Skip to content

Appearance

richardsladetdj-creator edited this page May 14, 2026 · 21 revisions

Appearance

The Appearance tab controls everything about how the dancer display looks. Settings are organised into six tabs accessible via the tab bar at the top of the panel:

Tab What it controls
Visibility Which fields are shown on the display, and the order they appear in
Text Font, size, and style for each text element
Colours Colour of each element on the dancer display
Artwork & Motion Transition style and duration, album artwork, background image, and artist backgrounds
Cortina What is shown on-screen during a cortina
Last Tanda Last Tanda announcement label settings

Visibility

Field Visibility

Control which fields are shown — independently for dance tracks and for the cortina "Coming Up" preview. Each row has two toggles: Dance (shown while a tanda is playing) and Next Up (shown in the next-track preview during a cortina).

Field Dance default Next Up default
Genre On On
Artist On On
Year Off Off
Title On Off
Singer Off Off
Artwork Off Off

Show next track during cortina — hides or shows the entire "Coming Up" next-track preview section. When off, the Next Up column toggles have no effect.

Text Order

Control the vertical order in which text items appear on the dancer display. There are three independent orderings — one for dance tracks, and two for cortinas.

Section What it controls
Dance Tracks Order of items on the main display while a tanda is playing
Cortinas — Cortina Track Order of Cortina Label, Cortina Artist, and Cortina Title on the cortina screen
Cortinas — Coming Up Order of Next Up Label and next-tanda preview items during cortinas

Use the and chevron buttons on the right of each row to move items up or down. Changes take effect on the dancer display immediately.

Dance Tracks items: Genre, Artist, Year, Title, Singer, Last Tanda Label

Cortinas — Cortina Track items: Cortina Label, Cortina Artist, Cortina Title (default order: label first, then artist, then title). Only visible when Show cortina track during cortina is enabled in the Cortina tab.

Cortinas — Coming Up items: Next Up Label, Genre, Artist, Year, Singer, Title, Last Tanda Label. The Next Up Label ("COMING UP" heading) is an orderable item — move it anywhere in the preview block.


Text

Configure the typeface, size, and style for each text element:

Column What you set
Font name Choose from installed system fonts
Size Point size of the text (use the stepper to adjust)
B Bold
I Italic

The section is divided into three groups:

Label rows (at the top): Cortina Lbl (the "CORTINA" heading), Next Up Lbl (the "COMING UP" heading), and Idle Msg (the idle-state message). These have independent font and color control.

Dance track rows: Artist, Title, Genre, Year, and Singer. Whether each field is shown is controlled in the Visibility tab.

Cortina track rows (at the bottom): Cortina Art. and Cortina Ttl. — the font for the cortina track's own artist and title when cortina track display is enabled.

Singer Source

A Source picker lets you choose where the singer name comes from:

Source Description
Comments Reads the track's Comment metadata field. Useful when you've tagged vocalist names into comments in your library. This is the default and matches the behaviour of earlier versions.
Album Artist Reads the Album Artist metadata field. Useful when Album Artist holds the vocalist name (common in some tango library workflows).

A Singer font row appears below the source picker so you can set the typeface, size, and style independently of the other text elements.


Colours

Set the colour of each element on the dancer display:

Element What it colours
Background The solid background fill (used when no background image is set, or behind a semi-transparent image)
Artist The large artist/orchestra name text
Title The track title text
Genre/label The smaller genre or record label line
Year The recording year (e.g. 1952)
Track counter The "Track X of X" text in the corner
Singer The vocalist/singer line
Cortina label The "CORTINA" heading text on the cortina screen
Next up label The "COMING UP" heading text in the cortina preview
Cortina artist The cortina track's own artist (when cortina track display is enabled)
Cortina title The cortina track's own title (when cortina track display is enabled)
Idle message The text shown when nothing is playing
Last Tanda label The Last Tanda announcement text when Last Tanda mode is active

Click any colour swatch to open the macOS colour picker.


Artwork & Motion

Transition

Setting Description
Style How the display transitions between tracks. Options: Crossfade, Hard Cut, Fade Through Black, Push (slides in from the right), and Zoom (scales in/out).
Duration Length of the transition in seconds (drag the slider).

Album Artwork

Configure how album artwork appears on the dancer screen. Artwork visibility is controlled per context in the Visibility tab — these sliders only take effect when artwork is enabled for Dance or Next Up (or both).

Control Description
Opacity 0 % = invisible, 100 % = fully opaque
Scale 1× = natural size; increase to fill more of the screen
Horizontal offset Move the artwork left (negative) or right (positive)
Vertical offset Move the artwork up (negative) or down (positive)

Artwork is fetched automatically from the playing track for all three player sources — Music.app, Swinsian, and Embrace. It fades in and out in sync with track transitions using the same transition style and duration configured above. When no artwork is available the display falls back gracefully (nothing is shown in that layer).

Background Image

Control Description
Pick Image… / Change Image… Opens a file picker to select any image file (label changes to Change Image… once an image is loaded)
Clear Removes the background image
Opacity 0 % = fully transparent (solid background colour shows), 100 % = fully opaque
Scale Zoom the image in or out (1× = original size, higher = zoomed in)
Horizontal Pan the image left or right
Vertical Pan the image up or down

Use Scale + Horizontal + Vertical to frame exactly the part of the image you want behind the text.

Artist Backgrounds

Map specific artist names to background images. When enabled and the currently playing track's artist contains a configured name, the matching image is shown instead of the profile background image. If no artist matches, the display falls back to the profile background image, then to the background colour. The background clears automatically when the display is paused or no track is playing.

Control Description
Enable artist backgrounds Master switch for this feature
Add Artist… Adds a new entry to the list
Artist name field Text to match against the playing track's artist. Matching is partial, case-insensitive, and accent-insensitive — "troilo" matches "Anibal Troilo y su Orquesta"
Pick Image… / Change Image… Choose the background image for this artist entry
Clear Removes the image for this entry
Removes the entire entry
Opacity Opacity applied to all artist background images
Scale Zoom applied to all artist background images
Horizontal / Vertical Pan all artist background images

Each entry must have both a name and an image before you can save. Entries missing either are flagged with a red indicator and the Save button is disabled until resolved.

Priority order: matching artist background → profile background image → background colour


Cortina

Controls what is displayed on screen while a cortina is playing.

Setting Description
Show cortina track during cortina Displays the playing cortina's own track information on the cortina screen
Show next track during cortina Shows the "Coming Up" next-tanda preview during the cortina. When off, the cortina screen shows only the cortina label (and cortina track info if enabled) with no preview content.
Show Cortina Artist The artist/orchestra of the playing cortina track. Only active when Show cortina track during cortina is on.
Show Cortina Title The title of the playing cortina track. Only active when Show cortina track during cortina is on.

The text labels ("CORTINA", "COMING UP") and idle message are configured in Display Settings › Display Labels and are shared across all profiles.


Last Tanda

Configure the Last Tanda announcement label — displayed on the dancer screen when Last Tanda mode is active.

Setting Description
Label text The text shown on the dancer display (e.g. LAST TANDA). Stored globally, not per-profile. Leaving this blank disables the Last Tanda toggle on the Live screen.
Colour Colour of the label text
Font Typeface, size, bold, and italic for the label
Show in display Per-profile master switch — when off, the label never appears even if Last Tanda mode is active. Also disables the Last Tanda toggle on the Live screen for this profile.

Label text is shared across all profiles. Colour, Font, and Show in display are saved per-profile.

The label's vertical position within the dance track and cortina coming-up layouts is controlled in Text Order (Visibility tab).


Saving your settings

  • Save — updates the currently active profile with the new settings
  • Save as New Profile… — creates a new named profile (see Profiles)

Changes take effect on the dancer display immediately.

Clone this wiki locally