2018 comes to a close
Saturday December 22, 2018

This year seems to have passed even faster than the one that preceded it. It's been the year of my online streaming comeback and so far I'm fairly content with the result. If there's anything to be discontent about, it's perhaps the speed at which PlanMixPlay progresses. There's absolutely no lack of ideas and features I'd like to cram in there at the push of a button, but alas, it's also important to be able to prioritize.

I feel this is something I'm not great at, but hopefully getting better.

It's no secret that I've long wanted to get PlanMixPlay out in-front of an actual crowd, and while it's still not quite ready, I think 2019 might actually be the year I have not only my next prototype party, but perhaps even a proper live local show. Time will tell. But although progress has felt slow, it's been a steady slow. I try my best to balance my time between the actual live show I've started doing again on SlayRadio, as well as getting PlanMixPlay feature ready for a proper live show. A few recent upgrades that I recall would include...

On the application PlanMixPlay:

• Basic audio spectrum analysis now supported
• Basic visualizer utilizing spectrum analysis created
• Updated most visualizers to run in native 1080p
• C-64 console output now supports color
• A single emoji (heart) supported via chat

On the website - PlanMixPlay.com:

• Partially fixed YouTube videos not being properly tied to completed shows. Given the sheer size of YouTube, it's not surprising that their system takes a little while (+5 mins perhaps?) to expose a new video via their API. Unfortunately, the previous code was fairly overzealous in trying to prevent needless quota calls - meaning if it doesn't absolutely have to poll YouTube, it doesn't. So the site only polled YouTube if SlayRadio.org informed PlanMixPlay.com that a show had recently ended. SlayRadio - being quite timely to do this - lead to PlanMixPlay.com querying YouTube.com for the completed show, before it was ever properly published. Although the window within which PlanMixPlay.com polls YouTube has been widened, there's still something off, as a recent show has yet to be properly tied to its associated video.
• Fixed PlanMixPlay.com immediately reverting back to a non-show state if the show's a bit late. As exceedingly professional as the show is, it does happen, on occasion, once in a blue moon, that it's a little late. Previously, once we'd pass the official time of commencement, PlanMixPlay.com would revert back to just showing the regular (no active show) site. Any newcomers would be thoroughly confused by this, as even the 'upcoming shows' would no longer display the (almost begun) show, so it'd be as if it never happened. Now there's a bit of a window to allow for irregular starting times.
• Minor user-friendly polish. Tweaked a few details such as showing the show title, on the site, as well as auto-refreshing the browser if the show is late.

Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank everyone who's bothered to give me their attention, as well as provided feedback.

Happy holidays and a happy new year!