What's new

🆕 What's new in JukeBox-Cab v1.16.0

🎤 Karaoke

• Sing along with your music : the lyrics scroll along with the song, and the word being sung fills with colour. On a two-screen setup they appear on the second one: the library stays usable and you can keep adding tracks while someone sings. With a single screen they take over the whole display, with a button to hide them.
• What you need to provide : one lyrics file per song, of the same kind ordinary music players use — you will find them on lyrics sites or with a free tool such as LRCGET. Simply put it next to the song, with the same name; or gather them all in a folder called .karaoke at the root of your library, mirroring the way your music is arranged.
• Word by word, or line by line : with an ordinary lyrics file, the current line lights up as a whole. With a more detailed file, where every word carries its own timing, the colour follows the singing word by word. Both work: the second is simply more precise.
• Nothing is promised that cannot be delivered : a microphone button appears in the top bar and lights up only for songs that have usable lyrics. A discreet marker points them out in your lists, and a filter shows nothing else. When the lyrics clearly do not match the recording, karaoke is simply not offered rather than showing nonsense.

🎰 The jukebox comes alive

• The record-changing animation : in vintage Jukebox mode, changing track is staged — the arm lifts, the single is taken off the platter and the next one comes down. The record label carries the real cover art of the song. Until now it needed a second screen; it is drawn in the main window when you only have one.
• A dot-matrix display : the player bar no longer scrolls one sentence on a loop. It cycles between the track playing and its progress, the next track, how many tracks are waiting with the time left, and then the clock. The characters are drawn dot by dot, as on a real display.
• A rotary volume knob : an amplifier knob replaces the slider. You set it by sliding vertically, which is far surer with a finger than a circular gesture, and it turns red on mute.
• The player buttons redrawn : the five buttons are now drawn in SVG rather than set in emoji. How they look no longer depends on the installed font — on Raspberry Pi, the same buttons came out in colour one time and as an empty square the next.

🎨 Appearance

• Five tile shapes : the original square, a single whose cover becomes the centre label, a bare record sitting on the background, a vinyl sticking out beside a cover that stays square, or a round ringed disc. The shape combines freely with the seven skins: the skin sets the mood, the shape sets the silhouette.
• The themes finally dress the playlist : all eleven themes described a playlist panel that did not exist under that name — they were dressing thin air, and the playlist kept the default style whatever theme you picked.
• The playlist no longer follows the Windows theme : it was the only part of the application that took its cue from the system. On a Windows set to light mode, the panel turned white while everything else stayed dark, and its text became unreadable.

👆 Touch feedback

• Interface sounds : a click when you touch a cover or a button, and a beep when a track is added. Three timbres to choose from — mechanical, jukebox or discreet — because a sound is judged by ear and not from a description.
• The cover flies to the playlist : when you add a track, its cover flies from the grid to the playlist button, which gives a little jolt as it lands. The green banner said a track had been added; it showed neither which one, nor where.
• A ripple under your finger : a ripple spreads from the exact point touched on a cover, a track or a playlist line. Without it, touching a cover gave no immediate answer and you tapped a second time in doubt.
• A time bubble on the progress bar : while you drag the cursor, a bubble shows the time you are aiming at. With a finger, your hand hides the bar and you were aiming blind.

🎲 Top Mix

• A real draw, instead of a chart : Top Mix took the most-played tracks and shuffled them — the order changed, but it was invariably the same songs, and playing them only widened their lead. Tracks are now drawn at random with a weight, and whatever you have just heard steps back.
• Songs, videos, or both : a tap on the button asks what you feel like. The question is only put when it means something: if you have never played a music video, the music mix simply starts.
• Songs to discover : when your listening history is shorter than the number you asked for, the mix is filled out with tracks you have never played, taken first from the artists you already like.

🛡️ Fixes

• A scan that finds nothing no longer wipes the library : it was enough to start a scan while the library drive was unplugged — or had changed drive letter — to lose the whole library at a stroke, and your listening history with it, which nothing could rebuild. This is the most important fix in this version.
• The display no longer freezes : it stalled visibly every time you opened an album, while the cover art was being decoded.
• The settings switches : the knob looked as if it came off its track once the switch was on. It did not: the outline, which was the same colour as the background, vanished and fooled the eye.

🆕 What's new in JukeBox-Cab v1.15.0

🔎 Search

• Alphabet filter : a row reading ALL | 0-9 | A…Z appears under the search box. Tap a letter and you get every artist, or every title, starting with it. Accents and capitals are ignored: "É" finds "E", "Œ" finds "O". Turn it on in the settings; off by default.
• Videos in search results : your music videos can now show up among the results, alongside the music. Videos carry no internal tags, so the file name has to follow the form Artiste - Titre.mp4 to be found by artist. Turn it on in the settings; off by default.

🎨 New looks

• The "Glass" theme : every tile and every line becomes a pane of translucent glass on a midnight blue background, with a highlight running across the covers. Designed to stay crisp on Raspberry Pi, where blur effects do not survive.
• The "Jukebox singles" skin : albums and tracks appear as record labels behind glass lit from the sides — cream paper, a coloured frame that changes from one label to the next, the title in quotes and the artist on a pointed ribbon. The feel of a bar jukebox front.
• Period jukebox mode : one switch sets up the whole look at once — theme, labels, needle VU meter and a layout fitted to your screen. Your own settings are kept, and put back in full if you switch it off.
• Flipping labels : when the page changes, the labels turn over to make room for the next ones, like the mechanism of an old jukebox — with a deliberate touch of disorder, each leaf having its own pace. Turn it on in the settings.
• Seven VU meter styles : bars, gradient, LEDs, mirror, wave, a pair of needle dials in the manner of an old amplifier, and an 80s car radio display. The second screen can show a different style from the player. The meter stays visible at rest, and now appears on smaller cabinet screens.
• Album grid scrolling : the grid now slides across in one piece when the page changes, instead of filling in cover by cover.

⚙️ A clearer settings page

• Arranged in seven families : Library, Appearance, Playback and sound, Search, Screens and video, Outside sources, Running the cabinet. Several settings sat in the wrong place, such as crossfade and the VU meter, lost in the middle of the track display options.
• Search within the settings : a field at the top of the page — type "VU meter" or "credit" and only the sections concerned stay on screen, already open. The on-screen keyboard comes up for touch cabinets.

🐛 Fixes

• Video duration : music videos showed 00:00 in the playlist for everyone. The duration is now read correctly, which also puts the progress bar right.
• Folder artwork : images named folder.jpg.jpg — what Windows creates when file extensions are hidden — are now recognised, as are Folder.JPG and folder.jpeg. Folders with a # in their name finally show their picture.
• Track order within an album : tracks follow the number written in their tags rather than alphabetical order — track 2 no longer comes after track 10.
• The header counters : "0 tracks" no longer appears on a library made only of videos, and the labels are translated.

🆕 New in JukeBox-Cab v1.14.0, and fixes

• Video thumbnails : JukeBox-Cab now takes a thumbnail from each of your videos by itself. Your clips are far easier to pick out at a glance in the library.
• Paged track lists : long track lists can now be shown a page at a time. To turn it on: Settings → Track display → Enable track paging.
• Title fix on Raspberry Pi : the title JukeBox-Cab no longer wraps onto two lines in the title bar.
• Player button fix on Raspberry Pi : the black square that showed up on the player buttons is gone.
• Updating the Raspberry Pi from a USB stick : no need to reflash the SD card. A patch you copy onto a USB stick is available. See how it works →

🔧 Fixes in JukeBox-Cab v1.13.1

• Arcade cabinet mode fix — the CTRL key : the CTRL key was not properly recognised in some arcade cabinet setups, which made custom key combinations behave oddly. This is now fixed.
• Vinyl covers on the second screen : while a song plays, the album cover appears on the second screen as a spinning vinyl record — a retro touch to go with the music.
• A vinyl cover in the player : the cover of the album playing is also shown as a turning record in the player on the main screen, so both displays match.
• Automatic network sharing (Raspberry Pi) : the drive plugged into the Pi is now shared on your local network automatically. From Windows, type \\adresse-ip in Explorer; from a Mac, use smb://adresse-ip in the Finder. The IP address is shown under Settings → Network in JukeBox-Cab. Credentials: jukebox / jukebox.

🆕 What's new in JukeBox-Cab v1.13.0

• Video playback on a single screen : music videos (MP4, MKV) can now be played without a second monitor. The video sits straight on top of the main interface — no second screen needed to enjoy your clips.
• A button back to the start : once you are deep in the tree (artist → album → tracks), a home button appears to take you straight back to the main view in one tap, instead of climbing back level by level.
• An option to switch off the on-screen keyboard : a new setting turns off the keyboard built into JukeBox-Cab. Useful if you already have the Windows touch keyboard and would rather not see two at once.
• Arcade cabinet mode fix : all custom keys are now recognised properly in arcade mode. Some key combinations were being ignored — that is fixed.
• Raspberry Pi 4 : JukeBox-Cab is now available for the Raspberry Pi 4 as an image ready to flash onto an SD card. See the dedicated page →

🙏 Many thanks to Steven and Yano for beta-testing the Raspberry Pi version.

🔍 What's new in JukeBox-Cab

• Library counts on screen : the number of tracks and videos in your library now sits permanently in the title bar, next to the JukeBox-Cab logo. At a glance you know exactly what the cabinet holds.
• Search by artist and by title : a search box now sits at the top right of the main screen. Two modes are offered:
  • Search by artist — type an artist name, or part of one, to pull up every song of theirs at once, whether in their own folder or scattered across various-artist albums and compilations.
  • Search by title — type a few letters of a song title to find every matching track across the whole library, with its artist, duration and cover art.
• Results in a grid : in both modes the results come up as a grid. One tap on a track plays it at once, and the + button adds it to the current playlist.
• On-screen keyboard : an on-screen keyboard comes up by itself to make typing easier on a touchscreen.

🎨 New feature — custom skins

• Your own visual skin : build your own skin for album tiles, artist tiles and track lists. Set two separate images — one for the main grid, one for the tracks — to act as decorative labels, then place each piece of text (title, artist, duration…) exactly where you want it with sliders. Found under Settings → Appearance → Grid → Custom.
• LED lighting effect : turn on a lighting effect that mimics LEDs set around the edge of the label, as if the image sat behind lit perspex. Colour and brightness are both adjustable.
• Presets : save as many arrangements as you like and switch between them in one tap. Each preset remembers the images, the text positions, the sizes, the colours and the LED effect. Partial updates work: changing one image leaves the other alone.
• Grid settings bug fixed : setting the number of rows and columns now works properly.

🎵 Reordering the playlist & recording web radio

• Drag and drop in the playlist : put the tracks of your playlist in whatever order you like by dragging the ⠿ handle. Works with a mouse and on a touchscreen. Playback follows the new order straight away.
• Availability : this is switched off while the credit system is running.
• A REC button for web radios : a new REC button on the Web Radios page records the audio stream of the station you are listening to, straight from the interface.

⏺️ A record button

• Recording a session : a new REC button records your listening session as one continuous audio file, capturing the sound exactly as it goes out — crossfade, levelling and effects included.
• Turning it on in the settings : the button is off by default. Switch it on in Settings, pick the output format (320 kbps MP3 or lossless FLAC) and the destination folder.
• A visual cue : while recording, the button glows red with a blinking dot.
• Automatic naming : each file is named after the date and time it finished (e.g. JukeboxCab-2026-03-07_21-34-52.mp3), so no two recordings can clash.

🐛 Bug fix

• Screen saver : a bug in the screen saver has been fixed.

🎵 Smarter playback, smoother transitions, easier listening

• Smarter song playback : tapping the + button on a song now plays it straight away if nothing else is playing — no extra step. If a song is already playing, it is simply added to the end of the playlist.
• Tapping a song directly : the song slots into the queue right after the one playing, or paused, without upsetting the rest of your playlist. The music carries on in the planned order once that track is over.
• Smooth transitions between tracks : skipping forward or back now crossfades, just like the automatic transitions. No more abrupt cut between two songs.
• Levelling the volume : a new setting evens out the volume between songs by itself. No more jumping from a track that is too loud to one that is too quiet — the level stays steady throughout.
• Screen standby : JukeBox-Cab can now dim the screen after a period of inactivity you choose. Ideal for cabinets left on all day, it protects the display from burn-in. If a second screen is connected, it dims too. A tap or a touch wakes everything up.

🖼️ Embedded cover art

• Artwork inside the files : cover art stored inside your MP3 and FLAC files now shows everywhere in the interface — in the track list, in the player at the bottom of the screen and on the second display.
• Automatic fallback : if the file has no artwork of its own, JukeBox-Cab falls back on the folder image.

🎆 Event countdown

• An automatic countdown : set a festive countdown for any occasion — New Year, a birthday, a party. Everything fires on its own at the date and time you chose.
• A full-screen overlay : ten seconds out, the music pauses and an overlay appears on both screens at once, with a large figure in the middle pulsing on every second.
• Changing colours : the figures change colour as the count goes down — red → orange → yellow → white.
• A spoken count, in four languages : every figure is called out in the language of the application (FR, EN, ES, IT), with a beep and some reverb behind it.
• Fireworks : at zero, your own message appears in animated rainbow colours and fireworks go off on both screens for about five seconds — drawn entirely by the application, with no video file.
• Back to the music : once the countdown is over, the overlay disappears and the music picks up again by itself.
• A "Test" button : watch the whole thing in under twelve seconds, without waiting for the real date.

🐛 Bug fix

• Minimise button : a bug with the minimise button has been fixed.

🎰 Credit system — jukebox mode

• Coin-operated mode : turn your JukeBox-Cab into a real coin-operated jukebox. People put in credits to add songs — one credit, one song.
• Fully configurable : the credit key can be changed (F1 by default), credits per pulse (1 to 5), and an admin code to reach the settings.
• Automatic restrictions : in credit mode some features are switched off to keep things fair — clearing the playlist, saving and loading, the "Add all" and "Top Mix" buttons, and so on.
• A retro display : a credit counter in the middle of the header in period style, an animation on every credit, the sound of a coin, and an "INSERT CREDIT" message.
• Clearing played songs : an option to remove songs from the playlist once they have been played.

💾 Backup and restore

• A full backup : a new system to back up and restore all your data:
  • Database (jukebox.db): artists, albums, tracks, playlists, web radios, listening stats
  • Settings (settings.json): how the app is set up — language, screens, grid, music folders
  • Preferences (localStorage): volume, crossfade, theme, current language

🆕 New features and fixes

• Minimise button : a button to minimise the application, which you turn on in the settings under "Shutdown buttons". It appears at the top left of the interface.
• Automatic grid calculation fixed : a problem with working out the grid automatically has been fixed. The calculation is not perfect; if it does not come out right, do switch to setting the grid by hand.

⚙️ A better settings page

• Collapsible sections : the settings sections now fold and unfold, which makes them easier to see and to move around in.
• Buttons always in reach : the "Reset" and "Apply" buttons now stay at the top of the page, within reach at all times.

🎨 A visual improvement

• A living backdrop : the artist or album picture found in the matching folder now sits behind the folder view at 20% opacity, which helps you keep your bearings as you browse.

🐛 Bug fixes

• Display bug fixed : the streaming app buttons (Spotify, Deezer, YouTube, Apple Music) did not show properly with the "80s" and "Ocean" themes.
• Second screen bug fixed : cover art was being shown twice on the second screen when crossfade between songs was switched off.

🌍 Added

• An existing feature improved : the YouTube button now lets you choose how it opens — in your web browser, or with an outside application (an unofficial one such as YTMD).
• An existing feature improved : the shutdown options now have two separate buttons — one to turn the PC off, the other to quit JukeBox-Cab and go back to Windows.

🌍 Added

• New feature : Spotify, Deezer, YouTube and Apple Music buttons, to be switched on in the settings. Whichever button you turn on, that application has to be installed on the PC.
• New feature : you can now choose what the shutdown button does, in the settings — turn the PC off, or close JukeBox-Cab and go back to Windows.

🌍 Added

• New feature : added to the second screen for web radios — it shows the station logo and name, and the track playing if the station sends it.
• Minor bug fix : fixed a bug with the Apply button when saving the chosen theme.

🌍 Added

• Minor bug fix : fixed MP4 files not being supported in vintage Jukebox mode (which plays old-style jukebox animations, changing the record between songs).

🌍 Added

• New feature : added a display mode for the second screen. Videos and covers (music videos and album art with the audio visualiser), or vintage Jukebox mode (old-style jukebox animations, changing the record between songs).

🌍 Various additions

• New feature : added Now Playing to the web radios, which shows what is on air for the stations that broadcast it.
• Display bug fixed : fixed how the playlist button appeared on small screens. It has been moved up with the other top buttons, in every configuration, to free up room in the player below.
• Minor bug fix : various other small bugs fixed.

🌍 New feature

• Minor bug fix : an English translation was missing from the settings menu.

🌍 New feature

• A fix and an addition : fixed a video bug caused by adding multiple languages, and translated the appearance block in the settings.

🌍 New feature

• Themes added : themes for the look of the interface are available in the settings.

🌍 New feature

• Changing the language : you can now choose the language of the interface from French, English, Spanish and Italian.

✨ New feature and bug fix

• Arcade cabinet mode : various arcade-mode bugs fixed, and a key mapping added to show or hide the playlist.

✨ New feature

• Web radios you choose yourself : you can now add your own favourite stations, each with its own logo. Look after your collection with the "⚙️ Manage stations" button — add, edit, remove or switch off a station. Mark the ones you like best as favourites ⭐ to keep them at the top of the list.

✨ Recent additions

• The "Add all" button : add every track of an album to the playlist in one tap from the track view, with a note of how many were added.
• Browsing nested folders fixed : better handling of albums with subfolders (CD1, CD2…). A three-level trail (Artist › Album › Sub-album) and automatic detection of parent albums.
• A quicker start : a new setting hides the scan screen at startup. The application opens straight onto your existing library — adjustable in the settings.
• Swipe navigation : move between album pages by swiping sideways on a touchscreen. Swipe left for the next page, right for the previous one.
• Video formats tidied up : AVI has been dropped, as the HTML5 player cannot read it. Supported formats: MP4 and MKV only.

✨ Recent additions

• Shutting the PC down : turn your PC off straight from the interface. Switch it on in the settings — ideal for standalone arcade cabinets.
• Arcade cabinet mode : full joystick control. Map your arcade buttons and drive everything without a mouse — the stick to move around, and keys of your choosing for playback, the playlist and paging.