V1 Update

🚀 Release Notes: Pixel Shell v1.1.0

Date: December 24, 2025
Tag: v1.1.0

We are thrilled to announce the official release of Pixel Shell v1.0.0! 🎉
This milestone update introduces a fully-featured Graphical User Interface (GUI), making the creation of high-performance desktop overlays accessible to everyone — no command line required.

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✨ Highlights

🖥️ New Visual Interface — ps-gui.exe

Gone are the days of manually typing commands. The new Pixel Shell GUI provides a sleek, unified dashboard for your entire workflow:

• Project Management — Easily input YouTube URLs and set project names
• Asset Configuration — Visual dropdowns for selecting target resolution (1080p, 720p) and framerate (30 / 60 FPS)
• One-Click Processing — A single Run All Tasks button handles downloading, converting, and building your overlay
• Runner Manager — Monitor active overlays and manage the Watchdog service directly from the Runner tab
• Settings Config — Configure paths for FFmpeg, yt-dlp, and templates via a dedicated Settings UI

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📦 Enhanced Installer

The Setup Wizard (pixel-shell-setup.exe) has been completely overhauled:

• Auto-Bundling — Installs ps-gui.exe alongside the CLI and Runner automatically
• Smart Shortcuts — Creates a Pixel Shell Start Menu entry that launches the GUI by default
• Dependency Management — Automatically downloads and configures FFmpeg and yt-dlp during installation

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🛠️ Improvements & Polish

🎨 UI / UX Refinements

• Standardized UI row heights to 32px for a clean, professional grid layout
• Refactored Combo Boxes to support dynamic data sources and custom manual entries
  (e.g. selecting specific files for the Runner)
• Improved vertical alignment for labels and inputs across the application

⚡ Performance

• Optimized zero-copy rendering pipeline via the custom Snowplow RLE algorithm
• Runner templates now support absolute background transparency via GDI bypass

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🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed dropdown menus misaligning with adjacent labels in grid layouts
• Corrected box_32 wrapper logic to ensure consistent row heights regardless of content size
• Resolved Rust borrowing conflicts when updating settings state inside UI closures

---

📥 Installation

You can download the installer from the GitHub release page or via Winget (coming soon):

1. Download pixel-shell-setup.exe
2. Run the installer and follow the prompts to install dependencies
3. Launch Pixel Shell from your Start Menu

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Thank you for using Pixel Shell ❤️
This release marks the foundation for a stable, extensible overlay ecosystem — and there’s more to come.

V1 Alpha Release

🚀 Release v1.0.0 — The "Binary Patching" Update

Date: December 21, 2025
Codename: Factory Reset

This major release introduces a complete architectural overhaul of Pixel Shell. The engine has moved away from compile-time asset embedding to a new Binary Patching system. This allows users to generate standalone, portable overlay executables instantly — without recompiling the Rust source code for every new video.

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🌟 Highlights

🏭 New Architecture: Binary Patching

• Instant Builds
  No more waiting for cargo build for every project. The CLI now takes a pre-compiled Runner Template and injects your video/audio assets directly into it.

• Standalone Executables
  Output .exe files in the dist/ folder are 100% self-contained, bundling video, audio, and configuration logic inside a single binary.

• Portable Toolchain
  The CLI (ps-cli) and Runner (ps-runner) locate each other using relative paths. You can move the entire toolchain to a USB drive, and it will continue to work.

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🛠️ New CLI Tools (ps-cli)

The former builder.rs, downloader.rs, converter.rs, and debugger.rs modules have been rewritten into a unified CLI experience:

• download
  Automatically fetches high-quality video/audio from YouTube using yt-dlp.

• convert
  Transcodes video into Pixel Shell’s custom .bin format using the Snowplow RLE Algorithm, optimized for sparse pixel rendering.

• debug
  Previews converted assets in a window to verify transparency, alignment, and frame rate before building.

• build
  The new Binary Patcher. Reads the ps-runner.exe template, appends assets, and generates a new standalone .exe.

• run
  Launches overlays with a built-in Watchdog that automatically restarts the app if it crashes or is closed.

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⚡ Engine Improvements (ps-runner)

• Runtime Asset Loading
  The engine now reads its own executable footer to locate and load assets directly into memory.

• Zero-Copy Rendering
  Optimized GDI rendering pipeline to handle dynamic resolutions passed via the binary payload.

• Audio Sync
  Integrated kira for high-priority audio threading, keeping sound perfectly synchronized with the custom video frame timer.

• Windows Metadata
  Fixed build.rs to correctly embed icons, version information, and High-DPI awareness manifests.

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🐛 Fixes & Improvements

• Fixed: Absolute path dependency — toolchain now resolves paths relative to executable location
• Improved: Reorganized project into a Monorepo structure (apps/ vs crates/)
• Improved: Added gblur filter to FFmpeg conversion to reduce pixel flickering on sharp edges

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⚠️ Breaking Changes

• Build Workflow
  Creating video overlays via cargo build is no longer supported. All builds must use:

  ps-cli.exe build

• Asset Location
  Assets must sit next to executable files:

  assets/<project_name>/
  ps_cli.exe
  ps_runner.exe
  

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📥 Installation

1. Download ps-cli.exe and ps-runner.exe from the Assets section

2. Place both files in the same directory

3. Open a terminal and run:

   ps-cli.exe --help

Enjoy the new high-performance Pixel Shell factory 🏭

V1 Release

🚀 Release Notes: Pixel Shell v1.0.0

Date: December 24, 2025
Tag: v1.0.0

We are thrilled to announce the official release of Pixel Shell v1.0.0! 🎉
This milestone update introduces a fully-featured Graphical User Interface (GUI), making the creation of high-performance desktop overlays accessible to everyone — no command line required.

---

✨ Highlights

🖥️ New Visual Interface — ps-gui.exe

Gone are the days of manually typing commands. The new Pixel Shell GUI provides a sleek, unified dashboard for your entire workflow:

• Project Management — Easily input YouTube URLs and set project names
• Asset Configuration — Visual dropdowns for selecting target resolution (1080p, 720p) and framerate (30 / 60 FPS)
• One-Click Processing — A single Run All Tasks button handles downloading, converting, and building your overlay
• Runner Manager — Monitor active overlays and manage the Watchdog service directly from the Runner tab
• Settings Config — Configure paths for FFmpeg, yt-dlp, and templates via a dedicated Settings UI

---

📦 Enhanced Installer

The Setup Wizard (pixel-shell-setup.exe) has been completely overhauled:

• Auto-Bundling — Installs ps-gui.exe alongside the CLI and Runner automatically
• Smart Shortcuts — Creates a Pixel Shell Start Menu entry that launches the GUI by default
• Dependency Management — Automatically downloads and configures FFmpeg and yt-dlp during installation

---

🛠️ Improvements & Polish

🎨 UI / UX Refinements

• Standardized UI row heights to 32px for a clean, professional grid layout
• Refactored Combo Boxes to support dynamic data sources and custom manual entries
  (e.g. selecting specific files for the Runner)
• Improved vertical alignment for labels and inputs across the application

⚡ Performance

• Optimized zero-copy rendering pipeline via the custom Snowplow RLE algorithm
• Runner templates now support absolute background transparency via GDI bypass

---

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fixed dropdown menus misaligning with adjacent labels in grid layouts
• Corrected box_32 wrapper logic to ensure consistent row heights regardless of content size
• Resolved Rust borrowing conflicts when updating settings state inside UI closures

---

📥 Installation

You can download the installer from the GitHub release page or via Winget (coming soon):

1. Download pixel-shell-setup.exe
2. Run the installer and follow the prompts to install dependencies
3. Launch Pixel Shell from your Start Menu

---

Thank you for using Pixel Shell ❤️
This release marks the foundation for a stable, extensible overlay ecosystem — and there’s more to come.