• An in-studio dashboard for WBOR 91.1 FM, Bowdoin College's student-run radio station.
• Runs on a little CRT monitor in the on-air studio. New features added every week!
• Want to contribute? Get in touch here.

• MacOS: brew install rust
• Fedora: sudo dnf install rust cargo
• Debian: curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh (apt-get only has an outdated version of the toolchain)

• MacOS: brew install sdl2 sdl2_image sdl2_ttf
• Fedora: sudo dnf install SDL2-devel SDL2_image-devel SDL2_ttf-devel
• Debian: sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev

• cargo run --release

Or with logging:

• RUST_LOG=wbor-studio-dashboard cargo run --release

• Features:

  • DJ tips popping up now and then (like a video game loading screen)
  • Display streaming server online status (determined by whether it pings?) address is: 161.35.248.7
  • User interaction with the dashboard via the Stream Deck (toggle display elements, scroll through texts, block a text sender, etc.)
  • Finish the background image (vary it based on the theme?)
  • Show the album history on the bookshelf

• Technical:

  • When an error happens, make it print a message on screen that says that they should reach out to the tech director, [email protected] (make a log of the error on disk too)
  • Crop all Spinitron photos 1:1 square
  • Maybe put the bounding box definition one layer out (with the parent)
  • Abstract the main loop out, so that just some data and fns are passed into it
  • Eventually, avoid all possibilities of panics (so all assertions and unwraps should be gone)
  • Maybe draw rounded rectangles with sdl_gfx later on
  • Render a text drop shadow
  • Set more rendering hints later on, if needed (beyond just the scale quality)
  • Figure out how to do pixel-size-independent-rendering (use sdl_canvas.set_scale for that?)
  • For logging, write the current spin to a file once it updates
  • Make a little script on the Pi to clear the message history every 2 weeks - or maybe do it from within the dashboard - checking the date via modulus?
  • Use the max durations of Spinitron spins to reduce the number of API calls
  • Maybe make a custom OpenGL renderer (may be more performant). Tricky parts would be text rendering, and keping everything safe. Perhaps Vulkan instead? Or something more general?
  • Make some functions const
  • Use SDL3 bindings
  • Make a small window that shows the dashboard uptime (don't use chrono::Duration, since that will limit the uptime to some number of weeks)
  • Investigate the occasionally high CPU usage on the Pi (like 300%!)
  • Could multiple update rates per window be useful?
  • CD to Pi?

• Fun ideas:

  • Run the dashboard on a PVM, or an original iMac, eventually?
  • Maybe give a retro theme to everything
  • Some little Mario-type character running around the edges of the screen (like 'That Editor' by Bisqwit)
  • Different themes per each dashboard setup: wooden, garden, neon retro, frutiger aero, etc.
    • Fall: leaves + drifting clouds over the screen
    • Summer: shining run rays
    • Spring: occasional rain with sun
    • Winter: snow
  • Make Nathan Fielder pop up sometimes (at a random time, for a random amount of time, saying something random, e.g. "Hey. I'm proud of you"). Same with the scary face (make that one window which picks one of those at random times).
  • Avoid screen burn-in somehow on non-dynamic parts of the screen (ideas below):
    • Shut off at night (or just for a few hours)
    • Screensavers
    • Layout swap (move screen elements around with a rapid or smooth animation) (do once every 15 minutes or so?)
    • Theme swap (instant or gradual) (based on things like weather, season, time of day, holiday, simple dark/light mode for day/night)
    • Use a PVM/BVM (they have less burn-in)