ballroomdj.org

2026 is still more than a week away, but I thought I would get the 2026 development thread started.

Since the last post, the user interface has had some small improvements and bug fixes.

MacOS can now also be installed when using the Homebrew or pkgsrc package managers. I will probably drop the pkgsrc build, unless someone requests it. Right now, I have to run the test suite three times on MacOS, once for each package manager.

Linux has seen various bug fixes, and there have been a few other bug fixes (reload, drag-and-drop, deleting playlists) for all platforms.

BDJ4 is up to version 4.17.7.1. The only particular plans I have are to fix any bugs I run across. Translations into other languages are still a mess -- they are all machine generated and need a native speaker to go through and fix them. In 2026, I might be able to afford to pay for one or two translations. If you can help with translations, please let me know. I have thought about processing lyrics files so that BDJ4 can be used as a karaoke machine, but am still undecided.

Unfortunately, I rarely get any feedback from anyone. I see some of the registration data when BDJ4 is installed or updated, but I cannot tell if anyone is using BDJ4.

Within BDJ4, please let me know if there are any problems, little annoyances, improvements, bugs, glitches, or things you want to be able to do.

I hope that you are enjoying BDJ4 and that it is working for you. And I hope 2026 goes well for you and that your ballroom dancing goes well.

Version 4.17.8 is out.

On Windows, I fixed the windows that would pop up briefly and then go away again. This affects the cleanup process which is run when the user signs in to their account, and the shortcut starting BDJ4.

I updated the maximum path length that can be handled to 4096 bytes. It was 1024 before, which handled most cases. But users could have deep folder trees, and some of those song names can get long.

Internally there was some other Windows clean up and other minor code cleanup.

If there's any BDJ4 feature that you want re-tested and checked, let me know.

Yesterday, I attempted to create a native MacOS player interface (using the AVPlayer API), as it is always good to have options and not get locked into a single set of tools.

But for some reason, it is not working. It doesn't report any errors, but it never starts playing. I'm a bit lost as to why it would not work. MacOS has another media player API, I may try that one also.

Update: Whoops, I spoke too soon. I found the piece I needed to do, and it is now basically working. I just need to implement seek-in-song and playback rate. Lots of testing. See if cross-fading can be implemented, and get streaming URLs working. More testing.

Lots of work.

The native MacOS player interface (using AVPlayer) is working. I will be running tests, and will do a release Monday or Tuesday.

This interface is for local files, not Apple Music. It appears I can get a free trial to Apple Music for one month, so I may work on getting the MacOS media player interface working. The problem is that I won't be able to support it once the free trial finishes.

Version 4.17.9 is out. There are a few small bug fixes.

The big change is the new MacOS AVPlayer player interface. This interface is native to MacOS. It supports cross-fading. It will not play .ogx, .wma or .mka audio files. If you are a Mac user, and choose to use this interface, VLC may be removed from your system.

4.17.10 now supports the MacOS Now Playing interface. All of the controller interfaces (Windows SMTC, Linux MPRIS, MacOS Now Playing) must be turned on in the player configuration if you want to use them.

The marquee has a new option to only show the song information. This is useful for general use, and for venues that only play a minimal variety of music.

I have seen new installations of BDJ4 from Brazil, Belgium, a couple in the US, an upgrade in Japan.

Hoping that the new and existing users enjoy BDJ4. Feel free to ask any questions.

I just tonight discovered that Windows can put the Desktop folder in different locations depending if OneDrive is turned on or not. Microsoft likes to make things difficult, I guess.

I will be working on the Windows installation process, and any other windows bugs I find. I'm going to build out another Windows 11 virtual machine, and set it up to use OneDrive.

If you have any Windows issues that need fixing, let me know about them. The next release will be primarily Windows fixes.

All sorts of things are breaking on Windows.

I use a program called cmake to do the configuration and build for my software. It has a new release, and would not longer build my application. I created a work-around for that.

Now I have discovered that the library that handles the translations, gettext, is no longer working on Windows. I don't know what's going on with these software packages, but I'm getting frustrated.