ZasCue is built by one person, and it keeps growing. Here’s what changes in each version. Almost everything below started as a message from someone telling me what was missing, or what broke on them during a rehearsal.
1.22.620 September 2026Current version
Three things that showed up mid-show
Automatic chains no longer stop halfway. If a cue had “Auto-continue” with a post-wait longer than the cue itself — an image or a title that waits a few seconds, a short sound with a gap after it — the next cue never came in and the chain died without a word. Now it fires on time, and panic or “Stop all” cancel it properly.
GO on a cue you are auditioning now sends it to the room. Before, if you were listening to it on headphones with V and pressed GO, nothing came out of the speakers — and the standby moved on anyway, as if it had played. Now it plays in the room and the audition stops by itself, including when you fire the cue with its hotkey, from a pad or from a control cue.
Holding the spacebar no longer fires half your show. Key repeat launched about fifteen cues a second; with Esc, panic turned into a hard cut. One press is one press again.
Choosing the audio output in the Windows app
It works now. In the .exe, pressing “Choose…” in Audio outputs did nothing at all: the picker it used only exists in the browser. Now you pick the output from a list with each device’s name, in the same panel. In the browser, a button reveals the names (permission is asked once).
And it is remembered. The chosen output is saved on that computer and restored when you open the program; before, you had to pick it again every day. If the device is gone, it says so and falls back to the system default; if you plug it back in, it is picked up again.
And a handful of live details
The fade-out is no longer lost if you touch the track’s volume or send it a Fade cue: it used to end abruptly. And it lasts what you set, without waiting for the fade-in.
The “auto in” countdown no longer disappears when the cue ends while the chain is still waiting: you see the next one coming.
A “Go to” control cue fired with GO leaves the standby where you said.
A soundboard hit no longer steals the name and the countdown from the transport.
Auditioning does not touch the room mix: a cue with “duck the others” listened to on headphones no longer pulls down what is playing in the room.
With the operator screen in front, Delete and Ctrl+Z no longer edit the list you cannot see, and messages are readable above it without covering GO.
With a dropdown open, the arrow keys belong to it and do not move the standby.
In English, “Siguiente:”, “auto en” and “pre-espera” no longer slip through untranslated.
The first three turned up while building ZasCue 2 and testing its operator screen; the output one, while answering a sound engineer asking about multichannel systems. None had been reported: they were just there, waiting.
1.22.517 September 2026
The Windows program, harder to catch out mid-show
F11 now works in the Windows program. The help tells you to press F11 to put the projection in full screen, and in the .exe it did nothing (it did in the browser). Now it works when you press it with the projection window in front — in the main window F11 is left alone, since it may be a cue’s key — and Esc, the panic key, does not take it out of full screen. When it is full screen on the projector, the Windows taskbar no longer shows on top.
The projection no longer steals your keyboard. If it opened by itself — say, an image cue inside an automatic chain — it kept the focus, and Space and Esc stopped responding until you clicked back on ZasCue. Now it appears without taking the keyboard, and the show keys also work with the projection in front.
A fader no longer keeps the show keys. Move the Master, the crossfade or a mixer fader with the mouse and the focus stayed there: the spacebar did not fire GO, the arrow keys moved the fader instead of the standby, and the first Esc was not panic. This one predates 1.22.5.
The screen no longer goes dark while you project. A still image during a long scene, with nobody touching the keyboard, could leave the projector black because of Windows power saving.
Only one ZasCue opens. The program takes a few seconds to start, and double-clicking again opened a second copy that could not autosave or recover your session. Now the second double-click just brings up the one already open.
“Save” on exit works for a new show. If the show had no folder yet, choosing “Save” in the exit prompt failed instead of asking where to save it. Now it opens the folder picker.
A warning when you pick Documents or the Desktop as they are. Windows does not allow those folders directly, and ZasCue just sat waiting without a word — and then would not open any picker again until restarted. Now it tells you and lets you choose another, such as a new folder inside Documents.
If ZasCue freezes or closes suddenly, you can carry on. The window used to go blank and would not even close with the X. Now it warns you and offers “Reload” — then “Recover…” brings back the autosaved show — and the X always closes.
None of these came from a rehearsal: they turned up while thoroughly testing the compiled Windows program rather than the browser, which is exactly where it behaves differently.
1.22.412 September 2026
First run, dragging images in, and error messages you can act on
Your show takes its name from its folder. Save into a folder called “Blood Wedding” and the bar at the top still read “Untitled show”. Now, unless you named it yourself, it takes the folder’s name.
Backup copies no longer overwrite each other. The backup file came out as “Untitled_show.json” every time, so two different shows produced two files with the same name. Now it is named after the show, accents and all.
ZasCue warns you before saving into a folder that already has files in it. A project is a folder holding your “show.json” and your audio; pick your Desktop and it all got mixed together. Now it asks first — and stays quiet if the folder is empty or already a project.
You can now drag images into the window, exactly as you do with audio: each one becomes a projection cue. ZasCue used to try to read them as sound, so nothing happened. Drop audio and images together and each goes where it belongs.
The list updates as you type a caption. While you typed a title, the cue row kept saying “(empty title)” until something repainted it — it looked as if the text had been lost.
Projection cues are named after what they are. Switch one to Title or Black and it stayed called “Image”, leaving three identical names in your list. If you already named it yourself, it is left alone.
Fixed the small-window layout. Shrink ZasCue to its minimum size and the inspector used to run off the screen, with a horizontal scrollbar and the clock and cue name cut off at the bottom. It all fits now, in both languages and both themes.
When a save fails, the message now tells you what went wrong. It used to show a raw browser code such as “NotFoundError”, which helps nobody. Now it names the cause: the project folder is no longer there, permission to write was withdrawn, the file is locked by another program, or the disk is full. The backup copy is still offered exactly as before.
If the project folder disappears — a drive unplugged, a folder moved — ZasCue stops assuming it is still there, and the next “Save” asks you where to save instead of failing over and over.
Nobody hit any of these in use: they came out of an internal review that now walks the whole app before every release — the screen at three sizes, two themes and two languages, the full image-and-title journey, plus the genuinely ugly cases, like deleting the project folder while the show is open.
1.22.312 September 2026
Opening a show saved as a single file
New: File → Open a copy (.json). If you saved your show from the browser, you have a .json file rather than a folder. Until now the Windows app could only open folders, so there was no way to open that file. Now there is.
Dragging a .json onto the window opens it too. ZasCue used to try to decode it as audio and fail. If you already have a show open, it asks before replacing it.
The menu now clearly separates Open project (folder) from Open a copy (.json) — which was exactly the confusing part.
1.22.29 September 2026
Your backup now actually reaches your disk
Fixed a serious bug in "Export a copy (.json)". In the .exe, this download could fail silently: the app said "downloaded" but the file never landed anywhere. It now genuinely saves to your Downloads folder, and the message says so.
Same fix for the backup "Save"/"Save as" (when the browser doesn't support folders): it now reliably lands in Downloads too.
1.22.16 September 2026
Your show, always safe
New: File → Export a copy (.json). Downloads your whole show in one click — every cue, fade, volume and setting — with no folder picker and no permissions. It’s the safety net: it works even when the normal save fails. When you open that copy, ZasCue asks for your audio files and re-links them automatically, by filename.
If a save fails, ZasCue offers you that backup straight away and tells you what went wrong instead of a generic message. If it’s a permissions problem or you’re out of disk space, now you know.
Auto-save no longer claims success when it couldn’t save. It retries on its own and warns you if something is wrong, so you never get a nasty surprise when you go to recover.
On exit, “Save” no longer closes the program when the save didn’t work. It tells you, and you decide.
No more scare when opening a project. A “60 files missing” warning flashed up a moment before the audio loaded perfectly. It was wrong, and it’s gone.
This release comes from a problem someone ran into while building a 74-cue theatre show, and took the trouble to report properly. If something doesn’t work for you, tell me — that’s how this gets better.
1.22.020 August 2026
ZasCue now speaks English
The whole program in English and Spanish. Switch in Settings ⚙ → Idioma / Language, instantly, without reloading and without losing the show you have open.
First time round it picks for itself, based on your computer’s language.
Language flag in the top bar: see which language you’re in, switch with one click.
Fixed: Control and Image/Title cues were listed in the warnings as “no audio file”, when by design they don’t have one.
1.21.015 June 2026
A cleaner interface
Proper icons instead of emoji, the way professional desks do it: every cue shows its type — audio, image, fade, control, group, note — at a glance, including in each row of the list.
1.15 – 1.20June 2026
A big push: image and title projection on a second screen, auto-save with recovery, edit lock for performances, soundboard with pads and key triggers, MIDI, undo/redo, cue search and groups.
How do I update?
Download ZasCue.exe again and replace the one you had. There’s no installer and no account: it’s a single file. Your shows are untouched — they open exactly the same in the new version. If you use the browser version, you already have the update.