Changelog · plugview

0.3.0 October 1, 2026

A menu bar icon (app launch only) that shows whether a card is waiting, ready, or playing, with a panel for the status, the video choices, and the settings below.
Closing the window releases the capture card and keeps plugview in the menu bar; plugging a card in opens the window and plays. Both can be turned off. Launch at login.
Resolution and frame rate: pick any mode the card offers, or Automatic (the smoothest, as before). The choice is remembered per card. The terminal command keeps always using the best mode.
Update check: once a day, and from Check for Updates… in the app menu, plugview asks GitHub for the latest release and offers the download. It can be turned off; it is plugview's only network request.
About plugview, Settings… (⌘,), Hide, and Close (⌘W) in the menus.
Screenshots: S or the camera button saves the current frame at full resolution as a PNG in ~/Pictures/plugview, with a notice to show it in Finder.
Full-range colors, per card, for cards that send washed-out video (gray blacks).
View menu: Actual Size (⌘0), Zoom In (⌘+), Zoom Out (⌘-), and Keep on Top (⌥⌘T, remembered).
--mode WxH@fps picks the capture mode from the terminal (also for --measure); --list shows each video device's modes.
The app says when it plays without sound because microphone access is off, with a button to System Settings.

Easier controls bar: every button is 32 points tall and lights up on hover, the volume responds to a click or drag anywhere on its track and to scrolling over the bar, and the speaker icon follows the volume.
Smoother motion: the controls rise and fade in, the launcher screens crossfade, and the launcher fades out to reveal the video instead of cutting to it.
The display stays awake only while the window is open.

plugview is now also a Mac app. Typed in a terminal, the command behaves exactly as in 0.1.0.

plugview.app, installed with brew install --cask plugview/tap/plugview or downloaded as plugview-macos-app.zip. It has its own icon and links the plugview command into Homebrew's bin, so the terminal command keeps working. The command-only formula stays available.
Opened from Finder or the Dock instead of a terminal, plugview shows a launcher window: it explains the camera and microphone permissions before macOS asks, and if camera access is refused it says how to turn it back on, with a button that opens the right System Settings page. Typed in a terminal, plugview behaves as before.
The window now uses the plugview look: dark title bar, Geist fonts, the connector animation while waiting for a card, and the plug-in animation when one is found (Play starts it right away). Reduce Motion stops them.
No title bar over the video: moving the mouse shows the window buttons and a controls bar (mute, volume, full screen, capture device), which fade out when the mouse rests. The video can be dragged to move the window.
Opened as an app with several capture devices connected, plugview lets you pick one and remembers it.

The bundle identifier is now app.plugview.plugview (was io.github.mauricioleon54.plugview). The saved window size and position and the chosen capture device carry over once.

After unplugging and replugging the capture card, sound now comes back: the card's audio input appears a moment after its video, and plugview adds it as soon as it does.
The window's status messages ("Waiting for a capture device…") were invisible in light mode.
When a capture device fails to start, the window now says why instead of pointing to the terminal.

The app is not notarized yet: the first time it opens, macOS blocks it until you click Open Anyway in System Settings › Privacy & Security, and each update asks for camera and microphone access again. Until the app is approved, macOS also stops the plugview command installed with it.

First public release.

Live view of a USB capture device in a resizable window that keeps the video's aspect ratio and remembers its size and position; full screen with -f or F.
Automatic format choice: smooth frame rate first, then resolution, then the card's native pixel format (packed 4:2:2), so 1080p60 wins over 4K30.
Sound from the card's own audio input, with mute (M) and volume (↑ ↓, --volume).
Plug and play: attaches when the card appears, re-attaches after unplugging or a capture error (e.g. after the Mac wakes from sleep).
Keeps the display awake while playing with a controller.
--list to show detected devices; --device and --audio to pick them by name or ID.
--measure to report the delivered frame rate, capture latency, and playback-device latency, with advice.
Window title shows the device; the subtitle shows the running mode and audio source.

Frame rate stays locked at the chosen mode. Without this, macOS silently ran MS2130-based cards at 20 fps; capture-to-app latency dropped from 56 ms to 18 ms.
Card audio and playback use 128-frame Core Audio buffers (card capture latency 12.4 ms → 4.3 ms, MacBook speakers 27 ms → 19 ms).
Capture runs at the highest scheduling priority and is marked latency-critical, which keeps App Nap and timer coalescing away from it.