🎉 Beam has a new fork! and it has been going to the gym since v0.7

For anyone using Beam at milongas, DJ nights, practicas, classes, or any event where the projector has exactly one job: there is now an updated fork with many new features, improvements, and fixes.

Latest release:
https://github.com/MrNidnan/beam-project/releases

✨ Highlights since v0.7

🖥️ Browser / Network Display
Project Beam through a browser on another screen, tablet, laptop, or device on the local network. Useful when the DJ laptop and display devices are multiple or not the same.

🎧 Better player support
- Foobar2000 works again through Beefweb.
- VirtualDJ support was added.
- MediaMonkey is fixed.
- AIMP for Windows was added.
- JRiver, Mixxx, iTunes, and Spotify received improvements.
- New “Now Playing” source for Windows and Linux that can read many modern apps and web players like Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Tidal, and more.

👤 Profiles
Create separate setups for different venues, DJs, projectors, or “special nights" configurations.

🎨 Smarter backgrounds
Beam now supports artist/album-artist backgrounds, cover art as background, color backgrounds, layered backgrounds, opacity, and image slideshows.

🖼️ Better album art
Cover art can now preserve aspect ratio and can use outline, rounded corners, feathering, and opacity. Album art should now behave more like album art and less like a square being punished.

🧠 Better moods
Timed moods now behave better, and their duration resets correctly when selected.

A new Readability option can blur/dim the current background so text stays readable without replacing the venue slideshow or current background of another mood.

Perfect if you do not want to show song information all the time and want to keep a slide presentation of the Milonga and future events visible most of the time.

📝 Live display controls
New quick buttons:

Show Message / Clear Message  
Blackout / Resume

You can show a temporary centered message for 5–60 seconds, or blackout the display. Messages can also appear on top of blackout.

Perfect for:
BREAK - BACK IN 10 MINUTES  
ÚLTIMAS DOS TANDAS  
PERFORMANCE IN 5 MINUTES  
DJ NEEDS COFFEE

📊 Smarter status bar
Beam now tells you what the audience is seeing:

Player: Playing | Mood: Tango | Display: BLACKOUT | Message: 12s | Network: ON

⚙️ Better rules and hide conditions

- The new Cut / Trim rule can clean messy metadata from any tag.
- Hide conditions are more flexible and can use tag/operator/value logic with comma-separated values.
	Example:
	%PreviousGenre is Milonga, Tango, Vals

	Beam reads that as: 
	previous genre is Milonga OR Tango OR Vals

💾 Auto-save UI
The main Save button is gone. Changes should apply immediately in the display and save automatically when closing the app. We hope. 😄

💿 Session DJ history
Beam now keeps session history for the DJ set, what has been displayed in Beam, and a playlist.

📜 Log viewer
Beam now has a built-in log viewer, so when something goes sideways you can peek at the drama without hunting for the log file like a lost DJ USB stick.

🐛 Fixes
A lot of gremlins have been evicted, especially around Windows usability, player integrations, backgrounds, cover art and UI behavior.

Report issues here:
https://github.com/MrNidnan/beam-project/issues

Full technical changelog:
https://github.com/MrNidnan/beam-project/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

❤️ Final note
This fork started from a friend’s request to make Beam usable on Windows again, and it grew from there thanks to comments, tests, and suggestions.

The goal is to bring it back to the main branch eventually and keep Beam lightly maintained.

Beam may still look complex because it offers a lot of flexibility, but that also means there are workarounds for many different setups. Don’t be afraid to explore the possibilities.

Try it, enjoy it, and report anything that behaves like it had too much coffee.

Thanks for testing, commenting, and reporting issues.

-- Angel