3.1.0 ("Groups" release)

[T-Troll]

WARNING! This release uses different registry settings structure, so you CAN NOT roll back to any previous release! Make a registry tree backup (for HKCU/Software/alienfx_sdk, HKCU/Software/alienfxambient, HKCU/Software/alienfxgiu, HKCU/Software/alienfxhaptics) if you want to do so!

• New functionality added for all tools - Groups. The light group acting as one light for any tool (also some group-based effects implemented). You can create, rename, remove or add lights into light group from "Devices and Lights" tab into alienfx-gui. Lights added to group still can be controlled separately, but control light both inside and outside group can provide light blinks between different colors. Lights from different devices can be added into one group (but with some limitations for now, read "Known issues" below.
• New type of lights added - "Indicator". Indicator lights acting as a Power Button one (so it can be excluded from control then lights off/dim), but without Power Button limitations for settings and number of colors.
• Low-level API - Massive lights set optimized into one operation, if possible. For APIv5 it's up to 30 times faster now.
• Low-level API - Power Button code rework for APIv4. Now it can't force next lights not to set correctly, as well as it have near zero (i didn't meet for a week) probability to hang up light device. But Power Button set can be unpredictable slow now (from 50ms to 1500ms randomly), it can provide some side effects (see below).
• Low-level API - Power Button control disabled for APIv1-v3 (can provide weird side effects, up to device stop working from battery power).
• alienfx-gui - Lights update system reworked to asynchronous - no more missed (not changed) lights and UI slowdown, except some special cases:
  • Switching to "Device and Lights" tab if many lights scheduled to change, especially if many Power Button updates.
  • Application exit can be slow too in same case.
• alienfx-gui - For "Monitoring" tab, new functionality added under "System load" block - "Gauge". It doesn't do anything for single light, but for light group it convert it as a LED level indicator (100% color below value, 0% color above value, mixed color at light between).
• alienfx-gui - For "Monitoring" tab, behavior of "Use color settings as default" changed. Now if it's off it not only use different color for low-level in monitoring, but also disable this light changes if monitoring is off.
• alienfx-gui - You can now control Power Button effects Speed and Length at "Color" tab.
• alienfx-gui - If selected light at "Color" tab have no effects yet, pressing big color button will add new one.
• alienfx-gui - Bug fixed - Effect List at "Color" tab, Lights list at "Devices" tab and Profile list at "Profiles" tab can have zero width and not visible on some systems.
• alienfx-gui - Bug fixed - At the same lists, selection now always visible (list will be auto-scrolled to ensure this).
• alienfx-gui - Bug fixed - Light #0 always disabled after application start.
• alienfx-gui - Bug fixed - Profile name edit doesn't reflects in top profile selection box.
• alienfx-haptics - "Gauge" checkbox added to light control. It doesn't do anything for single light, but for light group it convert it as a LED level indicator ("Low" color below sound level, "High" color above sound level, mixed color at light between).
• alienfx-cli - Support for "zone-...." commands added for low-level API. Use group ID (you can check in "status" command" in "zone-.." commands instead of zone name.
• A lot of other small bugs and glitches fixed, a bunch of operation optimization changes for all tools.

Known issues:

• alienfx-cli - Set-zone and set-zone action only set lights from current device (if group have lights from more, then one device).
• alienfx-ambient, alienfx-haptics - The same issue, if group have lights for many devices, only lights form the same device as first light in group will be updated.

Notes (it's not an issue, just keep this in mind:

• alienfx-gui - Groups will not be set to the same light settings using "Set All" button on "Color" tab, single lights only.
• alienfx-gui - "Auto Refresh" setting will only work if monitoring is on.
• alienfx-gui - Switching to "Devices and Lights" and application exit can be slow if massive amount of light updates active.
• alienfx-gui - If many light updates scheduled, application will slow down monitoring updates, to keep CPU/device usage at reasonable level. It will be speed up back if update query is empty for a while.

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This discussion was created from the release 3.1.0 ("Groups" release).