A new version to kickstart 2022. Happy New Year! 🎊
New
Ability to turn off camera/microphone before joining - You can now turn off your camera and/or microphone before joining a session. Participants can always turn them back on at any time during the session.
Audio visualizer - An audio visualizer shows real-time audio activity when selecting a microphone, such as in the Waiting Room or in the Studio Settings user interface. It's also shown whenever any participant turns off their camera during a session (of course, only if their microphone is on).
Reminder to record - If recording is not in progress after a minute of joining a session as the host, you'll get a reminder alert to let you know that you're not recording, just in case you forgot to hit record. It happens to the best of us! :)
Better end-of-session workflow - Leaving a session doesn't have to be awkward. Previously, the camera and microphone connection would stay on while Fusioncast was finishing uploads and wrapping things up, making that moment kind of awkward after you've already said goodbye. Now the connection is closed so participants no longer can see or hear each other while the session is ending. Instead, a progress status screen is shown. Thank you Val and Fernanda for this suggestion!
Easier access to shareable link - The session's shareable link is now available on the list of sessions. You can now copy it from there, instead of having to open the session to copy it. Thank you Devin, for this suggestion!
Recording video is now optional - Why consume resources to record video if you don't need it? Added a switch to sessions, which allows you to indicate whether you want video to be recorded in that session. Of course, audio is always recorded.
Default session settings added to podcast - At the podcast level you can now set the settings you want new sessions for that podcast to have: Enabled, Record video, Auto-record on join. When you create a new session for that podcast, it will "inherit" the settings you set at the podcast level by default. You can always overwrite them at the session level.
Added menu button to session lists - You don't need to open a session entry to click the Edit button. You can now access a menu button on the list, which gives you the option to Edit the session info, as well as Open (view session details), or Join the session.
Onboarding guide for first-time logins - When a new Fusioncast user logs in for the very first time, a simple guiding alert message is shown at the top of each screen to get them up and running quickly.
Changed
Re-written recording engine - The recording engine has been re-written to improve the reliability and quality of primary recordings and backup recordings. This effectively makes recordings more resilient against users closing the browser or refreshing the page in the middle of recording. Also as a result of this work, backup recordings are now of the same high-quality as primary recordings (experimental).
Backup recording starts/stops with primary recording - Backup recording no longer starts automatically at the beginning of the session independently from primary recording. Now when you click on the Record button, Fusioncast begins primary and backup recording at the same time. When you click on Stop Recording, all recording stops. This gives you full control over when recording happens.
Cleaned up recordings panel in the studio - To save space and make the list a lot cleaner, the recording preview is no longer directly on the list. Instead, a button allows you to open the preview once the recording is completed and available to preview. This also prevents multiple previews playing at the same time, which can be a really poor user experience.
Improved visual appearance of status indicators - The status indicators on the studio video panels (recording, muted, camera off, etc) are less invasive so they stay out of the way as much as possible.
Time elapsed has moved - The time elapsed in a session has been moved to the top center of the studio screen.
Session archiving feature has been replaced - The idea of archiving a session was simply to make the session available/unavailable to anyone visiting the shareable link. This is something better accomplished with a simple Enable/Disable switch on the session, so that's what I did.
Password rules - Simplified password rules to be compatible with browser-generated passwords.
Handle the logged-in user-as-guest case - If you're logged in to your own Fusioncast account and try visiting someone else's session link in the same browser, you no longer get a 404 screen. Instead, a message is displayed to let you know that you need to logout, or use a different browser where you're not logged in.
Consistent button placement - This is a minor one, but consistency is important. Reviewed and corrected the placement of primary buttons vs secondary buttons where needed, so it's consistent throughout the UI.
Fixed
Out of sync backup recording - With the new recording engine now recording the same quality as the primary recordings, the out of sync issue of backup recordings is gone.
Changing cameras during session - The local video display is correctly updated when changing cameras during a session.
Auto-start recording is now consistent - Made improvements to ensure auto-start recording begins properly when it's supposed to.
Session time-elapsed sometimes incorrect - The time-elapsed has been re-written to make it more reliable across all participants.
Long meeting names are now truncated - Long meeting names are now properly truncated throughout the UI to keep the user interface nice and clean.
24hr time was duplicated for locales that use 24hr clock - Removed the extra 24 hour clock added to date/time, since the time displayed is automatically adjusted based on user locale.
General UI cleanup - Other minor tweaks and fixes applied to the UI throughout.