[Current Show/DJ OnAir Widget] Adding the custom play button and custom URLs

[kairandles]

Describe the solution you'd like
If a custom play button was implemented can it have a widget/shortcode so it shows up to the right of the show info (as well as two or three custom links of my choosing)? - See screenshot example from Capital FM

Describe alternatives you've considered
Having an alternative link in the nav bar

Additional context
Add any other context or screenshots about the feature request here.

[tonyzeoli]

@kairandles I think adding the play button would be a filter and not a feature of the widget. Some people might not want that there and it's intrusive if it is.

The same for custom links, possibly. I need to with @majick777 about this one and see if that's something we want to open up.

[kairandles]

Ah ok, I was thinking having it as something you would add to the shortcode or tick when creating the widget? But if it's not what anyone else is looking for I would be happy to do something in functions.php or as you say in a filter just for me?

[tonyzeoli]

@kairandles I'll get together with @majick777 on our next product call and talk about your enhancement request to see how we want to handle this. Because there's already a link to the playlist, that means the the widget would have a link to the playlist and somehow display the last song played - but remember that all this is not yet automated. Playlists are manual. So, last song played may not be accurate and adding it there would force people to have either an empty container that, I guess, would be hidden if they didn't push a song into the playlist for the playlist to push the last song into the widget. That's why it's just easier to link to the Playlist. If it were automated, it would make total sense, but until we get to sync up with automation software that would push in this playlist detail with a timestamp, it's going to be tricky to add something for everyone that some people are not going to be able to support.

That begets the question, is your station you are working with prepared to manually push playlists during shows and have the last song played display? If not, then the feature request is probably early in terms of what you're hoping to achieve there.

What radio station automation software is your station you are working with going to use?

[kairandles]

Hey @tonyzeoli, we don't manually push the playlists and instead use the plugin 'MetaRadio' that takes this directly out of our playout system (all the stations I work with use Zetta) so the thing with the last played songs and schedule could just be html links exactly as it's seen so you don't have to create an integration with MetaRadio or re engineer something for this plugin?

[tonyzeoli]

Thanks for the tip on MetaRadio. I had no idea this existed. We’re going to be working on something similar in the future.

On Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 2:50 AM Kai Randles ***@***.***> wrote: Hey @tonyzeoli <https://github.com/tonyzeoli>, we don't manually push the playlists and instead use the plugin 'MetaRadio' that takes this directly out of our playout system (all the stations I work with use Zetta) so the thing with the last played songs and schedule could just be html links exactly as it's seen so you don't have to create an integration with MetaRadio or re engineer something for this plugin? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#310 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA65WO4ZLLZOCMAWL3QX7FTS2U2TZANCNFSM4WH426OQ> .

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[gusaus]

Seems like a theme like https://pro.radio/ provides similar functionality.

https://pro.radio/theme-features/radio-player/
https://pro.radio/design-elements/radio-feed-titles/
https://pro.radio/design-elements/show-on-air/
https://pro.radio/theme-features/custom-widgets/

Decoupling from a theme and into the Radio Station plugin would be pretty valuable for many stations.

[kairandles]

Hey, appreciate this however there's a few reasons why this won't work for our station

For us a theme change just isn't viable, especially to something so different to what we have had in The past

Blogging is one of the main reasons for the website thus making the theme we have currently a lot better for it

We have a separate site (simmilar to our mobile experience) that is simmilar to this for our podcast, live radio listening etc meaning that would make the two sites have the same purpose. If your confuses similar to how Global has GlobalPlayer.com with the Global Player app then CapitalFM.com and Heart.co.uk the 'brand websites' are for content and blogging for each of of the stations

Appreciate the suggestion though as this will be useful to some people I'm sure!

[gusaus]

@kairandles Not sure if you were responding to my previous comment #310 (comment)? I was referencing functionality that might be good to incorporate into the Radio Station plugin...not recommending you switch over to that theme.

[kairandles]

@kairandles Not sure if you were responding to my previous comment #310 (comment)? I was referencing functionality that might be good to incorporate into the Radio Station plugin...not recommending you switch over to that theme.

Ahh I see! Sorry I read that wrong. My bad!

[gusaus]

@kairandles This is very cool https://mediarealm.com.au/articles/metaradio-wordpress-setup-guide/

Very curious how Radio Station could complement or eventually incorporate some of that functionality.
https://mediarealm.com.au/metaradio/#features

[kairandles]

@gusaus it is indeed! And definitely would be interested to see..

[tonyzeoli]

@gusaus The larger issue with metaradio is that you need an executable file that contains all the options for all the platforms supported and that is PC only and not Mac. The secondary issue is that their player is a pop up player and not a sticky player on the footer, which I much prefer. Pop ups are frowned upon by Google for SEO and if they cover a large part of the screen in mobile, you're to get hit in your SEO metrics because content is hidden behind the large pop up screen. So, while their interventions are great, their execution is limited and can be problematic.

On our side, in the same way as Gravity Forms and and other plugins, you'll buy an Add-on which you enable inside the plugin, then you connect that to your play out system. If the playout system is desktop only and has no ability to push data, then that's another issue altogether.

What I prefer not to get into is supporting both a PRO plugin and two desktop apps for Mac and PC, but for those play out systems that are desktop only, that may be necessary. I know we're going to start with Azuracast and LibreTime with both needing the API hooks to hook into their systems, since they are both server based and not desktop apps.

It looks like they pull song cover thumbnails from Apple's API, as well.

But all this has to come later this year, because the first priority is just to get the PRO version up and running. Covid and the fact that we're only a team of two is going to make that effort slow going until there is revenue and the ability to invest in more resources. So, the best I can say is that patience is a virtue and that we'll get to it when we can.

[astevens93]

To add to your comments @tonyzeoli (which I completely agree with), I use Metaradio and we don’t use the standalone software that we are meant to, to get the track data to our site.

This is mainly because our play out (Myriad) is not supported by the software.

Instead, we use Metaradio plugin on Wordpress but use HTTP post data to have it ingested by the REST API in Wordpress.

So being able to ingest track data this way could be a solution, as most play out software can output HTTP post data.

just a thought for consideration.

[gusaus]

Thanks @tonyzeoli for the detailed response and all the work you and @majick777 are putting into the plugin. I'm just looking at the surface w/o yet actually testing, but it seems like Radio Station already or will soon incorporate functionality of the Metaradio plugin (https://mediarealm.com.au/metaradio/#features)?

Replicating MetaRadio Standalone would be out of scope but could there be ways to integrate down the line?

[tonyzeoli]

Well, are holding our roadmap to WordPress only. Meta Radio can do a bunch of other stuff to the car radio Dashboard or to TuneIn, but we're only concerned about getting meta data into WordPress - that is out mandate and our mission going forward. Because Meta Radio exists and it's probably well used throughout the radio universe, there's no reason for us to compete on features with them. They must do a good job with what they do. We're just concerned about getting metadata out of automation software and into WordPress. That then syncs with our own Directory at Netmix.com. It would be some time in the far distant future to consider much of anything else. And, as Alex said in this thread, most station automation software packages push out via http post data that can be ingested by the WordPress Rest API, so it may be such that the license opens up that channel to anyone who wants to connect via the Rest API and map the data that way, or we build interfaces as add-ons for common automation software packages that can help the novice, if needed. Those will be sold as add-ons indiv idually and not as a package. And, I don't know that we need to support 19 automation systems either if some of them can just connect up to the API and that's it.

[majick777]

@kairandles Similar to #306, I've added some filters so you can put the custom buttons and links in that you want through your own development. The relevant filter in this case is radio_station_current_show_custom_display (in includes/shortcodes.php) and if you need to adjust the section order within the shortcode/widget, use radio_station_current_show_section_order

[majick777]

@astevens93 I'm not totally sure I get what MetaRadio does with reading and exporting the metadata, apart from being able to display this in it's own WordPress player? Do you use this data elsewhere also?

We are looking at reading this kind of metadata from Icecast/Shoutcast, and separately for LibreTime/AzureCast in the future... I guess supporting 19 different metadata types is just what they are up to now, but it might take us a while to get to that point! There really has to be sufficient demand for a particular data format... It's a bit like browser support, I'd expect a high percentage of coverage just from doing the major stream metadata format providers

[gusaus]

I connected with the folks from MetaRadio to see if/how Radio Station plugin could potentially integrate...

As you might've seen, MetaRadio is a piece of middleware to connect automation systems to a whole bunch of other systems. If your Radio Station plugin has an API for receiving live song data, I can add this as an output format in MetaRadio.

[tonyzeoli]

Hmmmm...we do have an API. That would be cool. Let me talk with Tony about that and I’ll giver back to you and then.

On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 11:06 PM Gus Austin ***@***.***> wrote: I connected with the folks from MetaRadio to see if/how Radio Station plugin could potentially integrate... As you might've seen, MetaRadio is a piece of middleware to connect automation systems to a whole bunch of other systems. If your Radio Station plugin has an API for receiving live song data, I can add this as an output format in MetaRadio. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#310 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA65WO5AJLQO3QJCAN6PJVLS3D2WFANCNFSM4WH426OQ> .

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