MBXHub

by HALRAD Research

Dashboard Evolution

Every version of the MBXHub Now Playing dashboard, from first pixels to the current release. Click any screenshot to view full size.

51Versions
8Months
300+Endpoints
The Foundation
v0.4.5 First Dashboard
Where it all started. Basic now-playing with artwork, controls, and three themes. The REST API was born.
v0.4.7 Layout Refinement
Tighter spacing, better proportions. The control surface starts taking shape.
v0.4.8 Full Control Surface
Playlists, rating, volume slider. The dashboard becomes a real remote control.
The v0.5 Rebuild
v0.5.0 Ground-Up Rewrite
Complete architectural rewrite. MBXQ merged into MBXH. Collapsible panels, compact mode, and the panel system that persists today.
v0.5.0.2 Three Themes
Dark, Light, and Midnight themes. Panel ordering refined. The visual identity solidifies.
v0.5.0.3 Polish Pass
Spacing and alignment polish. Subtle but important — every pixel matters.
v0.5.0.7 Mood Reactions
Mood channel display and reaction buttons arrive. The vibe engine gets a face.
v0.5.0.8 AutoQ Integration
AutoQ scoring surfaces in the dashboard. Reactions feed directly into what plays next.
v0.5.0.9 PartyMode & Discovery
SSDP network discovery, PartyMode foundations. The dashboard starts to feel like a product.
The Feature Era
v0.5.1.0 HSL Theme Engine
The two-slot HSL theme system. Every color derived from hue, saturation, lightness. Infinite themes from 4 sliders.
v0.5.1.1 Taste Explorer
DJ Taste Tab, Mixer Charm, influence system. Album Artist browsing and search improvements.
v0.5.1.2 Multi-Fader Mixer
Multi-fader volume control, Windows device volume, network speaker integration via mDNS.
v0.5.1.3 Charm Persistence
Audio device enumeration, dashboard charm persistence. Resizable iframes that remember their height.
v0.5.1.4 Unified Browse
Persistent charms, on-demand mood scanning, mobile gestures. The browse experience unifies.
v0.5.1.5 Auto Scanning
Automatic mood scanning as you listen. Mobile swipe gestures, improved search. Zero-config Essentia analysis.
The Platform
v0.5.1.6 MetaServer
MetaServer arrives. Distributed scanning, peer sync, EF Core database. MBXHub becomes a platform.
v0.5.1.7 SMTC Link Charm
Remote SMTC control, endpoint selector charm, scanner delegation. Custom user theme shown here.
v0.5.1.8 Artwork Explorer
Crate full of albums. Album art grid with size controls, browse charm enhancements.
v0.5.1.9 Layout Options
Split, Immersive, and Compact NP styles. Configurable progress bar thickness. Display mode selector.
v0.5.2.0 Search Dashboard
Search dashboard, CUE sheet support, fan art, status bar sizing. The bridge keeps growing.
v0.5.2.1 Men at Work
Immersive blur-fill artwork, REST observability, API v58 endpoints, volume & pinch-zoom toggles.
v0.5.2.2 Search Party
Fix regressions in search.
v0.5.2.3 Whole Lotta Love
XL Charms: charm-bar XL/XXL sizes, per-charm layout, ARiA Charm, NP fixes.
v0.5.2.4 Moodserver
Dynamic Range as a mood feature: Essentia LRA travels through scan, MetaServer, and the AutoQ mixer with arousal weight slider.
v0.5.2.5 Worker Bee

Screenshot coming soon

Background scan worker improvements and federation hardening.
v0.5.2.6 Service Controls

Screenshot coming soon

Diagnostic surface, service controls, access gates, party-mode media gating.
v0.5.2.7 Nothing Else Matters
Mood scanning, federation, fleet aggregation, peer-sync, and MetaServer cut from MBXHub. AutoQ stays first-class on a static mbxmoods.json.
v0.5.2.8 Technologic
SMTC bridge target switching from the Shell tray, headless tray toggle, aspect-ratio sizing, ImmersiveArtFit contain/cover, ColumnMaxWidth/ColumnGutter knobs.
v0.5.2.9 Play On
play.html reaches parity with player.html: artist typeahead, reactions cluster, add-to-playlist, ARiA presets, influence thumbs, media-key shortcuts. Shell tray Machines submenu becomes Libraries; per-host QR code + diagnostics.
v0.5.3.0 cmd and search more
Cmd and Search More. Hit Ctrl+K anywhere, find anything. Plain words or sharp queries like year:1965 rating:>4. Saved searches, search history, PWA install.
v0.5.3.1 Drive
Shared frontend core (shared.css + shared.js), Cmd+K command palette federation, History + Hubs shell pages, CUE simplification trusting MusicBee's native per-subsong tags, dashboard server-render-first migration with MoodCacheReady WS event, AutoQ Relentless / Edge / Drive bands, mixer endpoint fader, advertised-name templating in manifest + browser title.
v0.5.3.2 relentless
AutoQ goes harder. New Relentless 💀 and Edge 🤘 mood bands tune the genre fit so metal and aggressive rock stop collapsing into adjacent buckets. Local-only artist pictures, A-Z artist scrub bar on play.html, pairwise A/B tune.html.
v0.5.3.3 new parmesan
Auto-Cal closes the loop. Anchor playlist, annotate/judge pipeline, Gates panel measures drift against your anchors. Trained Ridge/PCA model reads new Essentia features; on-disk override supersedes embedded. LocalQueue on play.html, SSDP banned-peers list.
v0.5.3.4 sort of evolution
Sort it your way. Custom sorts over any MusicBee tag, multi-artist roles across browse and CUE, waveform on the scrubber, XL progress preset.
v0.5.3.5 Cue It Up
Live setlist for the dashboard. Comment timestamps light up a SET LIST chip; Tracklist tab + one-click CUE-sidecar exporter; wavescrubber chapter ticks; Extras panel replaces the lyrics drawer.
v0.5.3.6 Transporter
AutoQ's trained mood model upgraded to v386 — raw-Ridge on both valence and arousal, trained on 386 anchors, replacing the v104 PCA+Ridge baseline. Setlist-aware prev/next on the transport: a Comment-embedded setlist makes navigation follow setlist entries instead of whole files. Year sort now handles malformed Year tags (full dates like 20180727).
v0.5.3.7 Setlist Level Up
The setlist drilldown & inline expand becomes one shared component across explore, browse, and Now Playing → Up Next — same rows, controls, and now-playing highlight everywhere. New CUE and SET LIST badges flag one-file-many-tracks albums on the browse grid, the artist→albums list, and the dashboard now-playing card.
v0.5.3.8 Field Factory
Field Factory computes and writes MusicBee Custom* fields from registered providers. The first provider, SMFM, projects each track's SMFM/STMO scores (from the Truedat scan) to an (arousal, valence) point — a second mood source alongside AutoQ. A new Labs page shows a track's V/A summary and raw score bins (default-off). Half-star ratings set and display in 0.5 increments across the player, transport, and dashboard.
v0.5.3.9 Counting Streams
Listen Here plays now count — browser-streamed playback reports every track exit and the server applies MusicBee's own play-count thresholds, so streamed listens update play count, Last Played, skip count, scrobbling, AutoQ signals, and TrueShuffle progress just like speaker plays. Plus the SMFM-fusion mood model (a curated-anchor retrain that fuses SMFM for a sharper valence read) and live mood tuning — rate a track and its prediction shifts instantly.
The Q Era
v0.5.4.0 AutoQ Radio
The queue top-up becomes a thing you can see: an ON-AIR light, seeded streams from whatever you just queued, and PFS — a producer in a box that orders each batch to flow instead of shuffle. Saved stations remember their seeds, flow and your reactions; journeys travel from a start track to an end track. Under it: a retrained mood model (24 features, 146 anchors, valence r=0.87) and a floor of MusicBee 3.5.
v0.5.4.1 More Q
The AutoQ Workbench arrives inside MusicBee: preview a mix or a journey, trim it, apply it to the queue — without leaving the app. Plus candidate filters in search syntax (global and per-station), Build and Wind-down flows, journeys sized by time (45m, not “20 tracks”), visible station memory, and the trained mood model on by default.
v0.5.4.2 Double Q
AutoQ becomes a tab in MusicBee — Services › AutoQ — and travels between tab and floating window live. Send to AutoQ lands as one verb on any track or selection; the Queue view is the queue; Programs play a playlist of stations for a set span; reactions steer the run; and AutoCal opens a coverage grid over the mood plane to grow the anchor set.
v0.5.4.3 Triple Q
A quality release, one bug deep: the Workbench stopped painting over MusicBee’s own tabs. Tools opens it floating, Services › AutoQ opens the tab, and every dock / float / close round-trip now follows whichever of the two is actually live.
v0.5.4.4 Quantum Q
AutoQ learns to mix like a DJ: every pick flows from the last by key (Camelot), tempo (half/double aware) and timbre, computed on your own library with no tagging. One Tight↔Loose dial sets how far a run roams; the Channels tab puts the mood map and the Camelot wheel in MusicBee; the Builder lets you drive the queue by hand; key:9A becomes a search term and Mix order a verb.
v0.5.4.5 Quintet Q
You stop having to remember the search grammar. The command palette, the browse box and the AutoQ filter all suggest as you type — qualifiers, fixed values, and live artist / album / playlist matches — and the Filter Composer pops the filter into its own window with live validation. First-run picks a free port on its own; the Workbench tab loses its stray white border in dark skins.
Devices & the Desktop
v0.5.4.6 Nuts and Bolts
The unglamorous release that makes the first five minutes work. A one-screen first-run setup with a QR to open MBXHub on your phone; self-healing network setup that reserves the port it needs and comes online without a restart; and when another program is holding the port, a message that names it and offers to switch — never a misleading “in use”.
v0.5.4.7 Cities On Flame
MBXHub starts driving other people’s hardware. The WiiM charm grows into a full console — transport, multiroom zones, output routing, a ten-band equalizer, presets, device status — and never trusts the speaker’s cheerful OK: it reads the state back and shows what the device actually did. A Tree charm (also /pages/tree.html) lists your files Artist → Year – Album → Track with an A–Z scrubber. And “more like this” stops reading labels and starts listening: chroma, key, tempo, timbre and dynamics, with a reason on every suggestion. Plus named tunings, a hardware Volume Knob with 1% steps, and one-click restart from this computer.
v0.5.4.8 Harmonizing

Screenshot coming soon

No more typing IP addresses. Every WiiM the charm has talked to becomes a row you can tap, the one you used last reconnects by itself, and a Scan button finds the rest — each hit verified against the real device before it earns a row. The LAN sweep learns SSDP too, so UPnP renderers (WiiM, Sonos, TVs) show up alongside the mDNS speakers.
v0.5.4.9 Persephone Under Mars
The dashboard steps out of the browser. Press Ctrl+Shift+M and the OVERLAY - HUD appears over whatever you’re doing — now playing, transport, queue, browse and reactions at overlay width, with Ctrl+K right inside it. It’s a real page too (/pages/hud.html); turn it on from the Shell tray. Alongside it: the AutoQ Workbench on the web — Faders, Live, Builder, Stations and Programs as five single-purpose pages behind their own charm — and a Matrix charm that drives an OREI BK-808 HDMI matrix through the same device proxy.
v0.5.5.0 Rockalley — Double Nickel
The boxed set. Everything the desktop line was building toward ships together: charms open as real desktop windows — open a few, arrange them, and Save current… snapshots the whole arrangement as a named overlay set you summon with one key. The Charm Bar docks to a screen edge (MusicBee first, the HUD second, and the overlay itself third — click it for your saved sets), the View Switcher Alt-Tabs between sets, and couch mode drives it all from a controller across the room. In the box with it: a StreamSDK charm (first up, the Fosi Audio S3), global hotkeys set from a dialog, a first-run setup that walks the network permissions, and formats no browser plays — WMA to start — converted on the way to Listen Here.
v0.5.5.1 Rock-Kandy — Current
Other apps can plug in. An app on your machine registers itself with MBXHub, asks for what it needs, and gets nothing until you approve it in Charm Manager — which shows who is asking, what for, and in their own words why. The window above is the other half of the release: installed as an app, the dashboard's header row is the title bar, the artist and album click through to the rest of your library, Browse fills the window, and Library, Mixer and Stations sit on the Services row one click away.

From a simple now-playing card to a full network control surface, a trainable mood model, a DJ that mixes on key, device charms that drive your speakers, a HUD that lives on the desktop, and now a door for other people's applications to come in through — built one version at a time.

Try the latest

Roadmap

v0.4.5 - Dashboard, Influences, Network Discovery, Firewall Config

v0.4.6 - PartyMode, Static Pages, BYOWA

v0.4.7 - API Access Control

v0.4.8 - MBXQ merge

v0.4.9 - AutoQ, Tiered Reactions, Leaderboard, Floating Emojis

v0.5.0 - MBXHub.exe Shell (SMTC bridge, Windows identity)

v0.5.0.1 - WS-Discovery, SSDP enhancements, dashboard scaling, QR connect, layout controls

v0.5.0.2 - RemoteApp for MusicBee (RDP), REST API + Shell CLI

v0.5.0.3 - Device Proxy

v0.5.0.4 - Charms, Charm Bar

v0.5.0.5 - Phantom device support

v0.5.0.6 - Podcast support, Listen Here audio streaming

v0.5.0.7 - Genre-aware mood tuning, confidence scoring, mood combo labels

v0.5.0.8 - Library browser, diacritic-aware search, responsive player

v0.5.0.9 - Performance optimizations, playlist folder grouping

v0.5.1.1 - Taste Explorer, DJ Taste Tab, Mixer Charm, Album Artist browsing, Album Grid enhancements

v0.5.1.2 - Mixer: multi-fader volume control, Windows device volume, network speaker integration, mDNS discovery

v0.5.1.3 - Audio device enumeration, dashboard charm persistence

v0.5.1.4 - Unified browse, persistent charms, on-demand mood scanning, HSL theme system

v0.5.1.5 - Mobile gestures, improved search

v0.5.1.6 - Mood Data Everywhere

v0.5.1.7 - SMTC Link Charm, remote control made easy

v0.5.1.8 - Crate full of albums, artwork explorer

v0.5.1.9 - Dashboard search, 6 now-playing display styles, configurable charm buttons and progress bar, startup diagnostics

v0.5.2.0 - MusicBee API v58, browse tracks tab, video actions, high-DPI/4K fixes, case-insensitive search, mobile touch targets

v0.5.2.1 - Men at Work: immersive blur-fill artwork, REST observability, API v58 endpoints, volume & pinch-zoom toggles

v0.5.2.2 - Search Party: fix regressions in search

v0.5.2.3 - Whole Lotta Love: XL Charms: charm-bar XL/XXL sizes, per-charm layout, ARiA Charm, NP Fixes

v0.5.2.4 - Moodserver: Dynamic Range as a mood feature, arousal weight slider

v0.5.2.5 - Worker Bee / Beekeeper’s Daughter: device-adaptive play.html, theme color picker redesign

v0.5.2.6 - A Plethora of Settings and More: Shell tray + auto-launch, settings UX rework, /diag perf page

v0.5.2.7 - Nothing Else Matters: offline truedat mood scanning; Shell focuses on SMTC, tray, and Windows identity

v0.5.2.8 - Technologic: Shell tray retargets Windows media controls to any hub, now-playing sizing knobs, Shell firewall rule

v0.5.2.9 - Play On: play.html evolved — playlist picker, overflow menu, charm icons, single-row transport

v0.5.3.0 - Play On, Cmd and Search More: hit Ctrl+K anywhere, find anything. Plain words or sharp queries like year:1965 rating:>4.

v0.5.3.1 - Bring It On Home, Come Together: play history, hubs page, Listen Here on play.html

v0.5.3.2 - Relentless / Drive: AutoQ mood-band rework, new Relentless 💀 and Edge 🤘 channels

v0.5.3.3 - New Parmesan: trained VAM mood model, Auto-Cal loop, SSDP banned-peers list

v0.5.3.4 - Sort of Evolution: waveform scrubber, custom sort orders, HSL theme picker

v0.5.3.5 - Cue It Up: setlists become CUE virtual tracks, right-click deep links, Fan Art and Video tabs

v0.5.3.6 - Transporter: mood model v386, setlist-aware prev/next, year-sort fixes

v0.5.3.7 - Setlist Level Up: shared setlist drilldown everywhere, CUE / SET LIST badges

v0.5.3.8 - Field Factory & Half-Star Ratings: SMFM moods into Custom fields, half-star ratings

v0.5.3.9 - Counting Streams: streamed plays count, rebuilt mood model, live mood tuning

v0.5.4.0 - AutoQ Radio: ON-AIR indicator, seeded streams from your queue, PFS — a producer in a box

v0.5.4.1 - More Q: the AutoQ window in MusicBee, search-syntax filters, journeys sized by time

v0.5.4.2 - QQ: AutoQ is now a tab in MusicBee (Services › AutoQ or the Tools menu), Send to AutoQ from anywhere, Mood Model 180

v0.5.4.3 - QQQ: Fix The Tools menu opens AutoQ Worbench floating, the Services › AutoQ navigator entry opens the tab.

v0.5.4.4 - QQQQ — Quantum Q — Balance & Refinements, and a few other new things: DJ-style harmonic mixing (mix in key, Camelot flow), the Tight↔Loose balance dial, Channels mood map & full tuning in the Workbench, Build your own queue, Fresh mode

v0.5.4.5 - QQQQQ — Quintet Q — search that finishes your sentence: the command palette, browse, and the AutoQ filter suggest the grammar and your own artists and albums as you type; first run picks a free port and opens network access in one click

v0.5.4.6 - Nuts and Bolts: a redesigned first-run welcome — scan a QR to open MBXHub on your phone — and self-healing network setup that claims a free port (8080/8081 by default, any unused pair) and fixes its own permissions

v0.5.4.7 - Cities On Flame: MBXHub reaches past MusicBee — a WiiM device control charm on the dashboard (Ultra, Pro, Speaker), a hardware volume knob with 1% steps, similar-track lists that compare how music actually sounds instead of how it is tagged, and named tunings you can save and bring back

v0.5.4.8 - Harmonizing: the WiiM charm remembers your devices — tap to switch, scan the network to find them, no more typing IP addresses — and the endpoint scan speaks SSDP as well as mDNS

v0.5.4.9 - Persephone Under Mars: the OVERLAY - HUD summons a compact now-playing page over any window with Ctrl+Shift+M and rolls up to a player or transport bar, and a Matrix charm drives an OREI BK-808 HDMI matrix from the hub

v0.5.5.0-EV1 - Double Nickel, the boxed set: charms open as real desktop windows — arrange a few, save the arrangement as a named overlay set, and summon it with one key; the Charm Bar docks to a screen edge, the View Switcher Alt-Tabs between sets, couch mode drives it from a controller, a StreamSDK charm runs the Fosi Audio S3, WMA converts on the way to Listen Here, and the network setup checks and repairs itself

v0.5.5.0-EV2 - Closing Time: one switch stops the queue — turn AutoQ off and the music runs out instead of quietly refilling from somewhere else, while skipping banned and corrupt tracks carries on either way; give a station a length in minutes and the radio stops when it is up; journeys end when they arrive; and AutoQ writes down why it picked what it picked, so a queue you did not like is something you can read back rather than only describe

v0.5.5.1 (current) - Rock-Kandy: other apps can plug into MBXHub, easily — a charm in the charms folder just works, and apps can register over the API; and the HUD gets easier to move around in, with the artist and album clickable through to your library, a full-window browse, and Library, Mixer and Stations one click away on the Services row