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ChuckandClaude Opus 5.5
13b5264d11
The plugin-facing canvas (DisplayManager.image, draw, matrix) was one shared object, so any plugin whose Vegas content needed it -- display capture, scroll-content generation, narrowed rendering -- was deferred to the render thread and fetched there one at a time. On hdpi that is most plugins, and each fetch stalled the scroll: news ~320ms, hockey ~660ms, in bursts whenever the strip extended. DisplayManager.offscreen() gives the calling thread a canvas of its own. image, draw and matrix are now properties that resolve to the thread's surface while it is inside the block and to the shared canvas otherwise, so the ~100 existing uses become thread-correct unchanged. Inside, update_display(), the hardware half of clear(), and set_scrolling_state()/ set_frame_hold() are inert, so a plugin drawn for Vegas can neither reach the panel nor re-pace the live scroll. render_size() is rebuilt on it. capture_mode() now restores the previous state instead of clearing it, so it cannot end suppression inside an offscreen block. The adapter draws every path on its own canvas (_isolated_canvas) and drops the copy-and-restore of the shared image, which from a background thread would have written a stale frame back over the render loop's. Background fetches take the plugin's update/display lock, waiting up to 2s for a running update() and skipping the plugin that round otherwise; Vegas never took that lock, so render-thread captures already raced update(). A background fetch that comes back empty is no longer queued for the render thread. vegas_scroll.offscreen_prefetch (default true) restores the old deferred path when false. See docs/OFFSCREEN_RENDERING.md. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
LEDMatrix Documentation
This directory contains guides, references, and architectural notes for the LEDMatrix project. If you are setting up a Pi for the first time, start with the project root README — it covers hardware, OS imaging, and the one-shot installer. The pages here go deeper.
I'm a new user
- GETTING_STARTED.md — first-time setup walkthrough
- WEB_INTERFACE_GUIDE.md — using the web UI
- PLUGIN_STORE_GUIDE.md — installing and managing plugins
- WIFI_NETWORK_SETUP.md — WiFi and AP-mode setup
- TROUBLESHOOTING.md — common issues and fixes
- SSH_UNAVAILABLE_AFTER_INSTALL.md — recovering SSH after install
- CONFIG_DEBUGGING.md — diagnosing config problems
- LOW_MEMORY_BOARDS.md — Pi Zero 2 W / 3B+ / 1GB Pi 4 memory limits
I want to write a plugin
Start here:
- PLUGIN_DEVELOPMENT_GUIDE.md — end-to-end workflow
- PLUGIN_QUICK_REFERENCE.md — cheat sheet
- PLUGIN_API_REFERENCE.md — display, cache, and plugin-manager APIs
- PLUGIN_ERROR_HANDLING.md — error-handling patterns
- DEV_PREVIEW.md — preview plugins on your dev machine without a Pi
- EMULATOR_SETUP_GUIDE.md — running the matrix emulator
Going deeper:
- ADVANCED_PLUGIN_DEVELOPMENT.md — advanced patterns
- PLUGIN_ARCHITECTURE_SPEC.md — original plugin-system design spec (historical; see its banner for what has drifted)
- PLUGIN_DEPENDENCY_GUIDE.md / PLUGIN_DEPENDENCY_TROUBLESHOOTING.md
- PLUGIN_WEB_UI_ACTIONS.md (+ example JSON)
- PLUGIN_CUSTOM_ICONS.md
- PLUGIN_REGISTRY_SETUP_GUIDE.md (+ registry template)
- STARLARK_APPS_GUIDE.md — Starlark-based mini-apps
- widget-guide.md — widget development
- ADAPTIVE_LAYOUT.md — render legibly on any panel size (opt-in font/layout scaling)
- plugin-safety-harness.md — test a plugin across every screen and matrix size
Configuring plugins
- PLUGIN_CONFIG_QUICK_START.md — minimal config you need
- PLUGIN_CONFIGURATION_GUIDE.md — schema design
- PLUGIN_ELEMENT_STYLING.md — let users restyle, move, hide and scale individual elements (per display mode, if you have them)
- PLUGIN_CONFIGURATION_TABS.md — multi-tab UI configs
- PLUGIN_CONFIG_ARCHITECTURE.md — how the config system works
- PLUGIN_CONFIG_CORE_PROPERTIES.md — properties every plugin honors
Advanced features
- ADVANCED_FEATURES.md — Vegas scroll, on-demand display, cache management, background services, permissions
- FONT_MANAGER.md — font system
Reference
- CONFIG_REFERENCE.md — every key in config.json and config_secrets.json
- REST_API_REFERENCE.md — all web-interface HTTP endpoints
- PLUGIN_API_REFERENCE.md — Python APIs available to plugins
- DEVELOPER_QUICK_REFERENCE.md — common dev tasks
Contributing to LEDMatrix itself
- DEVELOPMENT.md — environment setup
- HOW_TO_RUN_TESTS.md — running the test suite
- MULTI_ROOT_WORKSPACE_SETUP.md — multi-repo workspace
- MIGRATION_GUIDE.md — breaking changes between releases
- SPORTS_UNIFICATION.md — how the sports scoreboard base classes are organized
Audits
- audits/WEB_UI_AUDIT_2026-09.md — web UI audit (September 2026)
Contributing to the docs
- Markdown only, professional tone, minimal emoji.
- Prefer adding to an existing page over creating a new one. If you add a new page, link it from this index in the section it belongs to.
- If a page becomes obsolete, delete it (it stays in the repository
history) and fix the links to it;
test/test_doc_links.pyfails on broken relative links. - Keep examples runnable — paths, commands, and config keys here should match what's actually in the repo.