PianoGlow's Direction, Multiplayer Fixes, Jump To Measure, Light-up QWERTY

Yo aliens and everyone!

Updates with an announcement on PianoGlow's vision.

Here they are:

• Multiplayer Changes:
• Several fixes.
• VST & uploaded SF in multiplayer falls back to built-in SF by default: We temporarily by default disable sharing your custom uploaded SF audio/VST to other players (you can enable but will provide a warning) due to audio quality issues in multiplayer, so other players now instead hear your built-in SF if you play using VST (you hear your own VST still). For now, built-in SF is much more stable and much higher quality. We need several days to thoroughly test and improve VST usage in multiplayer before re-enabling it by default again.

Jump To Sheet Music Measure: You can jump to a specific measure of the sheet music in playback & practice mode. Measure number shown in the tooltip of the time bar.

Harpsichord SF added.

QWERTY Typing mode improvements:

• UI organized into dropdowns with options.
• Light-up RGB Keyboard: Experimental feature in QWERTY Typing Mode (Reduce Difficulty dropdown) and Notepad Auto/Semi-Auto.
• Notepad: some controls are organized in a dropdown to save space.

Vision of PianoGlow:

• PianoGlow will focus on depth & quality of the most useful features that actually bring value in its core functionality, rather than quantity. The 4 pillars we'll focus on improving in order of priority for the future:
• 1) Training & Practice for real piano (i.e. quality of existing AI tools particularly AI fingering, AI virtual hands PDF/Video/Audio to MIDI and AI Fit Music To Smaller Keyboards, learning, tracking playtime stats)
• 2) Multiplayer (i.e. lower latency, reliable, large active player count inside multiplayer rooms, fostering a good community).
• 3) Visuals (i.e. enjoying Visuals while playing, Rendering Videos & for Livestreaming, 3D Piano & venues)
• 4) QWERTY Piano (e.g. improve Analog support)

Removed and declutter features:

• Removed Love Mode, 2D pets (they don't look that good and most users have it disabled, instead stick to the 3D pets), very unused settings e.g. invert pitch setting.
• We archive (not delete) settings/holiday achievements and niche multiplayer achievements because most people play FFA/Queue (archive is similar but different to deleting in the way archived achievements are now only visible to others that also achieved at least one from the set, but now invisible to everyone else).
• We disable some features based on percentiles of usage (e.g. player score steam stats/achievement percentiles) to see which features are not good.

We cut down on some unnecessary/random/mostly-unused features that overall subtract real value from the app. This means PianoGlow will focus on its 4 pillars, building on its existing features/training/tools that have the most potential and focus on improving quality of its existing training modes and AI tools (e.g. AI fingering).

If you feel there are any specific features/settings that are too cluttered, or certain features needs rework/removed/simplified, please email us at support@pianoglow.com and we'll review it.

Opt-in Diagnostic Logging: By default, disabled, but to send useful logs for diagnostic purposes, you can optionally enable it within Settings > Online which can help us resolve issues and errors.

Retirement of iOS/Android: The iOS one was over a year out-of-date and the Android was rated low due to a lot of bugs because the user-interface was optimized for desktop. They are now unpublished but existing users can still continue accessing the app through their library. For concerns about this, email support@pianoglow.com. This will allow us to spend more time improving the Steam app (Windows/Mac/Linux). We might re-make/support a way to send MIDI from tablet to PC in the future but for now please use Steam Link and stream the app from your PC to mobile/tablet (you still need to connect the MIDI to your computer).

Fixes: some bug fixes.

We read every idea or concern sent to support@pianoglow.com or on our Discord at https://discord.gg/pianoglow , send them and we will review it. Also, just cancelled my music-listening subscription after hearing so many skilled pianists in multiplayer recently! Really exceeded my expectations on the level of pianists here.

Smell ya later, TheAlanski@ and the PianoGlow team