Development Status 2025

[bll]

As of version 4.13.0, BDJ4 is in quite good shape.

I am working on creating a method to play songs and playlists remotely from another BDJ4 server. This is useful for large ballrooms with multiple computers or if you want to play songs from another computer. This work will create the user interface and other code so that it will be easy to interface BDJ4 to other streaming interfaces.

I wasn't going to do this at all, but I need to write this code so that it is possible to import playlists and play songs from other streaming services. For example to play songs via Spotify. I'm not going to write a Spotify interface, but someone else might want to write a Spotify interface for BDJ4 someday.

In the future I will also write a more generic RTSP (real-time streaming protocol) media server for BDJ4, and any application that can talk RTSP will be able to play BDJ4 playlists and songs.

[bll]

Version 4.14.0 was released with support for BDJ4 to BDJ4 communication.

I am currently researching streaming protocols, trying to figure which protocol is current and what is best to support.

[bll]

I released version 4.14.1 with many bug fixes for "Import Playlist".

Next I have to research what streaming protocols would be useful to support.

[bll]

I am working on finalizing the version 4.15 release. MacOS has updated their compiler, and there are some warning messages that I have to figure out how to fix or work around. The compiler on Windows is currently broken, so support for SMTC (simple media transport controller) will be left out of the Windows build unless the compiler is fixed in time.

• Improved 'remove song' interface in the music manager.
• Podcast support. Implementing this fixes various problems with supporting streaming audio.

[bll]

Version 4.15.0 is released.

Once the compiler on Windows is fixed, there will be a release to enable the Windows SMTC code.

I don't have anything else on my to-do list for BDJ4, other than fixing any bugs that show up.

Later this year, I will need to create BDJ4 releases for Linux Debian 13 and Linux OpenSUSE 16.

[bll]

4.15.1 is released with some bug fixes for podcasts.
The file size for song lists was being limited, and a podcast with many episodes would get truncated. That's all fixed.
The networking code was cleaned up, and IPv6 is now supported.

Upcoming:

• When the compiler gets fixed, the SMTC code for Windows will be turned back on (4.15.1.1).
• Linux: Debian 13 and OpenSUSE 16 builds mid 2025. These will probably not require any changes to the code.
• MacOS Tahoe will be released around September 2025. Support for my MacOS Intel machine will be dropped,
  but I will continue building the Intel releases using Sequoia.
• Someday, VLC 4 will become a reality. I already have support for VLC 4, but VLC 4 is currently broken on Windows.

There are no changes to BDJ4 itself in the queue, so it should be stay stable for a long while now.
Please let me know if there are any bugs, things that are hard to use, etc. so that they can be fixed.

[bll]

4.15.2 was released due to some bad changes I made in 4.15.1. I don't think this issue affected anyone other than me.

4.15.3 fixed a bug with .WAV audio files. This was broken since version 4.4.3. Users who converted from BallroomDJ 3, or added their .WAV files before version 4.4.3, would not have an issue.

If you have .WAV audio files, simply do: Manage / Update Database / Check for New.

The BDJ4 Roadmap has been updated with information for 2025. I have no changes planned for BDJ4, so other than one upcoming minor release for Windows, it should stay stable for a long time.

Edit: 2024-6-27 : fixed link to roadmap

[bll]

4.15.3.1 is released.

I made a mistake at some point and the MacOS support libraries were built for Sequoia (and later), rather than being built for Big Sur.
That's been fixed, so BDJ4 can now be installed on older MacOS machines.

And Windows SMTC is back on.

There are no changes foreseen in the future unless someone finds a bug.

[bll]

Version 4.15.5 is released.

I did some code cleanup, modernized the code in some places. The inter-process communication should be faster on Linux and MacOS now. I had to put some short delays in a few of the automated tests due to the increased speed.

Linux has dozens of different distributions that people use, all a little different. Even though many distributions are based on the Debian distribution, they still may have different versions of libraries. The ICU library is notorious for not following best practices, and its version changes constantly. I re-wrote my software to search for and dynamically load the ICU, avformat and avutil libraries. This should make the debian installation more robust across different distributions, and more likely to survive an upgrade. There are still other libraries out there that may change versions, and it may be necessary to build BDJ4 from source on Linux.

This change also allowed me to no longer build and ship the ICU library on MacOS, instead using the one built by MacPorts.

A minor release may be expected in October when OpenSUSE and MacOS Tahoe come out.

[bll]

Surprisingly, I was able to get a player interface working to the Windows MediaPlayer API.
Surprising, because I don't know C++, and the Windows API seems a bit finicky sometimes.

The Windows MediaPlayer API allows multiple playback streams, so I am also implementing cross-fade, which will only be available on Windows, as libVLC does not support cross-fading.

I have more testing to do, it may be a week or two before everything is finished, but it is looking pretty good. New installations on Windows will default to the Windows Media Player if all the testing goes well.

This will be released in version 4.16.0.

There might be minor releases in September or October for MacOS Tahoe and OpenSUSE 16, if necessary. It may be possible to simply package a release for the new versions.