text Delay", never a
scroll-speed slider (https://support.streamlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/52499995174299-Setting-up-Your-Streamlabs-Alerts).
Run is phase-started half a frame in so the first frame isn't blank.
- Persistence: AlertDisplayMethod INTEGER NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 via the idempotent
table_info migration, appended LAST in the SELECT because the Source reader is
positional (GetInt32(32..34)) — a mid-list insert would silently shift a neighbour.
Tests: 15 new facts (suite 339/339). RealApp STA host: the pane draws the strip and
collapses at alert end; the layer publishes a real 1920x48 frame for all three methods
and nothing when the ticker is off; three passes counted in 10s by the pill's leading
edge resetting (a seamless marquee never blanks, so an empty frame cannot count a pass);
Solid byte-identical at every moment; Flash on for half of each second; the panel shows
and writes back the choice; the DB round-trips all three alert fields together.
Incidental finding: a bound ItemsSource ComboBox in LeftPanel.xaml broke
LayerReorderPersistenceTests.RealMouseDrag (that test injects PHYSICAL mouse input, so a
load-time re-measure moves the rows out from under the cursor). Rewritten as inline
ComboBoxItems, the shape the chat Font selector already uses in that panel. Recorded as
MyMistakes RULE (8).
TASK 43's alert box grows a real video celebration. Per-alert IAlertClipDecoder
(ffmpeg bgra + f32le pipes, real-time paced, disposed at drain) plays the shipped
Assets/alert-default.mp4 (stamped into the Asset table at startup) unless the
creator picks their own file — path reference only, never stored in the DB; the
six AlertRenderer animations stay the fallback. ~0.3s fade rides the alpha
envelope on straight-source copies (EOF freeze-frames then fades out); audio
forwards to a new AudioMixer alert ring (8s, 48k stereo) drained at unity — no
duck, creator ruling — scaled by volume × fade. An auto-composed marquee ticker
('Funder — Super Chat · $10.00', 140px/s) scrolls top-of-frame via a
FramePump._alertTicker seam through Render/CompositeLayers, mixed into the cache
signature (dynamic overlay, never baked). New Stream Alerts section in LeftPanel.
Derivative-work references (how OBS/Streamlabs alert boxes do per-alert video):
- https://support.streamlabs.com/hc/en-us/articles/217741147-Setting-Up-Your-Streamlabs-Alerts (custom image/video per alert type + variations)
- https://obsproject.com/kb/stream-tutorial-2-alerts (alert overlay as an on-screen zone)
- https://streamlabs.com/content-hub/widgets/alert-box (per-event alert playback)
Good Dog: AlertLayerVideoTests drives a fake IAlertClipDecoder through the whole
lifecycle in one pass (custom path wins, decoder spawns/disposes, fade envelope
0→127→255, audio volume×fade, ticker scrolls, EOF fade-drain to idle). It caught
the clip branch of Advance not clearing _current before AdvanceToNext — the layer
stayed IsPlaying after drain (MyMistakes post-mortem).
Full vstest 319/319; clean build 0 warnings; scope check green.
A webcam dragged between sources reverted to the bottom of the stack on
every relaunch: Source and WebcamSceneConfig each carried independent
per-type SortOrder counters, and Load appended all Sources before all
configs. Save now stamps both tables' SortOrder from the element's index
within scene.Elements; Load merges the two tables' rows by that shared z
(sources-first tie-break preserves legacy rows). Cross-type reorder now
survives a fresh LayoutStore reload.
Task 37 queued: defaults vs current layout split (creator directive) —
capture out-of-scope work in TASKS.md rather than folding it in.
LayoutStore.cs 1402 -> 47-line shell + 5 partials, grouped by functionality
(line count is a consequence, not the goal):
- LayoutStore.Migrations.cs: all DB schema migration (EnsureSchema, GetUserVersion,
MigrateSourceTable/WebcamConfigTable/ToV3/SceneTable/SceneSocialBarColumn/
SocialsTable/SocialEntryTable)
- LayoutStore.Load.cs: Load() scene/source read-back
- LayoutStore.Save.cs: Save() full scene tree write
- LayoutStore.Settings.cs: key/value settings + mic/record-folder/reusable-stream
+ license/transition/broadcast/hotkey/window-state GetSetting/UpsertSetting
- LayoutStore.Assets.cs: GetAssetBytes/UpsertAsset blob IO
- LayoutStore.cs: shell — Instance, fields, ctor, Dispose
Converted to public partial class LayoutStore : IDisposable. Pruned per-file
dead usings. Phase 3 DOWN: no production .cs exceeds 500 lines.
Zero behavior change; build 0 warnings; 246 pass, only the 2 known failures.
Docs: ViewModels/index.md Phase 3 tracker updated in same commit.
gramps