Files
LEDMatrix/docs
ChuckandClaude Sonnet 5.5 1bcb524fc3 feat(scroll): report a panel that cannot reach its refresh cap, and suggest one it can hold (#759)
* feat(scroll): report a panel that cannot reach its refresh cap, and suggest one it can hold

Scroll speeds are solved against display.hardware.limit_refresh_rate_hz,
which is only a ceiling. A panel that cannot reach it still moves whole
pixels per frame, but every scroll runs slow by the shortfall and the
"smooth" ladder is the cap's, not the panel's. A user rig (Pi 4, 2x128x64,
adafruit-hat-pwm, pwm_bits 9, gpio_slowdown 5) measured 107.6-113.1 Hz under
a 120 Hz cap: 60 px/s ran at 55, and nothing said why.

- scroll_config: refresh_shortfall() (more than 3% under the planned rate),
  holdable_cap() (a multiple of 10, 5% under the measurement, since the
  measurement is the fast end of an uncapped panel's drift), and
  describe_refresh_shortfall().
- FrameTimingRecorder.plan_refresh(): once the measured period has held for
  three trusted windows, a shortfall is logged once as a warning naming the
  cap to use. DisplayManager calls it only for a real panel, not the
  emulator or the fallback canvas. The stats file records
  planned_refresh_hz (additive).
- GET /api/v3/config/refresh-rate, plus a hint under the Display tab's
  Limit Refresh Rate field (js/pages/display.js) with a button that fills in
  the suggested cap.
- _panel_refresh_hz (behind the Vegas slider's advice) ignores a measurement
  written under a different cap, so a changed cap stops being advised from
  the old rate before the display restarts.

Verified on ledpi with a temporary 200 Hz cap: the warning logged about a
minute after the restart ("about 132 Hz ... Set Limit Refresh Rate to
120 Hz"), the endpoint returned the same shortfall, and the Display tab
showed the hint; its button filled in 120. ledpi was restored afterwards.
Rebased onto main after the Display tab became an ES-module page (#771); the
hint moved from inline script into display.js, with a jsdom test.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(scroll): count only agreeing windows toward the refresh shortfall; ignore a null planned rate

Review fixes on #759.

- A window the period estimate rejects (more than MAX_REFRESH_DROP faster
  than the adopted period) no longer counts toward the shortfall check, and
  it restarts the run. After a loaded start fixed a slow period, later
  windows at the real, faster rate were rejected yet still counted, so the
  warning could name the slow rate against a cap the panel was meeting. It
  now needs REFRESH_CHECK_WINDOWS consecutive windows that agree with the
  period.
- _panel_refresh_hz treats a stats file whose planned_refresh_hz key is
  present but null as no measurement. The emulator and the fallback canvas
  write it that way (DisplayManager never plans a refresh for them), and
  their frame rate says nothing about the cap. A file with no such key (an
  older display) keeps the old behaviour.

Three new tests fail on the previous code and pass now.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-09 10:40:08 -04:00
..

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

  1. GETTING_STARTED.md — first-time setup walkthrough
  2. WEB_INTERFACE_GUIDE.md — using the web UI
  3. PLUGIN_STORE_GUIDE.md — installing and managing plugins
  4. WIFI_NETWORK_SETUP.md — WiFi and AP-mode setup
  5. TROUBLESHOOTING.md — common issues and fixes (PERMISSIONS.md for "Permission denied")
  6. SSH_UNAVAILABLE_AFTER_INSTALL.md — recovering SSH after install
  7. CONFIG_DEBUGGING.md — diagnosing config problems
  8. LOW_MEMORY_BOARDS.md — Pi Zero 2 W / 3B+ / 1GB Pi 4 memory limits

I want to write a plugin

Start here:

  1. PLUGIN_DEVELOPMENT_GUIDE.md — end-to-end workflow
  2. PLUGIN_QUICK_REFERENCE.md — cheat sheet
  3. PLUGIN_API_REFERENCE.md — display, cache, and plugin-manager APIs
  4. PLUGIN_ERROR_HANDLING.md — error-handling patterns
  5. DEV_PREVIEW.md — preview plugins on your dev machine without a Pi
  6. EMULATOR_SETUP_GUIDE.md — running the matrix emulator

Going deeper:

Configuring plugins

Advanced features

Reference

Contributing to LEDMatrix itself

Audits

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.py fails on broken relative links.
  • Keep examples runnable — paths, commands, and config keys here should match what's actually in the repo.