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Bitfocus Companion v4.3.0
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Companion v4.3.0 - Release Notes
Surface Module System
The biggest change in 4.3 is that surface support is now delivered through a downloadable module system — the same approach already used for connections.
Previously, support for every surface was baked into Companion itself, meaning you needed a full Companion update to get support for a new Stream Deck model or a surface bug fix.
This means:
- New Stream Deck models (and other surfaces) can be supported by updating just the surface module, without waiting for a Companion release.
- Each surface module can be updated independently, so a fix for one device doesn't require touching anything else.
- The same module management UI used for connections applies to surfaces. See the Modules documentation for details.
We hope this will encourage others to add support for new types of surfaces. The development experience is similar to that of connection modules.
Enable and Disable Individual Surfaces
Surfaces can now be individually enabled or disabled from the Surfaces page. Disabling a surface stops Companion from claiming it, but preserves its configuration for when you want to re-enable it.
This is useful when running Companion alongside other software (such as the Elgato Stream Deck app) — you can pick which devices each application manages.
Expressions in Any Action or Feedback Field
The connection module API has had a major revision in this release. The main change is to make it possible for any action or feedback input field to support expressions. Where supported, a toggle button next to the input field lets you switch it into expression mode.
Unfortunately, this requires modules to update to the latest version of the module-api making this opt in. We hope to see many modules start to support this in the coming months — it greatly increases the flexibility of Companion.
Sidebar and Header Bar Improvements
Sidebar.mp4
- Add a help menu in the header bar
- Add a context menu for managing the sidebar
- Free up space by removing the now-redundant sidebar help section
- Reduce the number of items in the Variables sidebar group
- Manage expand/collapse of sidebar groups (Auto-close aka. Accordion Mode)
- Add a new "Always-Narrow" sidebar mode
Modernising the Elgato Plugin
The Elgato Stream Deck plugin has been updated to support connecting over the Satellite API making it the preferred way for the plugin to connect to Companion.
Previously, the plugin communicated with Companion using an older, Elgato plugin-specific protocol. The Satellite API is a more modern, general-purpose alternative that is already used by the Satellite application and other third party software and hardware. Using it for the plugin means consistent behaviour across all surface types and a simpler integration overall.
If you are currently using the Elgato plugin, you can continue using it as before; however, we intend to remove support for the old protocol in a couple of Companion releases' time. When setting up a new connection, the plugin will now guide you toward using the Satellite API instead.
The plugin has also received a number of UI bug fixes.
And more
- Surfaces are now implemented through a module system, similar to connections.
- Option to enable/disable individual surfaces
- This allows Companion to run alongside other software with each using just some of the connected stream decks
- Support expressions in any action/feedback field
- This requires modules to opt into supporting it for now
- Get custom-variable via tcp #3999
- preview local variable value next to editor
- Ability to execute trigger at random intervals
- Improving expressions
- Rework various panels/lists to group connections by collections instead of as a flat list
- Improve performance of some button drawing #3902 #3891
- Various styling refinement
- Add support for
SENTRY_DISABLEenvironment variable, to disable sentry reporting - Option to suppress header notifications (#4004)
- Add docker COMPANION_ADMIN_PORT environment variable for admin port configuration (#4042)
- Expand satellite api to cover full module and elgato plugin functionality
- Add HTTP API endpoints for connection management (#4048)
🐞 BUG FIXES
- Improve presentation of missing values in dropdowns
- navigation to anchor link in /user-guide (#4036)
- Local variable updates do not immediately apply #3953
- show modules which only have prerelease version in the add list
- upgrade scripts isInverted failing
- certain triggers not being disabled with the collection (#3981)
- respect multiline for connection config fields #3986
- connection collections being lost during full import
- udp service not listening when ipv6 enabled
- preserve type of expressions when writing to custom/local variables #3954
- child entities not being upgraded #3924
- improve confusing trigger terminology "depress" (#3922)
- ensure module manifest doesn't load root file from outside of package
- Launch main companion process with the
--use-system-caflag (#4060)
Full Changelog: v4.2.6...v4.3.0
