Raspberry Slideshow changelog

Raspberry Slideshow changelog

RASPBERRY SLIDESHOW

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Version 20.0

• the underlying base system has been updated to the latest Raspberry Pi OS Lite, v.12, Bookworm.

Version 19.0

• Raspberry Pi 5 compatible: the underlying base system has been updated to the latest Raspberry Pi OS Lite, v.12, Bookworm;
• OMX Player has been replaced by mpv.

Version 18.0

• WebDav functionality: sliding media from an ownCloud/NextCloud folder added;
• Instagram posts’ media slide [with strict Instagram limitations];
• background music (useful for images-only playback);
• code refactored and a couple of minor bugs fixed;
• site documentation revised.

Version 17.0

• Google Drive functionality added: fetching and sliding media from your Google Drive account’s folder is now possible, pairing the older Dropbox feature.

Version 16.0

• the underlying base system has been updated to the latest Raspberry Pi OS Lite, v.11, Bullseye with a backported OMX Player.

Version 15.1, maintenance release

• system has been updated to the latest Raspberry Pi OS Buster Lite (formerly known as Raspbian Lite).

Version 15.0, maintenance release

• Dropbox feature restored (it was broken since Dropbox changed their API – again);
• system has been updated to the latest Raspberry Pi OS Lite (formerly known as Raspbian Lite).

Version 14.0

• Refresh of the remote media list rewritten, now performed asynchronously by a pool of “watchdog workers”. This drastically reduces the blank between loops when the refresh feature is enabled;
• Dropbox feature restored (it was broken since Dropbox changed their API);
• Informational output on some TVs when playing videos should be now removed, thanks to Sean Monaghen;
• system has been updated to the latest Raspberry Pi OS Lite (formerly known as Raspbian Lite).

Version 13.1

• the underlying operating system has been updated. This solves an issue with the kernel on the Pi4, causing some fbi issues (many thanks to Torsten Walther);
• splash screen.

Version 13.0

• media.conf now replaces all the .txt files for configuring the system behaviour. It’s a breaking change;
• upon timeout reached, only remote changed sources’ media are fetched again (previously, all media of all remote sources were downloaded);
• Web/P images added to whitelisted images’ file formats;
• better logging and prittier debugging output;
• refetching hashes improved and better handling of connection issues (Dropbox improved);
• USB device is unmounted as soon as media have been copied to the internal SD card for a safer USB key removal, idea thanks to Francois Audirac;
• default MEDIA_FOLDER moved to /var/lib/rs;
• the underlying operating system has been updated.

Version 12.0

• the underlying operating system has been updated to Raspbian Buster, which assures the compatibility with the new Raspberry Pi 4 and all the older boards;
• sliding Dropbox-fetched media feature has been added: you can now play images and videos directly from your Dropbox account!;
• username and password can now be set directly in the network-share.txt file for the Windows share feature (previously a trivial modification of the source files was needed);
• debug information is now much more verbose, easing issues discovery;
• improved overall playback fluidity;
• some bugs have been fixed, the most tedious one was that at every refresh timeout (serverlist-refresh.txt) all the media were downloaded, regardless if an upstream file had been modified or not;
• Raspberry Slideshow code is now a proper Debian .deb package and not just a collection of source code files hand-copied across the system.

Version 11.0

• the underlying operating system has been updated to the latest Raspbian Stretch build, which assures the new Raspberry Pi 3b+ compatibility (raspberrypi-bootloader);
• SMB v2 is now used by default for the Windows (Samba) share functionality;
• serverlist-related media fetching does not fire in case of download error.

Version 10.0

• the underlying operating system has been moved to Raspbian Stretch; the overall performance is sensibly better;
• a Systemd unit file now replaces the older SysV init-script for launching the slideshow;
• smoother transitions between images and videos;
• some minor improvements on code.

Version 9.0

• underlying Raspbian Jessie operating system updated (I tried to switch to Raspbian Stretch, but it’s still full of bugs); kernel and bootloader packages have been updated as well;
• omxplayer is now taken from Stretch (APT pinning);
• the way the operating system mounts the inserted USB keys has been changed: usbmount has been removed (because it is now deprecated for the now-stable Debian Stretch) and now Raspberry Slideshow itself is responsible for the mount;
• improvement: all txt config files (as network-share.txt & co) are now pre-processed in order to “clean” non-unix line terminators in one passage (dos2unix);
• if Raspberry Slideshow finds out a .txt.txt filename exists, which of course is an error, it renames the file as .txt;
• debug information is now also stored into a file (/var/log/rs.log);
• bugfix: EXIF rotate did not work for Samba files;
• some minor improvements on code.

Version 8.0

• underlying operating system updated; fbi program now taken from Stretch (APT pinning);
• Raspberry Pi Zero W compatibility;
• Oops: Terminated output supressed when quitting fbi;
• some minor improvements on code.

Version 7.0

• media retrieval from local network folder shares (Windows shares/Samba, for example: //192.168.0.100/myShare;
• cleaner playback;
• faster boot;
• some bugs fixed (images playback).

Version 6.0

• removed linux-wlan-ng package, which interferes with the Raspberry 3 built-in 80211 module. Reinstall in case you use a Raspberry Pi 2;
• no black screen after all images playback while possible (i.e. when no video and no server content refresh is set). Of course images to videos transition and reloading remote resources need a very quick blank;
• optional photos rotation based on their EXIF informations (enable in /etc/rs.conf).

Version 5.0

It’s a complete new operating system which combines and enhances Raspberry Picture Frame Slideshow 4.0 and Raspberry Video 1.0, now both defunct.

• Raspberry Pi 3 compatibility;
• image and video playback;
• images: no more a web-based slider, but a native Linux image slider directly using the framebuffer (speed, stability).