What's New

Bring photos straight from your Google Photos library into Luminography — no more downloading and re-uploading.

• Connect your Google account once on the Integrations page, then click Import from Google Photos on the Media Library (or Manage Photos) page.
• You pick exactly which photos to bring in using Google's own photo picker — Luminography only ever sees the photos you choose, never your whole library.
• Picked photos are copied into your Media Library, so they keep displaying reliably and appear on the Photos and Photo Wall themes like any uploaded photo.
• Imports are tagged google-photos, so you can point a screen at just that set from Edit Screen.
• Videos are skipped, and the usual Free-plan photo limit applies (Pro is unlimited).

The Design Dashboard live preview now shows your layout in both landscape and portrait at the same time.

• See how your tiles will land on a wall-mounted TV and a portrait display before you save — no guessing.
• Both previews update instantly as you drag, resize, and add widgets.

A new Photo Wall theme shows your uploaded photos in a dynamic gallery mosaic instead of one image at a time.

• A large spotlight pane on the left slowly zooms with a Ken Burns effect and crossfades between photos; a "Spotlight" badge fades in on each change.
• Four smaller thumbnail tiles along the side rotate independently on their own staggered timers, so the wall is always subtly in motion.
• Photos never repeat across panes at the same time — each slot picks an image that isn't already on screen.
• Pulls from your uploaded Media Library and refreshes hourly to pick up newly added photos.
• Automatically reflows to a stacked layout in portrait orientation, and respects the global Brightness and Rotation Speed settings.

Luminography now has Free and Pro plans, with secure checkout powered by Stripe.

• A new Plan & Billing page (left nav) shows your current plan and, on the Free plan, how many of your screens you've used.
• The Free plan supports one screen and up to 5 library photos; upgrading to Pro unlocks unlimited screens and photos across every device.
• Scheduling and Screen Groups are Pro features — automate theme changes by time and day, and control multiple screens together. Free users see an upgrade prompt on those pages.
• Upgrade to Pro opens Stripe's hosted checkout — no card details ever touch our servers.
• Manage Billing opens the Stripe customer portal to update your card, view invoices, or cancel.
• After a successful payment you land on a friendly confirmation page; the Pro plan activates automatically via a Stripe webhook moments later.
• Stripe API keys are loaded from appsettings.json — never hard-coded.

Behind-the-scenes reliability work to make issues easier to catch and diagnose.

• Server-side errors are now captured with Serilog, writing to both the console and a daily rolling log file (logs/errors-YYYYMMDD.txt).
• The full solution now builds with zero warnings and zero errors after a pass cleaning up nullable-reference and Razor component warnings.

A new Voice Control page (left nav, /voice) lets you speak a theme name and instantly switch any display — no need to open Edit Screen.

• Uses the browser's built-in Web Speech API — no API key or third-party service required.
• A dropdown selects which screen to target when you have multiple displays registered.
• Common command words ("switch to", "show me", "go to") are stripped before matching, so natural phrases like "show me the weather" work as expected.
• Theme change is persisted to the database and broadcast via SignalR — the display switches immediately.
• Status area shows real-time feedback: Listening, Matched theme name, or No theme matched.
• A history panel shows the last five voice-dispatched theme changes with screen name, theme, and time.
• Requires Chrome or Safari; Firefox shows a friendly unsupported message.

A new Traffic theme displays a full-screen live traffic map centered on your configured location.

• Uses the Google Maps JavaScript API with a TrafficLayer — roads are color-coded green (clear), amber (slow), and red (heavy) in real time.
• Custom dark map style keeps the traffic colors vivid and easy to read from across the room.
• Traffic data updates automatically as conditions change — no manual refresh needed.
• Top-left legend shows the color key; top-right badge shows a live pulse indicator.
• Bottom overlay shows your location name and a live ticking clock.
• Uses the existing Google Maps API key — no additional setup required.

A new On This Day theme cycles through historical events that occurred on today's date, powered by Wikipedia's free API.

• Wikipedia article thumbnail fills the screen with a slow Ken Burns zoom and a cinematic dark overlay.
• The event year is displayed in large amber type; the description appears below in an elegant serif font.
• Events are shuffled on each load so the screen always shows a fresh selection.
• Fades between events on each timer tick (respects the global Rotation Speed setting).
• No API key required — pulls directly from Wikipedia's public REST API.

Admin pages now feel faster and more responsive on first load.

• No more frozen pages — the Home, Screens, and Schedules pages are immediately interactive when they appear. Previously, the page looked ready but clicks did nothing until the server connection finished warming up.
• Home page stats show pulsing placeholder dashes while loading, then snap to live counts — instead of the whole page stalling.
• Screens and Schedules show a spinner while data loads, so the page appears instantly rather than waiting on the database.
• Database queries now run once per visit instead of twice — eliminating a redundant server round-trip that happened on every page load due to Blazor's prerender phase.

The Arcade theme received a full retro CRT treatment layered over the rotating game artwork.

• CRT scanlines — a repeating horizontal line pattern gives the display an authentic old-monitor feel.
• Dark vignette — edges fade to black like a real CRT screen.
• Animated neon border — cycles through magenta, cyan, yellow, and orange with a glowing inset shadow.
• Cyan corner brackets frame the display in classic arcade style.
• HUD bar — top bar shows a live 1UP score, High Score, and Level that advance with each image rotation.
• Flashing title card — "READY!", "PLAYER 1", "GAME ON!" and similar messages pulse in the center briefly on each cycle.
• INSERT COIN — yellow step-blinking text at the bottom completes the look.

A new Latest News theme cycles through top headlines from NewsAPI.org one article at a time.

• Full-screen background image pulled from each article with a Ken Burns slow zoom.
• Dark gradient overlay surfaces the source name, relative publish time, headline, and a two-line description.
• Progress dots at the bottom show position within the current batch of headlines.
• Articles auto-advance every 12 seconds (respects the global Rotation Speed setting).
• A 📰 Latest News badge appears top-right in a frosted glass pill.
• Requires a free NewsAPI.org API key configured in appsettings.json.

A new Library section (left nav) replaces the old Manage Photos page with a proper media management hub.

• Click-to-upload zone accepts JPEG, PNG, and WEBP files up to 20 MB each.
• Responsive photo grid shows thumbnail, original filename, and upload date.
• Hover a card to reveal a delete button; or click cards to multi-select and bulk delete.
• Upload progress bar and toast notifications for success and per-file errors.

A new External Apps page (left nav) provides a reference hub for every third-party API the app uses.

• Cards for TMDB, ESPN, Unsplash, Google Calendar, Spotify, NASA APOD, NewsAPI, Open-Meteo, Google Maps, JokeAPI, Open Trivia DB, and SendGrid.
• Each card shows a color-coded status badge: Active, No key required, Needs setup, or Stub.
• Theme pills show which display themes each service powers.
• Direct links to each service's developer portal or documentation.

Transactional email is now live via SendGrid. Account emails that were previously no-ops now actually send.

• Email confirmation links sent on new account registration.
• Password reset links and one-time codes for the forgot-password flow.
• Implemented all three IEmailSender<ApplicationUser> methods required by ASP.NET Core Identity.
• API key is loaded from appsettings.json — never hard-coded.

The "Now Playing" badge on the Movies theme was overlaid on top of the poster art, partially obscuring it. It is now positioned above the poster image in a dedicated flex row.

• Badge sits in its own horizontal band with a bottom border separating it from the poster below.
• Poster fills the remaining height without any overlay obstruction.

The admin interface got a visual refresh — warmer tones, cleaner layout, and a distinct branded sidebar.

• Amber accent palette — buttons, nav hover/active states, and focus rings all use a warm amber (#f59e0b family) via Radzen CSS variables.
• Lavender-white page background (#eef2f7) gives the UI an airy, light feel.
• Sidebar has a branded "📺 Luminography" header in amber, with pill-style active nav links.
• Indigo/violet is reserved as the editorial accent — hero taglines, CTA banners, changelog tags, and in-content links — keeping chrome and content visually distinct.

Theme selection on the Edit Screen page was replaced with visual card thumbnails — a colored gradient preview with an emoji icon and label for each theme.

• Themes are grouped by category: Movies, Sports, Entertainment, TV & Art, Weather, and Other.
• The active theme is highlighted with an indigo border and glow.
• Cards have a press animation for tactile feel on touch screens.

People near a trivia display can now scan a QR code and play along on their phone in real time.

• QR code overlay appears in the corner of the Trivia display showing the join URL.
• Mobile players navigate to /trivia-play/{device-id} and immediately see the current question.
• Players tap an answer — buttons turn green (correct) or red (wrong) when the host reveals the answer.
• Questions and answer reveals are pushed via SignalR, so phones stay in sync with the display with no polling.
• Player count badge on the Trivia display shows "👥 N playing" in real time as people join or leave.

Movie poster themes (Favorites, Trending, Top Rated, Upcoming) now use a cinematic flash-to-black between posters instead of a plain crossfade.

• A black overlay fades in over the current poster, the image swaps, then the overlay fades out — mimicking a theater cut.
• Fully compatible with the existing Ken Burns slow-zoom animation.
• ImageComponent gained a FlashToBlack parameter so individual themes can opt in or stay with crossfade.

A new Markets display theme shows live stock index quotes in a dark terminal-style layout.

• Index cards display the current price, point change, percent change, and a day-range bar showing where the price sits between the daily low and high.
• A market-status badge in the header shows Open, Pre-Market, After Hours, or Closed with a colored dot.
• Quotes refresh every 60 seconds with a live countdown timer in the footer.
• Gains are highlighted in green, losses in red, using a monospace font for the financial aesthetic.

A new NASA APOD theme pulls today's Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA's public API and fills the screen with it.

• Image slowly zooms with a Ken Burns effect over a 60-second loop.
• A gradient overlay at the bottom surfaces the title, date, and a truncated explanation.
• Copyright attribution is shown when the image is credited to a photographer.
• Video APODs are gracefully handled with a fallback state instead of a broken embed.

A new Map theme displays a full-screen Google Maps satellite view with a location name overlay at the bottom.

• The satellite iframe fills the entire display with no chrome or controls visible.
• A gradient overlay shows the location name, region, and GPS coordinates in a clean typographic layout.
• The API key is loaded from server configuration — no credentials in markup.