Jinx! — Show Mode Enhancement Pack

This build adds a sidecar DLL (jinxmod.dll) that enhances Show Mode with per-button customisation, section grouping, drag-drop reorder, BLACKOUT cues and a few binary-level tweaks. The original Jinx! 2.4 is preserved as far as possible — the enhancements only intervene inside Show Mode.

Per-button customisation

Right-click any scene-trigger button in Show Mode for:

• Set text colour… — colour picker for the button label.
• Set button colour… — colour picker for the background.
• Bold — toggle bold on the label.
• Text size › — submenu of sizes (8 / 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 / 18 / 20 / 24 / 28 / 36 pt).
• Reset to defaults — clears all settings for this button.

Flash mode

Right-click → Flash mode toggles a button between the default latch (click to fire, click to release) and flash (hold to fire, release to release). When you release a flash, Jinx jumps back to whichever latch button was previously active — same behaviour as a real lighting console.

Flash × BLACKOUT — "peek through"

If you've engaged BLACKOUT (L) and then hold a flash scene button, the blackout is temporarily lifted for the duration of the press so the scene is actually visible. Release the flash button and the blackout re-engages automatically.

This is the standard lighting-console "flash-from-blackout" workflow:

1. Click BLACKOUT (L) — output goes dark.
2. Hold any flash scene button — that scene is visible while held.
3. Release — output goes dark again.
4. Click BLACKOUT (L) again any time to resume normal operation.

If you tap BLACKOUT (L) during a flash press to disable it, that decision is respected — the blackout won't sneak back on when you release the flash button.

Visual indicators

• [L] grey corner badge — latch button (default).
• [F] orange corner badge — flash button.
• Orange 5px border — configured as flash (any state).
• Red 5px border — currently the active latched scene.

Sections

Group your scene buttons into named sections. Right-click any scene button → Section › → pick Section 1 through 8 (or None to ungroup).

• Buttons in the same section sit together, separated by a coloured header strip showing the section name.
• Rename a section via Section → Rename… A small dialog pops up; type a name like Movement, Washes, Effects.
• Ungrouped buttons (section None) appear last, under an Ungrouped header.
• Names persist between runs in jinxmod-sections.txt.

Hide buttons + Edit Mode

Got scene buttons you don't want cluttering the live show surface (e.g. individual scenes that already live inside a chase, or test scenes you're not firing tonight)? Hide them.

• Right-click any scene or chase button → Hide this button. It disappears immediately; the section reflow closes the gap around it. Hidden state persists in jinxmod-colors.txt.
• To un-hide: click the Edit Mode button (purple, bottom of the Show Mode side column). Hidden buttons reappear in their natural positions with a purple [H] tag in the bottom-left so you know they're flagged "hidden in perform mode".
• Right-click a hidden-but-visible button → Show this button (un-hide).
• Click Edit Mode again to leave the mode — any buttons still flagged hidden vanish from the layout again.

Edit Mode is session-only — it always starts OFF when Show Mode opens, so a fresh launch is always in "performer view". The hidden-state flag on each button is persistent.

Drag-and-drop reorder

Hold Ctrl and left-click-drag any scene button onto another. The cursor changes to a 4-arrow move icon while dragging.

• Drop on the left half of the target → insert before.
• Drop on the right half → insert after.
• Drop on a button in a different section → the dragged button changes section.
• Drop on empty space → cancel.

The new order persists between runs. Normal click (no Ctrl) still fires scenes as before.

BLACKOUT & STROBE buttons

Four new touchscreen-friendly buttons live in a single column stacked under the built-in Control panel (the box with Fade Out / Strobe / sliders on the left side of Show Mode).

• BLACKOUT (L) — latch: click toggles master fader to 0 / restores. Inverts red while active.
• BLACKOUT (F) — flash: hold = master 0, release = master restored. Inverts orange while held.
• STROBE (L) — latch: click toggles Jinx's Strobe effect on / off. Synthesises a click on Jinx's own Strobe button so the underlying state stays in sync. Inverts blue while active.
• STROBE (F) — flash: hold = strobe on, release = strobe off. Two synthetic clicks bracket the held interval. Inverts cyan while held.

The whole column is anchored to stable elements in the Control panel (Control header + Strobe + master fader bottoms), so the buttons stay rock-still even while you operate sliders or transports.

Latch disables flash: when BLACKOUT (L) is engaged, BLACKOUT (F) is greyed out and ignores clicks. Same for STROBE (L) disabling STROBE (F). Holding flash on top of a latch would change the behaviour confusingly, so we just lock the flash variant out while the latch is on. Tap the latch again to re-enable its flash partner.

Engaged latch pulses: while BLACKOUT (L) or STROBE (L) is engaged, the button pulses every ~600 ms — alternating between the normal active look (white fill, coloured text + border) and a flipped version (coloured fill, white text + ring). Easy to spot across the room, makes it obvious you're in a "muted" state. Pulse stops the instant you tap the latch off.

Jinx's small built-in Strobe button is hidden when this mod is loaded — the Strobe Time fader next to it stays put. The hidden button still receives our synthetic clicks so the underlying strobe state stays in sync.

Frame rate selector (FPS)

A 20 FPS / 25 FPS / 30 FPS row sits in the Show Mode side column (below the BLACKOUT/STROBE/FADE buttons). Click one to change the frame rate live, mid-output — no stopping or restarting anything. The selected rate is marked with a ✓.

• Affects every output at once — Art-Net, sACN, DMX and the screen / DVI output a video-grabber LED controller captures. Higher fps = smoother capture.
• The title-bar [FPS: nn.nn] readout is Jinx's measured rate; it settles to your chosen value within a second or two of clicking — your confirmation it took.
• Your choice is remembered between runs. The old fixed binary FPS patch is retired in favour of this live selector.

Under the hood the mod owns Jinx's frame timers through a safe handle-virtualisation hook, so switching rate never disturbs playback.

FADE IN / OUT

A latching button that smoothly ramps the master output down to black and back up, over Jinx's Fade Time slider duration (fully reversible — click again to fade back to exactly the level you were at). It pulses only while the fade is in progress and stops the instant it finishes.

SCENE X FADE

Toggles Jinx's scene-to-scene crossfade on/off (duration = the Fade Time slider). Shows ✓ when on, ✗ when off. If the ✓/✗ ever reads backwards on your rig, right-click the button once — that flips the indicator polarity and remembers it.

Legacy shows — media & layout that just work

• Media relink: Jinx stores image/video paths relative to its working folder, so a show built elsewhere often loads with blank media. The mod now intercepts every file open and, if a scene's image/video isn't found, transparently locates it next to the .jnx (or next to the exe) and hands Jinx the right file. Old shows' media just appears.
• Per-show layout: your Show Mode sections, colours, order and hidden flags are now saved per show, in a sidecar next to that .jnx. Opening a different or legacy show no longer scatters buttons with another show's layout — each show gets its own, and legacy shows open in Jinx's clean native layout.

Binary-level tweaks

• Matrix size limits raised: Width / Height 4–480 → 4–1024. Total pixel count 48 000 → 1 048 576 (1 megapixel).
• Frame rate is chosen live from the FPS row (see above) — 20, 25 or 30 fps, default 30.

Persistence files

Settings live in plain text. Per-show files sit next to that .jnx; global ones next to the executable:

• <show>.jnx.jinxmod-colors.txt — that show's per-button colour, font, flash mode, section, drag-drop order, hidden.
• <show>.jnx.jinxmod-sections.txt — that show's section names.
• jinxmod-fps.txt — chosen frame rate (20 / 25 / 30).
• jinxmod-scenexfade.txt — scene-crossfade state + indicator polarity for this rig.

Atomic writes on every change. Back up, edit or delete them at will.

Troubleshooting

• jinx-modded.exe won't start — check jinxmod.dll is in the same folder. The exe statically imports it.
• Right-click does nothing — only scene-trigger buttons get the menu. Built-in show controls (Left / Auto / Right, Strobe, Fade Out, mixer) keep their vanilla behaviour.
• Buttons jump around when I click Strobe — shouldn't happen with this build, but if you ever see it, hit Refresh layout from the right-click menu.
• Blackout doesn't dim the output — the blackout buttons drive the bottom-most slider in Show Mode (Master). Make sure Master is actually controlling output in your setup.
• The +/- size buttons don't change scene button size — clear all sections (Section → None on each grouped button), resize, then re-apply sections.
• Buttons have a leading space in the label — cosmetic side-effect of removing Jinx's hard-coded [F] prefix. Our own [F]/[L] indicator replaces it.

Mod built by Lee — 2026. Sidecar DLL approach: original Jinx! binary preserved; enhancements run alongside it. All credit for Jinx! itself goes to Sven Karschewski (live-leds.de).