Changelog
Follow up on the latest improvements and updates.
RSS
Hi everyone!
With today's update, and many others over the past two months, the launcher has finally reached a level of stability that I'm happy with.
Note as well that the 14-day trial has been reset for all users.
In addition, the trial has moved to a cumulative model, meaning only consecutive days of use are counted. So if you try Dispatch today, and don't feel like it's right for you yet, you can always try it again later and
the trial will continue where you left off.
Summary of issues resolved since the initial release:
- Fixes Dispatch getting stuck in a "Generating Metadata" phase
- Fixes errors when connecting certain Plex accounts
- Fixes errors when syncing with certain Plex libraries
- Fixes errors when using Google login
- Fixes an issue which caused a "Beta Expired" screen to appear and block further use of Dispatch
- Fixes occasional lag occurring while playing or streaming media in other apps
- Fixes crashes for some users while generating metadata or syncing Android TV app recommendations
- Fixes errors when syncing Android TV app recommendations (from apps like Netflix, Apple TV, etc…)
- Fixes wrong ordering of trending media
- Restores the ability to long press the home button to bring up the Google TV Dashboard
- Fixes an issue stopping the image cache from being trimmed, resulting in an unnecessarily large app cache.
- Fixes an issue where app icons stopped displaying
- Fixes an issue where newly installed app would not display until Dispatch was restarted
- Fixes an issue where the input / keyboard was unresponsive while logging in via email + password
- Fixes an issue where the Google TV account picker was inaccessible, stopping users from logging into their YouTube accounts, for example.
- Fixes UI scaling on devices with non-traditional display sizes / densities, such as certain zidoo boxes or projectors.
- Many other more minor issues
Roadmap / What's Next
The following features have been selected for development next:
- User Profiles / Profile Switching
- Multi-Server support for Plex
- Version / Quality selector when opening Plex media
- Support for Android / Google TV notifications, including Now Playing and Casted Media notifications.
- Translate Dispatch into other languages (If you'd like to help translate Dispatch, please leave a comment here)
I will also continue investigations into the possibility of integrating with
Stremio
, as it is by far the most popular feature request.The first official release of Dispatch is here! V1 brings one (maybe 1.5) additional features + many more bug fixes as well as some performance improvements.
Android TV Play Next Support
Media from Android TV's Play Next row will now sync to Dispatch's Watch Next row.
Unfortunately, since very little metadata is known about media in Android TV's Play Next row, these items won't be as visually rich as content from your Plex library (so no logos, for example.) Still, it's better than nothing!
App Peek + Play Next
Dispatch's App Peek feature also supports Play Next items from Android TV. If an app has added media to your Watch Next / Play Next row, those items will be contained in a special card in front of all the other media in App Peek.
It is not yet possible to manually add
app media
to the watch next row, but that enhancement will come in the future. Plex media
, on the other hand, can always be added to Watch Next by clicking the "Add to Watch Next" button.You can individually control which apps are allowed to add items to Watch Next (and Watch Next in App Peek) from Settings -> General -> Home & Wallpaper -> Personalize Media Feed.
·
Pricing & Availability
Dispatch comes with a free
14-day trial
. Afterward, users have the option of buying the app outright. Pricing differs per region, but in general, the lifetime license hovers around the Big Mac meal range 🍔:Lifetime license:
$9.99 CAD/USD
Monthly license:
$0.99 CAD/USD
·
Lastly, I'd like to take this last paragraph to thank everyone who has helped with testing. Many of you have been very enthusiastic about this project from the start, and it's been a joy working with you all. Thank you for all your help and suggestions,
Dispatchers
! 🫡Updated Control Center
The control center has been redesigned with some new features, including the ability to put your device to sleep.
Input Switcher
The control center also includes a new input switcher. Note that the input switcher will only show on displays with Android TV built in, and will not show on devices like the Nvidia Shield or Chromecast with Google TV.
Recent Apps
Additionally, users can access a new recent apps menu from the updated control center.
As a reminder, the control center can be accessed by pressing right on your remote when the
Apps
tab is highlighted, or by pressing the menu button on your remote. To use the menu button, your remote must be configured to send the menu command. I personally recommend users set the menu button to send the menu command with a single click, and a long click set to open the android device settings view.A profile switcher has not yet been implemented and will not be included in v1 of Dispatch, however, it will be a top priority post-launch.
·
Improved context menu
The context menu now includes options to mark media as watched / unwatched, as well as the ability to navigate to an episode's parent season or parent show.
·
Additional changes
The following changes and fixes are included in this release as well:
- Added the ability to change the default action when clicking on a media item.
- Fixes an issue where non-English and SVG logos failed to download
- Fixes an issue where certain app media would not load their pictures, such as media from the Plex app or certain Spotify items.
- App start up performance improvements
- Other general performance improvements
- Various smaller bug fixes
Dispatch now supports navigation sounds
In order for navigation sounds to work System Sounds must be enabled in the devices settings.
Users can now toggle all app rows with one button
Instead of having to manually enable / disable each row one at a time, a
Toggle all
button has been added.Additional notes:
Logo brightness modulation is a feature that attempts to keep logos visible as detailed here
This feature is now optional and can be disabled from Settings -> Advanced -> Graphics Settings.
New logo
Dispatch has a logo! It's nothing fancy, but it's nice to have nonetheless. The logo features a capital D that functions as the upper half of a capital P.
·
Show / Hide Movie & Television tabs
You can now show and hide the movie and television tabs. For each tab that you hide, you will be able to add 2 additional favourite apps using the free up space.
·
Bug fixes
The following issues have been fixed:
- Disabling television libraries had no effect
- Initial metadata generation would occasionally take ~30% longer than it needed to.
- People and genre lists would occasionally contain media from incorrect people / genres
- Actor and Director recommendations would fail to generate with very large Plex libraries
·
Additional notes
A new onboarding slideshow has been added for the initial setup.
This update contains mostly bug fixes.
A clean installation is not required, but without one, you'll notice that upon launch you will be prompted with a "continue setup" screen. You can just click through the setup until you arrive at the home page. This will trigger a metadata refresh as well, similar to the first install. However, all your previous media and settings should be carried over without issue.
Here are the highlights of this release:
Enhanced logging: Users can now enable logging in Dispatch from Settings → About → Diagnostics. If you are having issues, you can enable logging and send me the logs so that I can investigate. You can export your logs from the same page. Logs are exported to the Downloads folder by default. If you do not know how or don't have the ability to extract the exported logs from your device, please let me know. For those users, I can enable cloud upload for logs on your device, which will zip and send your logs directly to me upon export.
A couple of additional notes about logging:
- All logs are kept on-device by default. Unless you specifically ask me to enable cloud upload, they will never leave your device. As well, you must specifically click the Upload Logs button in the diagnostics page to trigger an upload.
- Logging is enabled for the setup process by default. Once the initial setup is completed, it is automatically turned off. If you encounter issues during the setup process then, you can still export those logs from the Diagnostics page. If you do not want logging enabled during setup, you can long click on the Get Started button twice, which will entirely disable logging.
- If your issues seem to occur after setup as well, and you want to log the entire installation + post setup lifecycle, you can long click on the Get Started button once. This will toggle logging on, and ensure that logging continues even after the setup has completed.
- If you cannot get past the initial Get Started page, you can export any logs currently generated by long clicking on Quit button. This will export your logs to the Downloads folder. Cloud upload of logs is not possible until the setup has completed.
Fixes: The following issues have been addressed:
- Fixed at least one issue causing the wrong media to be shown in an app list. If you still encounter this issue, please let me know. It's possible not all scenarios were accounted for.
- Fixed an issue causing app peek / app lists to disappear
- Fixed an issue causing duplicate Plex media to appear in certain circumstances. For example, if you are watching a movie that is also in your watchlist, it will no longer appear twice in the Watch Next row.
Improvements made to app peek / app lists syncing:
- If an app list is toggle on or off from the settings, it will re-sync right away.
- If an app is highlighted but it's app peek media has not yet finished syncing, a re-sync will trigger automatically and the app peek card should be re-populated right away (might take a couple of seconds)
- Upon installation, only app rows already enabled on android tv will be enabled by default.
All in all, app recommendations should appear much more stable and instances of app media disappearing or not showing when expected should be completely eliminated.
🟢
New
- Wallpaper support
- Navigation scrubbing
- Session save & restore
- Feed / recommendations customization
- Movie, Television, and Apps pages customization
- Home Directory
- New Settings pages
- Graphics modes
- Support for non Shield devices
🔵
Improved
- Performance improvements across the board
- App start up time (from ~9 seconds to ~3 seconds)
🟣
Fixed
- A lot
Wallpapers
Dispatch now includes support for wallpapers. You can pick an image from your device and use it as a featured photo for your TV. For now, there is only support for local files. Future efforts will provide support from various online sources as well.
You can access these options from Settings → General → Home & Wallpaper → Look & Feel.
There are some additional options for wallpapers, such as changing the brightness of the image as well as and the style of the "feed hint"
·
Navigation Scrubbing
Navigation scrubbing occurs when the use holds a navigation button in one direction. Depending on where you are in the app,
how
scrubbing behaves will differ. Here are some examples of how scrubbing looks in various contexts:·
Session save & restore
Dispatch will now attempt to restore your last session on start up. This means that if the app is closed in the background by the OS, when starting up again, it will attempt to re-position itself from where you left off. Here's what that looks like in action:
This feature is optional and can be turned off from Settings → Experience → Save & restore state. Note that in this example, this feature works even if the user force closes the app. This is only for demo purposes. During normal usage, state restoration will only kick in if the OS has killed the app in the background, and not when the user has deliberately chosen to close Dispatch themselves.
Currently, sessions are only saved when navigating the home tab. Future releases will enable this feature app-wide.
·
Feed Customization
You can now customize how your home feed is organized. There are a few different options, so please take a look! You can configure your feed from Settings → General → Home & Wallpaper → Personalize Media Feed.
·
Movie, Television, and Apps pages customization
You can now change which list is shown at the top of the movie and television pages. The default is new movies / television, but you can also choose trending movies / television or watchlisted movies / television.
For the apps page, you can choose to include non-Android TV apps in your app list.
You can find these options in Settings → Media & Apps
·
Home Directory
The Home Directory is a new view that can be accessed by pressing the left navigation button while on the first item of a row in your home feed. It shows a zoomed out view of your feed whilst allowing you to quickly move up or down.
The Home Directory also becomes visible while scrubbing the home page in the vertical direction.
·
New Settings Page
The Settings page has been completely rebuilt. Efforts will continue to be made so that all the various options (present and future) are as intuitively organized as possible.
·
Graphics modes
Dispatch now comes with 3 graphics modes to help target various Android TV devices out there.
- High
- Medium
- Low
You can find these options in Settings → Advanced → Graphics Settings
High
is the default for high-end devices such as the Shield TV Pro. When this option is used, Dispatch will use the most amount of animations and graphical flourishes. As you descend the graphics settings from there, various effects are turned off or reduced in order to ensure the best possible performance.Medium
is the default for devices like the Chromecast with Google TV 4K, and Low
is the default for even lower-end devices or instances of Android TV built directly into your TV / display. Please note that Dispatch is a fairly large application that prioritizes presentation, animations, and large images. Unfortunately, the landscape of Android TV devices is currently dominated by low-end devices with weak CPUs and very low amounts of RAM. As such, while I am happy with the level of optimizations reached thus far (especially with the help of these graphics modes), one should not expect any miracles. It's very possible that if your device is too slow, Dispatch will never perform satisfactorily on it.
·
Support for non-Shield devices
With this beta release, testers are encouraged to try Dispatch on non-shield Android TV devices. Please report any device specific issues you encounter.
·
Additional changes
- You can now change the weather scale from Celsius to Fahrenheit
- You can now change the clock format from 12 hours to 24 hours
- You can now manage your favorite apps from Settings → General → Favorite Apps. You can still favorite / unfavorite apps by long clicking apps on the apps page or from the favorite apps row.
- You can now disable "Immersive Mode" for App Peek. When disabled, the home feed (or wallpaper) will no longer fade away when an app peek card is showing. As a reminder, App Peek cards are shown when App Peek is enabled and the user has highlighted an app in the favorite apps row. These settings can be changed from Settings → General → Favorite Apps
- You can now choose whether your Watchlist is merged into your Watch Next row on your home page, as well as whether New Movies and New Television are merged into a single What's New row. These options are found in Settings → General → Home & Wallpaper → Personalize Media Feed → General
·
What's Next?
With this beta, Dispatch 1.0 is feature complete. Going forward, I will only be focusing on bug fixes and other tasks tied specifically to going public. Thanks for reading and thanks for all your help so far!
Note: this update will require a fresh install
🟢
New
- Android TV Channels Support
- App Peek
🟣
Fixed
- Various bug fixes and performance improvements.
Changelog Details:
Android TV Channels Support
Dispatch can now sync with the default channels included in Android TV. This allows Dispatch to display certain content from installed apps on your device.
Each Android TV Channel is displayed as a row on your home page. These rows appear slightly differently than rows added by your Plex server.
Currently, Android TV Channels are displayed after your Plex rows on your home page. In a future release, various
list management
features will be added to allow you to customize the order and visibility of these rows.App Peek
In addition to the Android TV rows on your home page, content from your apps can be highlighted via the new App Peek feature.
When enabled, hovering over one of your pinned apps will display a new App Peek card.
App Peek cards a browsable by pressing
down
to enter the card, and then using left
or right
to navigate the list of items.You can exit the App Peek card by pressing
up
or back
.Here's a video of App Peek in action:
Note this update will require a fresh install
🟢
New
- Watchlist Support
🟣
Fixed
- Fixed an issue where dispatch would occasionally fail to update the metadata for a media item, as well as stop all subsequent metadata items from being fetched as well.
Changelog Details:
Watchlist Support
Dispatch now supports Watchlists. Your
Watchlist
is currently synced to the Watch Next
row on your home screen. In a future release, options will be added to allow the Watchlist to live in its own row, or alongside Watch Next as it is now.Here are some screenshots:
When an item has been watchlisted, a bookmark icon will be displayed next to the content rating.
🟢
New
- Search
🟣
Fixed
- Fixes an issue causing crashes on older versions of android when enabling Dispatch Home Services.
Changelog Details:
Search
You can now search your media libraries directly in Dispatch. Most features have been implemented, however search history, along with the ability to clear your search history, will come in a future update.
Here are some screenshots of the search experience:
Load More
→