2026.04 Released

2026.04 Released

2026.04 April 2, 2026
-enh (dkulp) Add animated preview thumbnails to effect panels (Pictures, Shader, Video)
and media manager. Animated GIFs/WebP cycle through all frames, videos
show first 1 second, SVGs show static preview.
-change (dkulp) Drop support for importing sequences saved with xLights versions prior to
2020. A warning dialog is shown when opening such sequences, suggesting
they first be opened and saved with a 2025 version of xLights.
-change (gil/dkulp) Major internal refactor: models are now stored as native objects instead of
raw XML nodes. New serialization visitor pattern replaces direct XML
manipulation for rgbeffects.xml. This improves maintainability and
enables future features like proper undo/redo for model changes.
-change (dkulp) Switch XML parsing from wxXml to pugixml for better performance and
reduced wxWidgets dependency
-change (scott) Switch logging framework from log4cpp to spdlog
-change (dkulp) Update to new wxWidgets tag, fixes emoji rendering on Windows
-change (dkulp) Remove support for xLights v3 files
-change (gil/dkulp) Remove unused WholeHouseModel and PaletteMgmtDialog
-change (dkulp) Extensive removal of wxWidgets types from core code (wxString, wxColour, etc.)
in favor of std::string, xlColor, and std::format
-change (dkulp) Reorganize source: effect UI panels moved to ui/, ValueCurve to render/,
render engine code to render/
-change (dkulp) Model XML attributes renamed from generic parm1/2/3 to descriptive field
names (old names still accepted for reading)
-enh (dkulp) Metal GPU rendering for Circles, ColorWash, Bars, Spirals, Fan, and
Kaleidoscope effects on macOS
-enh (dkulp) Tendril, Shape, and VU Meter effects now use nanosvg rendering instead of
wxGraphicsContext
-enh (dkulp) Introduce Claude/Anthropic as an AI service for color palette generation
and model mapping
-enh (scott) Add generic OpenAI API client for use with local or remote APIs that
support the OpenAI v1 API
-enh (dkulp) Add ability to bulk search for missing images in sequences
-enh (dkulp) Images in show/media folders now stored as relative paths in xsq files
for better portability
-enh (dkulp) Move presets out of xlights_rgbeffects.xml and into a dedicated xlights_effectpresets.json
-enh (gil) Add RotateX support for ThreePointScreenLocation models
-enh (gil) Add Individual Start Channels support for CustomModel
-enh (dkulp) Add “Effect Sequence” type to new sequence wizard. Effect sequences use
sparse V2 FSEQ files with exact channel ranges, no default timing
tracks, and no view selection — designed for reusable effect overlays
that won’t interfere with other models on controllers.
-bug (derwin12) Fix model video export producing black output
-bug (derwin12) Restore default metronome timing track options
-bug (derwin12) Fix Import from zip not bringing in images
-bug (dkulp) Fix right-click on empty row headings area not showing a popup to
open Display Elements
-bug (dkulp) Fix preset import when file has .xml extension