Dashwheel v1.0.762

What's new in v1.0.762

Unit keys: Home and screen off work again after using an app in a tile

• Home works again after you tap inside an app in a tile (YouTube Music, Waze), instead of doing nothing
• The screen-off button switches the screen off once, instead of off and straight back on, while the media keys turn the second screen's pages
• Home no longer acts like a long press while the media keys turn the second screen's pages

A music app in a tile comes to its player when a song starts

• A music app shown in a tile (inside it, or as a window over it) now opens its own player when a new song starts: YouTube Music's player, Spotify's Now playing. The player is the screen the app's media session names as its own. With YouTube Music in Video mode, the song's clip then shows in the tile.
• The app is left where it is when the tile was touched in the last 30 seconds (a library being browsed, a search), when the same song plays again after a pause, or for a window tile while another app covers the dashboard.

Second screen: its brightness lands on the level asked for

• The second screen's brightness now shows exactly the level you set, instead of one or two steps off
• After the Raspberry Pi starts, the first brightness change takes a few seconds longer, so that it lands exactly

Apps in a tile: a finger's tap reaches the app as one tap

• A tap with your finger on an app inside a tile (Waze's "Where to?" bar) now opens it, as it should, instead of being ignored by the app
• The head unit sometimes reports one press twice; the app inside the tile now only ever gets it once

Servicing: the mileage follows the GPS without OBD

• Without an OBD adapter or CAN box, the servicing planner's mileage now goes up with the kilometres the GPS measures, so km-based reminders (oil, filters, belt...) count down on their own
• With OBD connected, OBD still counts the kilometres, and the GPS takes over if it drops out mid-drive
• GPS reads slightly less than the car's odometer: type the real figure now and then (at a service, for example) to reset it

Lab: dead touch strip, for a screen that misses touches in one upright strip

• New in Settings, System, Lab: "Dead touch strip", for a touchscreen that feels nothing in one vertical strip
• Measure it once by sliding a finger across the screen: the strip found shows in red before you save it
• When it is on, the Settings side bar grows past the strip, so every setting on the right can be tapped; nothing else changes

Apps in a tile: text fields answer the first tap

• Tapping a text field inside a tile (Waze's "Where to?" bar) now opens it and its keyboard straight away, instead of doing nothing for several seconds
• The app you touch in a tile now always gets the keyboard, even when the head unit is busy

Second screen: the Pi's board in Dashwheel's language

• The board on the Raspberry Pi now uses the language chosen in Dashwheel, even when the head unit itself is set to another language

Second screen: no more seconds of delay or freezes on the Raspberry Pi

• Apps shown on the Pi (Waze, YouTube Music) are no longer 3 to 4 seconds behind the head unit
• The Pi's picture no longer freezes for a moment every few seconds
• When the head unit sends more frames than the Pi's screen can show, the Pi now skips the extra ones instead of falling behind

Build: 4 GB for Gradle and the Kotlin compiler, as the looks outgrew 2 GB

Every build of main since the new looks came in ran out of memory compiling the app (:app:compilePlayDebugKotlin), so no beta was published after v1.0.748 and the new Look page never reached the head unit.

3D models saved z up stand on their wheels

A model saved another way round than glTF's y up (z up and the nose along y, as Blender saves it unless told otherwise) was drawn lying down: from above it showed the front of the car, and the other views showed it on its side. The phone now works out the model's axes from its shape:

• The length is the longest side.
• The width is the side the car mirrors across.
• Up is the end where the car is smaller: the roof is shorter and narrower than the bumpers and sills.

Models already read right keep exactly the same axes. A ground plane under such a model is also left out, whichever way it lies.

Doors, tailgate and bonnet open as frames drawn from your 3D model

• Dashwheel Companion: "From a 3D model" now also draws each part a rigged model opens (Hinge_door_fl/fr/rl/rr, Hinge_tailgate, Hinge_bonnet), seen from above. For each part it draws the car without it (what it uncovers), then the part alone in 8 steps from shut to open, hidden where the car is in front of it. The frames go in the car pack as small WebP pictures: about 160 KB for a C4 Picasso.
• On the head unit, the door alert plays them as a part opens and shuts, in every design and in the car style chosen: what the part uncovers, then the part as far open as it is, in the warning colour. They come before a pack's still picture of a part open, and before the bonnet lifting out of the picture.
• The side panel and full screen show the car in 3D only for a part open that has no frames.
• The model's hinges are read with the parts hanging from them, and kept when the nose is turned around. The opening angles are shared by the phone's frames and the live 3D view.
• tools/mycar/bake_car.py says to open its pack in the phone app to have the parts opening drawn.

Bonnet open: it lifts instead of a still picture, and opens on your 3D car

• Your car from above, when its pack has no picture of the bonnet open: the bonnet now lifts out of the car's own picture on its hinge at the windscreen. It gets shorter as it rises, uncovers a dark engine bay, springs a little and shows in the warning colour. Before, the whole car only turned orange. This is in every door alert design, and on the Motorsport look's car.
• The door alert's side panel and full screen show your car in 3D when its pack brought a model with hinges (Hinge_bonnet, Hinge_door_fl...). The camera turns to what is open: into the engine bay for the bonnet, to the door or the tailgate, or the whole car from the corner most of them are on. Everything open swings open on its hinge and glows in the warning colour. The car from above shows while the model loads, and instead for a model without those hinges.
• The 3D car's loading is shared by the Car problems card and the door alert.

Companion: From a 3D model also takes a car pack (.dwcar)

A car pack chosen in "From a 3D model" was refused as "can't be read as a 3D model": the screen took only a bare .glb, and a pack is a zip. The model inside the pack (model.glb, else any .glb in it) is now taken out and drawn as a .glb would be.

Ambient's turn glow no longer cut square at the tile's edge; Spatial keeps its apps on the bar only

Companion: its own message when a model can't be turned around

A turn that fails keeps the car as it was and now says the model is too big to turn on this phone, instead of "Try again in the car".

Companion: turning a big 3D model's nose no longer closes the app

• "Nose the wrong way? Turn it around" read the whole model file again while the car already drawn was still kept. A big model (24 MB) twice did not fit in the phone's memory, and the app closed. The model already read is now turned in memory: only its corners are new, so the turn is also quicker.
• The nose found by itself when a model is chosen turns it the same way, instead of reading the file twice.
• Reading a model takes about half the memory it did: the triangles are brought to the car's frame where they were read, not copied.
• The app may use more memory on phones that allow it (large heap), for models up to 64 MB.
• While the car is redrawn, "Drawing your car" shows above it. The spinner no longer turns in "Send to the car", which looked like it was sending to a car that was not even connected.
• Choosing another model lets go of the one on screen first; when the new one can't be read, the car kept before comes back.

Terrain: no lone chip on the 3D car, and its description says the landscape is drawn

Terrain look: your car on a contour landscape, problems pinned on it

• New Terrain look: your car stands large in the middle of Home on a pad in a landscape of contour lines, dark olive at night and sand paper by day, with a faint amber pulse running out across the lines while parked.
• The car is live in 3D when your car pack has a model, else its picture, else a drawn MPV, on its own soft shadow. A problem the car reports glows on the part and is pinned there with its name.
• Over the car: altitude, position and heading from the GPS when there is a fix, and the range with an amber bar.
• Smoked cards with mono labels: the next turn as a big amber arrow block, the weather for the next 6 hours with when the rain starts and one bar per hour, the music with its cover and three round keys, the engine readings, speed and clock.
• Choosing Terrain arranges Home around the car, with the side rail as its dock; a slim smoked bar when the rail is off.

Windshield look: a road at dusk, the turn's arrows on the lane and a glass band

• New Windshield look: the dashboard is the view through the windscreen at night, a drawn road under an indigo sky with street lights, your car seen from behind with its tail lamps glowing (your own car's back view when you imported one).
• While a route is guided the road bends toward the next turn, more sharply as it nears, and cyan arrows lie on the lane pointing into it. They flow toward the turn when a new one comes, then hold still.
• A black glass band along the foot of the screen holds what you glance at: speed and limit sign, the next turn, arrival time and outside temperature, with Apps, Talk, OBD and the menu small at its ends.
• Widgets float over the road as tags: the next turn in cyan, the weather with the rain to come, the range, the clock and the engine; music on a compact card, the speed as a big glowing figure.
• Choosing Windshield puts its Home on the dashboard: a column of app keys on the left, the turn and weather tags above the road, music in the corner.
• By day the same road under a pale sky. Nothing moves while driving, and effects off draws it plain.

Glyph look: a dot-matrix panel with real keys and light strips

• New look in Settings, Look: Glyph, a pale aluminium panel with a fine dot grid (a black one by night), off-white modules with screws and mono labels, and readings in big dot-matrix figures.
• Your car drawn as a cloud of dots in the middle of Home, made from your car pack's picture (or a drawn MPV), tail lamps in red, with a slow scan across it while parked.
• The edges of the screen light up: the left or right strip chases when a turn on that side is under 400 m, and the bottom strip is the fuel gauge, red in the reserve.
• Round keys with a physical edge for Map, Music, Phone, the OBD link and a red Talk key.
• The time comes with the outside temperature and the next sunset; the next turn shows as a dot-matrix arrow and distance; music has a dot title and a bar equaliser that holds still while driving.

Chrome look: liquid chrome type, holographic chips and a metal drop

• New look in Settings, Look: Chrome, the Y2K revival. The turn, the speed and the time in liquid chrome lettering on a near-black page with a faint grid, or dark chrome on pale silver by day.
• A drop of liquid metal floats over the music while you are parked: it ripples slowly and livens up while music plays. It holds still while you drive.
• Music sits in a pill with a chrome bezel, a spinning iridescent disc or the song's cover, and a polished chrome play key.
• Range, weather and engine readings are holographic chips; the arrival time gets its own chip under the next turn.
• The bar is a set of chrome pills with Talk as a chrome button, and a docked Maps window sits in a chrome bezel.
• Choosing Chrome arranges Home around it: the time top left, the next turn under it, the music and the drop in the middle, the speed and the range on the right. Undo puts your Home back.
• With effects off, the chrome turns to plain ink, the chips go opaque and nothing moves.

Spatial's description says what it shows: a 3D city backdrop

Clay: a soft 3D look of puffy pastel clay

• New look, Clay: pastel cards you could squeeze, each with a soft coloured shadow and its own light and shade, on a lilac, peach and butter page; at night muted clay on a deep plum page
• The next turn is a puffy 3D purple arrow leaning toward the turn, with little clay balls floating around it, the distance big in purple, the street, and a pill with the arrival time and what is left
• The speed sits on a round coral clay disc with the road's limit on a small sign; it turns red over the limit
• Weather on a pale blue card with rain to come, music on a butter card with a puffy orange play button, clock, engine and fuel on their own pastels
• The bar is a row of big clay keys (map, music, phone, all apps) and a wide purple Talk pill; keys squash when pressed
• The arrow, the balls and the play button bob gently only while the car stands still; effects off gives flat cards and still shapes
• Choosing Clay puts its Home on the dashboard: the next turn large on the left, the speed and the weather beside it, the music under them

Spatial look: glass windows over a 3D night city

• New look, Spatial: glass windows float over a 3D night city with a glowing route, after visionOS. The city is a backdrop, not the live map.
• The windows on the left turn toward the middle, those on the right the other way; they stand flat while you arrange them and with effects off.
• The turn's window shows the arrow, the distance large, the street and one line with the arrival, the distance left and rain to come.
• Tabs under it switch to the arrival time or to your fuel, with whether it covers the trip; it comes back to the turn by itself.
• Music in a glass window with the cover and round glass keys; the speed floats in the air with the road's limit beside it.
• Clock, weather, engine and range get smaller glass windows.
• The bar is a floating glass dock with round keys and a gradient Talk button.
• While parked, a short light runs along the route now and then; nothing moves while you drive.
• By day the same city in pale blue-greys.

Paper look: e-paper ink on grey, the next turn as a junction diagram

• New look in Settings, Look: Paper, ink on an e-paper grey page with dithered and hatched textures, no glow and nothing that moves. By night the same page, dimmed.
• The next turn is drawn as a diagram of its junction: the streets, your route taking the turn, an arrow for you and the street's name, with the distance, the turn and your arrival beside it. With no route, the time large.
• A tile refreshes like e-ink, a short ink flash, when something worth a look changes: a new turn or a distance step, a new hour, a new song, a new speed limit, a change in the rain. Effects off turns it off.
• Rain for the next 6 hours as hatched hourly bars, the speed beside its boxed limit, the song as one plain line with word buttons, the car as ruled rows.
• A plain bar of words: Apps, Layout, Map, Music, Phone, the OBD link, Talk boxed in ink and More.
• Choosing Paper puts the next turn on the left of Home, full height, with the time, the speed, the rain and the music beside it.

Ambient look: the screen becomes a field of light that tells the drive

• Ambient in Settings, Look, needs no car picture: soft blue and violet light over a dark page, or tinted glows on a pale one by day.
• A turn coming within 600 m warms the light from its side, stronger as it nears; it breathes slowly only while you stand still.
• A car problem tints the light red, and a rainbow runs along the foot of the screen while the assistant listens.
• Few words, big and thin: a huge speed with the road's limit beside KM/H, "Left in 300 m" with the street and a glowing arrow on the turn's side, a small clock with the outside temperature, the song at the corner.
• Weather, engine and range as a few plain lines; Talk is a small glowing pill on a bar of thin icons.
• Effects off shows the same news as crisp strips at the screen's edges, with no glow.
• Choosing Ambient puts the speed, the next turn, music and the clock on Home, with lots of light around them.

Brutal look: loud colour blocks, thick outlines, hard shadows

• New Brutal look (neo-brutalism), made for full sun: flat yellow, white, blue and pink blocks with thick black outlines and hard shadows on a warm off-white page, the heaviest type there is, labels in mono capitals
• At night the page goes black and the blocks near black, the loud colours become the ink and the shadows
• Next turn in yellow: the arrow in a white circle (it nudges toward the turn while parked), the distance gigantic, the street in heavy capitals
• Speed in white with the road's limit sign, weather in blue stripes with rain to come, music in pink with the song on one big line (it scrolls while parked)
• Range, coolant and the cheapest fuel nearby (or the outside temperature) in three bold columns
• An ALL GOOD or CHECK CAR sticker on the weather block once the car has said either
• The bar is a row of button blocks, your dashboards included, with a black Talk block; a pressed block sinks onto its shadow
• Choosing Brutal puts its own Home on the dashboard: next turn, speed, weather, music and the car's readings

Liquid and Expressive: the 3D car without its chips, no clipping

Kinetic look: the next turn in big moving type, the rest in one rolling line

• New look, Kinetic: no app grid, just the one thing that matters now. The distance to the next turn fills the screen in heavy type that grows wider as the turn gets closer, painted in a blue to amber gradient that drifts slowly while you are parked; how the turn goes and the street sit big under it.
• With no route, the time takes its place, with your next appointment or, away from home, when you would be home if you left now.
• The speed is a huge outlined figure with the road's limit beside the unit; it turns amber over the limit.
• Your car stands along the foot of Home as a dark silhouette lit at its edges, headlamp and tail lamp glowing, with your range beside it. Parked, a light runs along its side and speed streaks pass behind it; everything holds still while you drive.
• The bar becomes a ticker: the song, the arrival, the coolant, the range, the weather, rain to come, your next appointment and the sunset roll by in one line. While driving it never scrolls, it steps to the next item every few seconds. Apps, Talk, Layout and Menu are words at its ends.
• Clock, weather, engine and music tiles are big words over small spaced labels, with no boxes; Gemini's suggestion sits on a soft card.
• Day version in black type on warm off-white.

Paper look: warnings readable on its light page

• In the Paper look by day, warnings and the rev counter's amber are a deeper amber, readable on the grey paper. The usual day amber was too pale on it.

Look page: car-free looks with the new ones, Home arranged when the switch goes on, chips switch on the 3D car

Liquid look: glass over a dusk wallpaper, your car in the middle

• New Liquid look in Settings, Look, after the glass of this year's phones and CarPlay: soft colour blobs on deep violet at night, bright pastels by day, and every reading on rounded panes of glass that brighten what is behind them.
• Your own car stands big in the middle of Home on a soft shadow, in live 3D when your car pack has a model, with your range and coolant on glass chips under it, and the doors while one is open.
• The next turn sits on a glass card with its arrow, the distance large, the street and your arrival; the speed is a round glass disc with the road's limit sign over its rim.
• Music gets a tall glass card with the cover, a thin progress line and a bright white play key; the engine's revs and battery sit on a chip card under it.
• The bar becomes a floating glass dock with your dashboards and apps: a brighter lens slides to the dashboard on screen, and a gradient Talk key ends it. The time, the outside temperature and the OBD link sit in a glass capsule beside it.
• Choosing Liquid arranges Home this way, with Undo. Nothing moves while driving; parked, a light crosses the dock now and then. With effects off the cards turn plain and opaque for full sun.

Expressive look: bold shapes, the music's colours and your car in a scalloped badge

• New Expressive look after Material 3 Expressive: each widget has its own shape and bold flat colours, light by day and deep at night.
• The next turn is a coral tile with the arrow in a dark flower and the distance in giant narrow figures, the street under it.
• The speed stands in a tall pill with the road's limit sign below it.
• The music card takes the colours of the album cover; the cover sits in a slowly morphing blob, the progress line waves while the music plays and the play key changes shape.
• Your car stands in a big scalloped badge that turns slowly while parked, in 3D when you have a model, with chips under it for the arrival, the rain to come and the range.
• The bar is a floating dark toolbar with a coral Talk button at its end; tiles spring into place and squish under the finger.
• Choosing Expressive arranges Home with the clock, the car, the turn, the speed, the music and the app dock.

Six more new looks on their way, made to need no car picture

• Ambient, Brutal, Clay, Chrome, Spatial and Paper join Settings, Look: designs carried by light, type, material or a scene rather than by your car.
• Each arranges Home its own way when chosen, with Undo.

Each look arranges Home its own way, and six new looks are on their way

• Choosing a whole-design look in Settings, Look now also arranges Home the way that look was drawn, with Undo. Colour-only looks leave Home as it is, and a Home holding Maps or Waze in a tile keeps it.
• Six new looks from this year's car and phone design: Liquid, Expressive, Kinetic, Glyph, Windshield and Terrain.

DAB+ station stays above the song, and 3D models from Choose a file

• Now playing: a DAB+ station no longer goes about 28 s into a song. DAB-Z then gives the song a length, and Dashwheel took it for a track instead of the radio. The station stays as long as the radio still names it.
• The station also takes the top line, in place of "Now playing", in every design of the Now playing tile and in the Original look, with the artist alone underneath.
• Dashwheel Companion: Choose a file now takes a 3D model (.glb) and opens it in "From a 3D model", which draws your car from it. Before, only pictures and car packs could be chosen.
• On the head unit, picking a 3D model in My car says to open it in the phone app, where it is made into your car.
• The unit's log notes whether the car sends its outside temperature, and a radio's songs that have a length.

Six more new looks on their way, made to need no car picture

• Ambient, Brutal, Clay, Chrome, Spatial and Paper join Settings, Look: designs carried by light, type, material or a scene rather than by your car.
• Each arranges Home its own way when chosen, with Undo.

Settings, Look: the look in use up front, every look sorted by family

• The look in use is drawn large at the top of Settings, Look, with its name, what it is and the Home it brings, drawn as its tiles.
• "Arrange Home like the look" sits right under it: turn it off and choosing a look changes only how it looks.
• Looks come in families: New, Scenes, Dials, Calm and Colours only. One tap on a family shows its looks, and the page opens on the family of the look in use.
• A small Home mark on a look's card says it arranges Home its own way.
• Day and night and Effects sit side by side below, and Effects no longer hides under Show all.
• Upright screens get the same page, stacked.

Each look arranges Home its own way, and six new looks are on their way

• Choosing a whole-design look in Settings, Look now also arranges Home the way that look was drawn, with Undo. Colour-only looks leave Home as it is, and a Home holding Maps or Waze in a tile keeps it.
• Six new looks from this year's car and phone design: Liquid, Expressive, Kinetic, Glyph, Windshield and Terrain.

Changes since v1.0.742.