Kia ora koutou and haere mai to 2025

[ZZ-Cat]

Happy new year to all you wonderful folks out there. =^/.^=

I am back from my break, and am about to start working on CFA again.
As previously stated I am striking a better work-life balance now. In addition to this, I have several goals in my personal life for 2025 that are taking higher priority than developing CRSF for Arduino. These goals are dominated by upskilling myself in areas where my current knowledge is falling short, and figuring out a way to turn CFA into a sustainable asset.

Rather than give y'all announcements every time I need to step away from CFA to focus on these higher priorities, instead I am using this opportunity to give you all a heads-up in a singular pinned announcement for the sake of future reference.
Development of CFA is not getting my undivided attention in the way it used to, and working on CFA is not a high priority for me at this time. Development will still happen, but at a significantly reduced pace and at a pace that is in-line with my values (for example: Quality, not quantity; and going at my own pace instead of trying to keep up with everyone else).

Back-log

I have noticed a little bit of a back-log in my Issues tab crop up over the course of my break. That is okay.
Minor bugs you have found in the last release will be fixed in the upcoming 1.1.0 release. However, there is a feature freeze for 1.1.0. All enhancement requests made since this feature freeze may make it into a future release (IE after Version 1.1.0 has been released) at my discretion.

Serial Transmitter Interface

Now, I am aware that a lot of you are anticipating the Serial Transmitter Interface.
I have had a long time to think about this one and think it through. This enhancement request came in at a very bad time for me, and it's possible I may have bitten off a little more than I could chew here before I even took into consideration that it requires a totally separate API and then somehow unifying that with the Sketch Layer name-space.

Sometimes with coding, an idea may seem simple, but reality tends to remind me that implementing that idea is notoriously more time-consuming and presents more challenges along the way than I initially anticipated.

I have had to put off the Serial Transmitter Interface for quite some time now, as I simply could not come up with a reasonable solution of how to implement it. As much as I love challenges, this particular challenge has had me stumped indefinitely. If I have not said this already, the Serial Transmitter Interface is not going to make it into the upcoming Version 1.1.0 release.

Version 1.1.0

Pretty much everything that is marked "In progress" in my version tracking list is what is being implemented in the upcoming release.
Once that's done, Version 1.1.0 will be released "as-is" and in the order of release candidates before the final cut of Version 1.1.0 is fully released. These release candidates shall be used by you to help me with testing everything and spotting bugs and getting them squashed before I cut the stable release.

I don't have a set date for my version release dates, as this helps to offload stress and allows me to focus on what matters to me and my project(s) as well as balance CFA with the rest of my personal life. So please. I ask you to NOT ask me when the next release will be. I simply cannot give you dead-set dates. Asking me "When will the next update be?" is the same as asking me "how long is a piece of string?" I simply do not know.

A teaser of what's to come

Without giving too much information away, I have a re-factor, several enhancements (including features, performance improvements), and hardware compatibility improvements planned, as well as implementing the very latest version of The Crossfire Protocol.

The original goal for CFA

Coming full circle, when I started this project in 2023, I went looking for a C++ library that I could use in the Arduino ecosystem that was a complete implementation of CRSF v2. I spent a lot of time researching, and I could only find sparse projects and abandonware that either implemented RC Channels or implemented telemetry feedback and not both RC Channels and telemetry feedback together. I created CRSF for Arduino to fill a gap in one of my (now defunct) projects that I personally needed.
At the same time, I thought to myself "If I needed CRSF in my projects, who else needs it in theirs?"
It was then that I started looking into what everyone else was doing at the time, and I discovered (to my horror) that the vast majority of people were still using PWM-based receivers in their projects. Then, I thought "Those PWM-based receivers are not the best solution, because many of them are not reliable. Implementation-wise, Arduino teaches people to use pulseIn() for these receivers which makes an already far-from-ideal solution even worse. These people deserve better! So, I am going to give them what they need by providing them with a service of value."

...and that service? As it says in the repository's slogan: Bringing The Crossfire Protocol to the Arduino ecosystem.
Therefore my primary focus with CFA is doing exactly that.
Anything that is not in-line with that is either out-of-scope or (at my discretion) will be classified as a "premium feature", moving forward.

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Thank you all for being here and helping out to turn CFA into what it is today.
As of 2025-1-3, CFA has 170 stars, which is getting close to the 200 star milestone. We have already surpassed the 50 star and 100 star milestones, both of which completely blew me away at the time. That and a monthly user-base of some 1,000~2,000 people on average is absolutely mind-blowing to me. When I created CFA in 2023, I had zero clue it would get to the popularity it is getting today, let alone see any growth at all. In fact, I said to myself out loud "It doesn't matter to me if CFA gets one or two stars, I am getting it out there in the hopes that at least someone other than me finds it useful to them just as much as it has been for me."

...and well... here we are. Staring down the busy road that is 2025 with 170 stars, and some 1,000~2,000-strong users, and I'm over here like "I never thought I'd get this far."
However, I am absolutely grateful for it all, and I am incredibly happy to be here for it. =^/,..,^=

"Until next time..." --Kyle Hill.