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DonationCoder.com Software => Older DC Contests and Challenges => N.A.N.Y. 2011 => Topic started by: tranglos on December 30, 2010, 10:03 PM

Title: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio 0.2.4
Post by: tranglos on December 30, 2010, 10:03 PM

(Latest version: 0.2.4, uploaded February 28)

New version! See my message below (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25068.msg239283#msg239283) for what's new. Download link in attachments at the end of this message

From now on, you can also download Ethervane Radio from the following links:
http://www.tranglos.com/free/files/EthervaneRadio.zip
http://www.ethervane.com/files/EthervaneRadio.zip


It's something I've been working on for the last 2 and a half months. An internet radio player The Way It's Supposed To be :-) Simple, Screamer-like, but backed with a database and (eventually) flexible instant search.

But, it's a big project and though it's been coming along nicely, it isn't quite ready for public consumption. Right now it looks like this:

[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

It has a Play/Stop button and a volume slider. That's about it at the moment!

Download the first release, play with it and let me know what you think. Attachment is in the message.

OS support:
Windows XP, Vista, 7 and higher only. Windows 2000 is a maybe, please let me know if you can test. Windows 95 through ME, certainly not.

Installation:
Download and unzip to any folder on your disk. It's OK to install under "Program Files", but you'll have to okay a UAC prompt. Just pick a folder that's convenient.

There is no installer yet (it'll come), so you'll need to create a shortcut manually.

First-time use:
When you start it for the first time, it will create a database of radio stations. The database is quite large (about 30 MB), so to keep down the size of the installation zip file, the database is packaged as an XML file, which is much smaller. That's why during the first run it has to import radio stations from the XML file into the actual database (sqlite). It will take a minute or three, depending on the specs of your machine.

(A dialog box will pop up giving you two choices: (a) create a database with default, built-in radio stations, or (b) create an empty database. Always pick the first option! At the moment you cannot yet add your own stations to the database, so if you choose to create an empty DB, there will be no stations to play.)

Then it will pop up the About dialog box, with a suitable intro. You have been warned! Dismiss the About box and you are ready for...

Listening to internet radio stations:

Currently there are three ways to start playing a station:

1. Press 'U' (or choose Radio -> Open URL) and type or paste a link of a radio station stream. This can be a playlist (m3u, pls, asx, etc.) or a direct stream. (HTTP and MMS protocols only.) Click OK, and if all goes well, the station will start playing. Use this method if the database does not contain the station you want.

2. Press ESC (or choose Radio -> Find station). A dialog box will open where you can search for stations in the database. Type your search text and hit Enter. (Instant search is available through tweaking the config file, but right now it is too slow to be convenient). The search feature will be hugely expanded in future releases! For now, it will just search exactly for the string you type. What you type is what you get. It will look at all the textual data stations have, such as names, genres, taglines, countries, continents, cities, etc. Search for "Cuba" to find Cuban stations. Search for "ambient" to find stations that play ambient music. Search for "Africa", and you'll find stations located there as well as stations whose names might contain that word. And so on. The search dialog box is non-modal, so you can keep it open while the radio is playing.

3. Pick a station from the Favorites menu. Once you have a station playing, you can mark it as favorite by: (a) pressing 'F', (b) right-clicking the main window and picking "Favorite station" from the context menu, and (c) double-clicking the heart icon in the status bar. Do it again to un-favorite the station. Up to 20 favorite stations will show up in the Favorites menu. (Later there will be a proper browser where all the favorites will be displayed).

In case of troubles
Let me know! Click Help -> Show debug log and you will find detailed info about any errors, especially about why a station won't play. There may be plenty of reasons: the server is down, the station URL is incorrect, the station does not exist anymore, the playlist or stream has unsupported format, etc.

Try playing the same station in another player (Winamp, AIMP, Screamer, RadioSure etc.) to see if it works there. Most of these apps are based on the BASS audio library, and so is Ethervane Radio. So in general, if a station won't play in Screamer, it won't play in ER, either. And if Screamer plays it, so should ER.

Some playlist types are not supported yet (xspf, ram, wpl - but they are very rare). I'll add this later. Some audio transport protocols are not supported (e.g. realaudio) - this will not be fixed, unless BASS library adds support for those protocols.

The database does contain some old / invalid / long-gone stations. I have already eliminated about 3,000 stations that do not exist anymore, but still there are duds in the DB. Later there will be an option to hide such stations, so that they don't appear in the search results.

You cannot add or edit stations yet! This will come.

There is no way to configure a proxy, so you can't be using one with ER. (Later.)

The Mute function has not been implemented yet, either...

There are literally hundreds of features missing. In my to-do list I have well over a hundred items, and that's just a list of must-do, absolutely indispensable things, not a "nice to have" wishlist. Please, please, please do not report missing features or tell me what should be added to ER. I already know that :-) This is a very, very early release.

(Actually, I wrote it as a gift for my wife. We both love talk radio, particularly in Spanish, in which she is fluent, while I can barely follow the newscast. That doesn't stop me from listening though!)

That's about it for the truly important stuff.

Added: ER can run as a portable application. Details here (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25068.msg229561#msg229561).

Title: Re: NANY 2011 last minute Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: mouser on December 30, 2010, 10:04 PM

awesome! go for it!  :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 last minute Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: KynloStephen66515 on December 30, 2010, 10:13 PM

Wow, that looks great man, if you can apply custom skins so we can do like and old-school steroegram style thing to it, that would plain rock :P (With the possibility of adding static noise while stations are buffering so it gives users the feel of "Tuning" haha), id use that all day long :D

Title: Re: NANY 2011 last minute Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: kyrathaba on December 30, 2010, 10:32 PM

Cool stuff, tranglos.  Good luck on the deadline  :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Perry Mowbray on December 30, 2010, 11:19 PM

I adjusted the Title (we don't allow "last minute" Pledges: just Pledges  :P)

 :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: KynloStephen66515 on December 30, 2010, 11:26 PM

I adjusted the Title (we don't allow "last minute" Pledges: just Pledges  :P)

 :Thmbsup:

-Perry Mowbray (December 30, 2010, 11:19 PM)

Perry likes neat and tidy post names ;)

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Perry Mowbray on December 30, 2010, 11:43 PM

Perry likes neat and tidy post names ;)

-Stephen66515 (December 30, 2010, 11:26 PM)

 :P I do!! It also helps with sorting  ;)

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: mouser on January 01, 2011, 07:41 PM

Just tried the first release.. don't know what to say besides i love it.  There are many cases where i just want to play an international streaming radio station and i love how this is focused on a very simple interface to choosing internet radio stations.  EXCELLENT.

So are Favorites not implemented yet, or did i just not figure out how to use it?

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Perry Mowbray on January 01, 2011, 07:48 PM

No Favourites, No Memo, No History... but I love it too  :-*

Will there be even a more minimal interface option?

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 01, 2011, 08:08 PM

Thank you, Perry, Mouser! This is exactly how I envisioned it: one click operation. Of course it lacks the polish - e.g. the search window is not at all convenient to use right now, but I'll be working on that.

The Favorites function should already work. Start playing any station, then hit "F" or right-click and choose "Favorite station". The heart icon in the status bar should change color, and the station should now appear under the Favorites menu.

(It will not work if the database cannot be written to.)

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Perry Mowbray on January 01, 2011, 08:11 PM

The Favorites function should already work. Start playing any station, then hit "F" or right-click and choose "Favorite station". The heart icon in the status bar should change color, and the station should now appear under the Favorites menu.

-tranglos (January 01, 2011, 08:08 PM)

 :Thmbsup: That works!! Don't know why I couldn't think "F" for "Favourites  ;)

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 01, 2011, 08:11 PM

No Favourites, No Memo, No History... but I love it too  :-*

Will there be even a more minimal interface option?

-Perry Mowbray (January 01, 2011, 07:48 PM)

Yes for favorites, and there will certainly be history. The basic code for that is in place, I just have to actually write the history data to the database. I've planned some trickery, e.g. Favorites can be sorted by how often or for how long they have been played... but the history information is not preserved in this version.

More minimal? :) I haven't thought about it yet. Probably not anything like Winamp's "rolled up" style though, because it cannot be done very well with standard,. non-skinned windows.

I'll talk about skinning later, but the bottom line is, no skins. Standard UI only, that's what works.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 01, 2011, 08:12 PM

 :Thmbsup: That works!! Don't know why I couldn't think "F" for "Favourites  ;)

-Perry Mowbray (January 01, 2011, 08:11 PM)

Always right-click everything - especially everything written by me :) I've added the menu command to the main menu too, so it'll be easier to see.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Perry Mowbray on January 01, 2011, 08:20 PM

More minimal? :) I haven't thought about it yet. Probably not anything like Winamp's "rolled up" style though, because it cannot be done very well with standard,. non-skinned windows.

I'll talk about skinning later, but the bottom line is, no skins. Standard UI only, that's what works.

-tranglos (January 01, 2011, 08:11 PM)

No.. I don't want skins either or visualisations... was just thinking of a smaller window, or more controls in the Task Icon (and hotkeys?).

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 01, 2011, 08:22 PM

No.. I don't want skins either or visualisations... was just thinking of a smaller window, or more controls in the Task Icon (and hotkeys?).

-Perry Mowbray (January 01, 2011, 08:20 PM)

Hotkeys definitely - to bring up the main window, start and stop playing. As for the task icon menu, what else do you think should be there?

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: PhilB66 on January 01, 2011, 09:49 PM

Excellent. Downloading the stations DB took a while but it works flawlessly  :Thmbsup:

Like the interface very much. Thanks.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Perry Mowbray on January 01, 2011, 10:08 PM

No.. I don't want skins either or visualisations... was just thinking of a smaller window, or more controls in the Task Icon (and hotkeys?).

-Perry Mowbray (January 01, 2011, 08:20 PM)

Hotkeys definitely - to bring up the main window, start and stop playing. As for the task icon menu, what else do you think should be there?

-tranglos (January 01, 2011, 08:22 PM)

• Favourites
• History
• Volume

Is it possible to make the volume application specific rather than Global?

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 01, 2011, 10:27 PM

Is it possible to make the volume application specific rather than Global?

-Perry Mowbray (January 01, 2011, 10:08 PM)

Planned. (Though I think Mute should always be global, because it is typically used to silence all sounds e.g. when you're taking a phone call). There is already an option to choose whether volume control is global or for the application only, but only the global control works for now.

There's also going to be a way to save and restore volume for individual stations - some play quietly, others are quite loud. It's one of the history-related features.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Perry Mowbray on January 01, 2011, 10:31 PM

There's also going to be a way to save and restore volume for individual stations - some play quietly, others are quite loud. It's one of the history-related features.

-tranglos (January 01, 2011, 10:27 PM)

 :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup: :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 01, 2011, 11:06 PM

One thing that's already available and might be useful: portable mode.

ER does not modify the registry in any way. It will automatically set itself to portable mode (database and all config files in the same directory as the program) if you run it from a removable drive, such as a USB drive. However, it can also run in portable mode when installed on a hard disk:

In the same folder as the program, find a small file called master.config. Open it in any text editor and change the line

portable=0

to

portable=1

And save the file. When you start ER, it will again create the database, this time in a folder called 'data' under where the executable is. You can then use the program right there or copy the whole directory to a USB drive, etc. Using ER in portable mode may make it easier to backup the whole installation, including the database.

The only important thing to watch for: if you want to run ER in portable mode from a hard disk, do not install it under "Program Files", because it will not be able to save its configuration or modify the database. Just treat it as any other portable application in this respect.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: KynloStephen66515 on January 01, 2011, 11:42 PM

For those who want no GUI, why not make all the functions work on a rightclick context menu that runs only in taskbar.  Obviously, if you wanted to manually input a URL then a window would come up, but it keeps it clean, and hidden ;)

As for things like bookmarking, it could add a new item to menu itself, one click load :)

In regards to muting being global, allow the user to select program mute, or global mute, as sometimes you might wanna mute the software to watch something on youtube for example.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Perry Mowbray on January 02, 2011, 01:18 AM

More minimal? :)

-tranglos (January 01, 2011, 08:11 PM)

I was thinking something tiny (but with basic buttons) to tuck away somewhere:
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

For those who want no GUI, why not make all the functions work on a rightclick context menu that runs only in taskbar.

-Stephen66515 (January 01, 2011, 11:42 PM)

Yep!!  :Thmbsup:

In regards to muting being global, allow the user to select program mute, or global mute, as sometimes you might wanna mute the software to watch something on youtube for example.

-Stephen66515 (January 01, 2011, 11:42 PM)

For radio you generally just stop it I guess  :-\

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 02, 2011, 06:37 AM

I was thinking something tiny (but with basic buttons) to tuck away somewhere: (see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25068.msg229578#msg229578))

-Perry Mowbray (January 02, 2011, 01:18 AM)

I like that! There is some tricker involved in making a Delphi application that has multiple, switchable "main" windows, but I think I know how to make it work.

(What did you use to design this screenshot?)

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: KynloStephen66515 on January 02, 2011, 02:05 PM

(What did you use to design this screenshot?)

-tranglos (January 02, 2011, 06:37 AM)

Knowing Perry, he probably just made the form (none-working ofc) lol - I know thats what I would have done....easiest way haha

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: DeVamp on January 02, 2011, 03:40 PM

Great idea, great start.

Can't wait until more features are added. :-)

Keep going, I'll follow it for sure :-)

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: epopuI on January 02, 2011, 04:50 PM

Works well as a simple radio player - it would be nice to have a very low memory radio player without all the cosmetics - good luck with the coding

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Perry Mowbray on January 02, 2011, 05:44 PM

I was thinking something tiny (but with basic buttons) to tuck away somewhere: (see attachment in previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25068.msg229578#msg229578))

-Perry Mowbray (January 02, 2011, 01:18 AM)

I like that! There is some tricker involved in making a Delphi application that has multiple, switchable "main" windows, but I think I know how to make it work.

-tranglos (January 02, 2011, 06:37 AM)

I like the existing window... it's just got more information in it than I'd like when I'm listening to the radio and working on something else  :)

(What did you use to design this screenshot?)

-tranglos (January 02, 2011, 06:37 AM)

Knowing Perry, he probably just made the form (none-working ofc) lol - I know thats what I would have done....easiest way haha

-Stephen66515 (January 02, 2011, 02:05 PM)

Not quite, recently I've been playing with Cacoo:
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ] (http://cacoo.com/)

As it offers the ability to collaborate on interface...

Link to drawing: https://cacoo.com/diagrams/TYBg7dVsuVybmBla

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: KynloStephen66515 on January 02, 2011, 06:17 PM

Not quite, recently I've been playing with Cacoo:
 (see attachment in previous post (http://cacoo.com/)) (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=25068.msg229681#msg229681)

As it offers the ability to collaborate on interface...

Link to drawing: https://cacoo.com/diagrams/TYBg7dVsuVybmBla

-Perry Mowbray (January 02, 2011, 05:44 PM)

Ah, that looks really good, ill have to signup to it later

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: mouser on January 05, 2011, 09:05 PM

one thing i would like is that the search box seems to only search for a string -- it would really be nice to be able to search for multiple words anywhere, for i could type: england,jazz to find entries that have the word england somewhere AND the word jazz somewhere.  obviously one could get more fancy but basic AND / OR would be nice.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 05, 2011, 09:27 PM

Mouser, I think this is one of the "goes without saying" things :) It's totally on the list, and it's important, but the list is crowded at the top.

I've already implemented a few critical features since the initial release, so there will be a new release in a few days. Right now I'm trying to find out if there's a Delphi implementation of ISimpleAudioVolume interface - and there doesn't seem to be. I expected volume control was going to be easy...

On edit: There is of course a lot more to be improved in the search window. Right now it doesn't display match count, and afer you hit enter you can't easily get back to the search input box - plenty of basic stuff like this. No history, no clearing, no notification on "match not found", etc. I should ahve waited for NANY 2012!

And I'll need to add some kind of synonym substitution as well.  For example, for stations in the US, the database contains "United States". If you type "USA" instead, you won't get what you expect.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: dantheman on January 10, 2011, 04:00 PM

Where can i vote on this one?

Excellent!

 :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Perry Mowbray on January 10, 2011, 04:15 PM

Where can i vote on this one?

Excellent!

 :Thmbsup:

-dantheman (January 10, 2011, 04:00 PM)

There is no voting (in NANY): except with your usage and donations...  ;)

You can also "spread the word" about it: they are all votes for the application.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: superboyac on January 10, 2011, 04:34 PM

Ah!  Always great to see tranglos developing new software. One of the best!

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 10, 2011, 05:01 PM

<blush!>

Ah!  Always great to see tranglos developing new software. One of the best!

-superboyac (January 10, 2011, 04:34 PM)

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: mouser on January 10, 2011, 05:24 PM

Ah!  Always great to see tranglos developing new software. One of the best!

agreed -- we are lucky to have kidnapped him first so we get to see his creations.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 10, 2011, 07:38 PM

New release: version 0.1.2. Uploaded 2011-01-11

Download: please use the attachment link in the top message in this thread.

Changes in this version:

1. A number of new features regarding volume control:

- By default, the volume slider controls only the radio player's internal volume, not the global Windows volume as before. Previous installations will keep the earlier behavior. Delete the configuration file to enable the new default.

- Mute function is now implemented (press 'M' or Backspace to toggle). The mute setting affects only the radio player. Global Windows volume is not muted.

- Added an option to set global volume on startup to a predefined value. Disabled by default. (Can be enabled in the configuration file)

- Added an option to save and restore last-used volume for each station played. Enabled by default. (Can be disabled in the configuration file). Please note: when restoring a station's volume, both the global (system-wide) volume level and the radio player's internal volume level are updated. This is the only way to ensure consistency. It makes little sense to save and restore only the radio player's internal volume, since the global volume level may be set differently each time.

- Volume slider is updated when system volume changes (with a slight delay; only when global volume control is enabled)

2. Added a simple VU meter. (Can be disabled in the configuration file)

3. Favicon is displayed for currently playing station, if the station's website has one.

4. Station playback history is now stored: date and time the station was last played, number of times the station has been played, total time the station has been played, and the station's volume (see above). This information will be used more heavily in the future, but for now it is used to sort the Favorites menu (default: most often played stations first) and the History menu (default: most recently played stations first). Likewise, connection errors are now stored for each playback source; in the future this data may be used to prioritize sources.

5. The player's state and the name of the station being played are shown in the title bar.

6. Added navigation functions: Back (Alt+Left arrow) plays the previous station; Forward (Alt+Right arrow) plays the next station. This sequence of stations is only maintained during a single program session, similar to Back and Forward buttons in a web browser.

7. Added a feature to play a random station (press 'R'). It tries to select stations that have never been played yet. (Still needs some fine-tuning).

8. Debugging log slightly improved; shows more details and uses color-coded severity levels.

9. Lots of minor fixes and improvements.

Known issues: Nothing major yet. Playback of some stations stutters once at the beginning. This affects only some stations and other players exhibit it too, but I hate it, so I'm listing it as a bug :)

Next up: More detailed display (playback timer, current track information); search improvements (I know the search window is really weak right now); hotkeys; UI to configure settings.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: happygrandad on January 11, 2011, 03:09 AM

A great APP, nice & minimal. Suits me just fine. Keep up the good work! :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: mouser on January 11, 2011, 03:34 AM

one of my very favorite things on dc is when new people are inspired to make their first post saying that they like something made by someone on the site.   :Thmbsup:
welcome to the site happygrandad, and please make yourself at home.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 11, 2011, 05:35 AM

Thank you, happygrandad, it's great to have you with us!

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: bob99 on January 11, 2011, 09:48 AM

This is great. Added it to my LBC to find it quick.
I'm seeing an occasional glitch with it on my machine. I'm running XP Pro sp2.
From the menu, Radio > Random Station.
Most times it selects a station and starts playing fine.  Occasionally after selecting random Ethervane just shuts down. Immediately on the screen and a few seconds later in the task bar.
Anything else I can provide to help figure out why this happens? When I restart it and go to the debug log it's empty.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 11, 2011, 05:04 PM

Most times it selects a station and starts playing fine.  Occasionally after selecting random Ethervane just shuts down. Immediately on the screen and a few seconds later in the task bar.
Anything else I can provide to help figure out why this happens? When I restart it and go to the debug log it's empty.

-bob99 (January 11, 2011, 09:48 AM)

Thanks for the report, Bob. The log is cleared when the program restarts. You'll need to find the log file and make a copy before you restart the player. On XP, the log file is located in:

c:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Ethervane\ethervaneradio\log\

It would help to know the stations which cause this error, and if it happens consistently. Feel free to email me the log file.

(This worries me a little, because the behavior you describe indicates the error may not be coming from my Delphi code. It is very rare for a Delphi app to just crash and disappear. Usually even the worst problem should end up as a message in a dialog box. A crash like you've described is much more likely to be caused by the bass dll, the library I'm using for streaming audio. It would be great to see a log file!)

...and since I'm now temporarily back on XP, my emergency laptop, I may be seeing the crash myself. Will try!

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 11, 2011, 05:09 PM

Just wanted to say it's a good thing I released version .2 last night, because today in the morning my Tagan power supply fried... barely a month after its 36-month warranty expired. Isn't it just cute. Blew all the breakers in my apartment, too.

Since the design of my case requires a power supply with the motherboard cable at least 55 cm long, and such are hard to come by (most are thirty-something cm), I'm now on my emergency laptop, back to XP, with no coding tools at all.

Looks like a dry week or two, until I find a suitable power supply and get it delivered.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: PhilB66 on January 11, 2011, 06:14 PM

I can confirm bob99's report but i am afraid there's not much in the log file to help with debugging.

All initialization stages completed
SEARCHING : 1  Search : 251 ms  Load: 0 ms  Populate : 10 ms
Session 1 abandoned

Started ER, Esc, search for a station, double-clicled on the entry in the 'Find Radio Station' window... ER just crashed after a sec.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 11, 2011, 06:44 PM

All initialization stages completed
SEARCHING : 1  Search : 251 ms  Load: 0 ms  Populate : 10 ms
Session 1 abandoned

Started ER, Esc, search for a station, double-clicled on the entry in the 'Find Radio Station' window... ER just crashed after a sec.

-PhilB66 link=topic=25068.msg231420#msg231420

Looks like it's crashing as soon as it's trying to load a station from the database, but this is extremely unlikely. More likely, the log file hasn't had a chance to flush. As soon as I have access to Delphi again, I will enable flushing the log after each and every line - that should preserve more inforomation. Too bad I can't do it right now (my main 'puter pretty much went up in smoke today, from too much exertion no doubt :-) )

Do you recall what station it was you that you tried to play? Are you running XP too? Can you play other stations successfully, or does it always crash this way?

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 11, 2011, 06:53 PM

Got it! Isn't it just a lucky happenstance that my power supply blew up today, forcing me to switch to an old, old XP laptop? I've seen the crash and yes, ER just puff and disappears. The log did have the name of the station that caused this, and I can confirm it crashes every time I try to play the station.

For the curious: search for "CJFH". This will produce one station. Play it, and ER will just die on the spot. Now if someone could try and see if the same thing happens on Windows 7 as well, I'd appreciate.

Sorry I can't do anything about it at the moment. As soon as my coding machine is back up, I will investigate further. Meanwhile, I'll try playing the same station using other BASS-based players (aimp, screamer).

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: DavidtheChristianguy on January 11, 2011, 07:16 PM

I have tried for several minutes but can't find the download button for the Ethervane Radio. 
I love oldies and christian radio and would love to be a supporter but can't find where to start. 
Yes, I did watch your help video.
DavidtheChristianguy

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 11, 2011, 07:18 PM

I have tried for several minutes but can't find the download button for the Ethervane Radio. 
I love oldies and christian radio and would love to be a supporter but can't find where to start. 
Yes, I did watch your help video.
DavidtheChristianguy

-DavidtheChristianguy (January 11, 2011, 07:16 PM)

Hi David,

The program doesn't yet have its own web site - that will happen eventually. The download link is in my first message, at the top of this thread. The file is an attachment to the message. Try this link:

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=25068.0;attach=54522

Or try clicking here (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=25068.0;attach=54522)

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: PhilB66 on January 11, 2011, 07:22 PM

@tranglos

The radio station was 'Afterhours'. No problem playing this station with RadioSure (also Baas based).

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: PhilB66 on January 11, 2011, 07:28 PM

BTW, there is a newer version of the Baas library (2.4.7.1).

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: mouser on January 11, 2011, 07:32 PM

The program doesn't yet have its own web site - that will happen eventually.

if you want some space on our member server just ask!

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 11, 2011, 07:39 PM

The program doesn't yet have its own web site - that will happen eventually.

if you want some space on our member server just ask!

-mouser (January 11, 2011, 07:32 PM)

Thanks, mouser, that's very kind. (I actually still have a login, but never used it.) All I need is time :-)

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 11, 2011, 07:43 PM

@tranglos

The radio station was 'Afterhours'. No problem playing this station with RadioSure (also Baas based).

-PhilB66 (January 11, 2011, 07:22 PM)

OK, I have good news, kind-of. The previous release of ER does not crash in this way. It still won't play the station (in the case of CJFH, the server returns 200 OK, but also sends a redirection URL to the correct playlist file. Browsers handle this situation somehow, ER does not, yet).

But it is clear now that the crashes are caused by some change I've introduced in the last few days, so I will definitely be able to fix the problem. And the stations should eventually be playable.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: bob99 on January 11, 2011, 09:56 PM

Tried running it on my Win 7 x64 with "CJFH" station and it also crashed.  It didn't just go away like in XP. Win 7 popped up a screen "Ethervane Radio Has Stopped Working" but it did not have a reason why.
Even after I closed the pop-up the icon is still in the system tray. In fact I now have two icons in the tray since I tried running it twice.  I checked the program folder and do not see a log file.  Would it be different in Win 7?

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 11, 2011, 10:05 PM

The crashing bug has been fixed. I couldn't really let it go, so I installed Delphi on the laptop and found the problem. No other changes in this release, but ER should no longer crash/disappear on trying to play a station.

Download link in the top message:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=25068.0;attach=54553


Tech note: the error would occur after ER downloaded and analyzed a playlist that appeared to be empty (no valid links to audio streams were found in the playlist). Now ER will no longer crash, but for some stations it still cannot read the playlists properly. The situation with CJFH is a good example: when ER asks for the playlist, the server responds with '200 OK' message, so the body of the response should contain the playlist. Turns out, the body contains a random html web page with a redirection URL (to the real playlist) embedded in a refresh directive. I've never been a web admin, but this is not right: the server's response code contradicts what the server actually does. It's like being told the light is green, when it is actually red. I'll try to handle such pathological cases later.

For now - and here's the reward for having read this far - there is a configuration setting that may let ER play more stations, including the dreaded CJFH and perhaps others that were causing the crashing problem before. Close ER and edit the configuration file (found under "Application Data/ethervane/ethervane radio"); the file is named "ethervaneradio-config.ini". In the file, find the line

SelfHandlePlaylists=True

and change it to

SelfHandlePlaylists=False

Save the file and restart ER. Now the BASS library will be handling all the playlists requests itself. Normally, ER downloads and parses all playlists, because according to the docs, BASS only supports m3u and pls formats. However, the docs appear to be inaccurate, and BASS supports other popular playlists formats as well, such as asx, so there may be no need for ER to do any handling of playlists directly.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 11, 2011, 10:09 PM

Tried running it on my Win 7 x64 with "CJFH" station and it also crashed.  It didn't just go away like in XP. Win 7 popped up a screen "Ethervane Radio Has Stopped Working" but it did not have a reason why.

-bob99 (January 11, 2011, 09:56 PM)

Thanks, Bob! I've just posted an updated version that should not crash anymore. More explanation and download link in my post immediately above this one.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: bob99 on January 11, 2011, 10:23 PM

No problem.  I'll get the latest.
I knew it would be fixed... just not this fast :Thmbsup:
Looking forward to your other additions to ER as it evolves.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: PhilB66 on January 11, 2011, 10:46 PM

Thanks for the quick fix. Works fine on XP SP3.  :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: belight on January 12, 2011, 03:38 AM

Thanks - I love it.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: bob99 on January 12, 2011, 09:22 AM

Tranglos

It is working on my XP sp2.  Meaning no shutdowns using the random selection.  But the CJFH test still isn't even after the config change to False.  I have to head out but will try again this evening to make sure I did everything correctly and let you know what is happening (or not happening).  Some stations not playing isn't a problem for me, there are still plenty of good ones to listen to.  I know this is still a work in progress.

Thanks again for the great N.A.N.Y. program/entry!

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 12, 2011, 10:24 AM

But the CJFH test still isn't even after the config change to False.

-bob99 (January 12, 2011, 09:22 AM)

This is to be expected. The server is really configured in an abnormal manner. Only browsers can handle such unusual cases, because a lot of programmer time is devoted to making sure every last website can be displayed, no matter how badly designed.

At least with ER handling playlists by itself, rather than handing them all off to the BASS library, I can tweak the code so that more stations can play successfully. In some cases the station is simply gone, but there are probably many other stations like CJFH - they exist, but require much "special attention" to handle.

Side note: I had no idea how many badly configured sites exist. You'd think website owners, radio stations in particular, would go out of their way to make it easy for people to reach them. But that would be too rational for human beings to be :) In the early days of the web, where html documents were nearly all hand-crafted, syntax errors in html were the norm, things like mismatched tags, etc. Today most output is computer-generated, so it takes only one small effort to get things right, but still there are monsters out there.

I was writing a parser for ASX playlists, which seems to be the most common format in use today (more common than m3u and pls put together). It's a very simple XML format. There were originally about 5400 asx playlists in the database, and of those, over 1100 (about 20%) were invalid XML. Tags were unmatched, tag case was all over the place (XML tags are case sensitive, so that <FOO> </foo> is not valid), and sometimes the playlist had the asx extension, but in fact was m3u or some other format. That meant I could not be using a regular XML parser for these files, and instead had to spend a few days writing code to handle all those misshapen formats. It was an interesting experience!

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: bob99 on January 12, 2011, 08:25 PM

Installing on my Win 7 tonight.  Meant to ask before.  Should I 1st delete the files in the folder where I placed the earlier version or will they be overwritten after I unzip and copy or move the latest version to the folder? Should I have also deleted the files in the user app data folder before updating?  I noticed on my XP this morning that even after updating it had still remembered some favorites I had chosen during my random selections with the previous version. Ver 0.1.2b didn't attempt to create the database file like the 1st installation did.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 12, 2011, 09:01 PM

Installing on my Win 7 tonight.  Meant to ask before.  Should I 1st delete the files in the folder where I placed the earlier version or will they be overwritten after I unzip and copy or move the latest version to the folder? Should I have also deleted the files in the user app data folder before updating?  

-bob99 (January 12, 2011, 08:25 PM)

You did well. Just extract the new version over the earlier files. There's no need to delete anything in app data.

I noticed on my XP this morning that even after updating it had still remembered some favorites I had chosen during my random selections with the previous version. Ver 0.1.2b didn't attempt to create the database file like the 1st installation did.

-bob99 (January 12, 2011, 08:25 PM)

That's because the database already exists. Your favorites (and now, history) will persist, as they should.

In case I need to change the structure of the database with some future release, I'll do my best to keep the existing data, but I'm not making this a cross-my-heart promise as long as ER is at alpha stage. That said, I'm not planning on any heavy restructuring.

As for the configuration, it's still partly in flux. You can keep the configuration file as well, or you can delete it, so that ER will create a new one with all the default settings. (Defaults can change between versions, as was the case with volume control.) Pretty soon I'll add a proper configuration dialog, so this will be less of an issue.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: PhilB66 on January 12, 2011, 09:06 PM

I use Ethervane Radio portable. I only replaced the .exe. If you delete the configuration files (.ini) they will be recreated once you run ER but you will lose your settings. Also, the DB is still at version 1.0. You do not need to delete the file but you may delete the 'Distrib' folder with the EthervaneRadio.xml file in it. It's not needed after ER created the DB file (.sqlite).

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: PhilB66 on January 12, 2011, 09:25 PM

@tranglos

How do I flush the 'History' listing? I tried to manipulate the ethervaneradio-config.ini file by changin the HistorySpan=o but ER still shows a list of radio stations under the 'History' tab. I also changed HistoryMaintain to false but no help there either, the list is still there.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 13, 2011, 07:20 AM

@tranglos

How do I flush the 'History' listing? I tried to manipulate the ethervaneradio-config.ini file by changin the HistorySpan=o but ER still shows a list of radio stations under the 'History' tab. I also changed HistoryMaintain to false but no help there either, the list is still there.

-PhilB66 (January 12, 2011, 09:25 PM)

These config options don't do anything yet, and right now there is no way to clear the history inside the program. There are three things you can do:

1) delete the database entirely. ER will recreate it, as long as you have kept the "Distrib" folder from the original zip file. Downside: you'll lose your Favorites as well.

2) Download a free program to manipulate SQLite databases, such as SQLiteSpy (http://www.yunqa.de/delphi/doku.php/products/sqlitespy/index) (doesn't require installation). Open the database file in this program. There is a pane on top where you can type commands. Paste the following code:

DELETE FROM [history];

and hit F9. This will clear the contents of the history table.

3) In the configuration file, in the section "EthervaneRadio.HistoryMenuOptions", set the menu item count to zero. Make the following change:

[EthervaneRadio.HistoryMenuOptions]
MaxMenuItemCount=0

Methods 1 and 2 will clear the history, but it will start growing again as you use the program. Method 3 will ensure the History menu stays empty.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: PhilB66 on January 13, 2011, 07:59 PM

Cleared the history table with SQLiteSpy   :up:

Cheers,

Phil

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: allen on January 14, 2011, 12:59 PM

This is outstanding.

Where is the default db drawn from?

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 14, 2011, 02:35 PM

This is outstanding.

Where is the default db drawn from?

-allen (January 14, 2011, 12:59 PM)

All kinds of sources. Websites, conversion from other formats, etc. I did eliminate a large number of stations that yield 404 and other permanent connection errors, but there still is a number of stations that are or appear defunct. I'll try to trim them at some later point.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: allen on January 14, 2011, 03:39 PM

Looks like you have 2/3 of the Blue Mars stations. The third is self-titled

Blue Mars (http://bluemars.org/bluemars.php)
http://207.200.96.225:8020/listen.pls

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: bob99 on January 15, 2011, 03:18 PM

"Playing" with ER.  Using the Find Station I put in a couple of station call letters I knew.  They weren't in the database yet.  Went back to your 1st post and read about the search feature so I tried the city name.  Up pops the stations in the DB for the city. COOL!

Clicked on one of them, sorry don't remember which one, and I got this pop-up:

[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

It's the 1st time it has happened and I've brought up a number of random stations and now some in different city or country searches.
This is on my Win 7 x64 with Windows Security Essentials AV.

If it helps I can go back through the history and see if it happens again.
 

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 15, 2011, 04:33 PM

Clicked on one of them, sorry don't remember which one, and I got this pop-up:

-bob99 (January 15, 2011, 03:18 PM)

Perfectly normal. It's the Windows Firewall making sure you want to permit ER to use the network.

Most stations use port 80, so ER looks just like a web browser to the firewall. But some stations run on other ports, and if Windows Firewall hasn't yet seen ER access one of those non-typical ports, it may pop up the prompt. Allow or deny as you prefer.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: bob99 on January 16, 2011, 09:39 AM

Thanks. My thoughts were it had to be something to do with the station since it hadn't happened before on others.  Didn't think about the station wanting to come in using a different port.
 

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: iebbed on January 16, 2011, 06:07 PM

Just wanted to give my heartfelt thanks for a fabulous little piece of software.
Living near the flood stricken region of SE QLD Australia I found myself safe but without phone, TV, radio or mobile phone reception yet amazing still had internet connection.
Your program enabled me to tune into the local and regional radio stations and get the latest news, and updates on the flood and road closures.
Thank you!  :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: skwire on January 17, 2011, 09:52 AM

Just wanted to give my heartfelt thanks for a fabulous little piece of software.
Living near the flood stricken region of SE QLD Australia I found myself safe but without phone, TV, radio or mobile phone reception yet amazing still had internet connection.
Your program enabled me to tune into the local and regional radio stations and get the latest news, and updates on the flood and road closures.
Thank you!  :Thmbsup:

-iebbed (January 16, 2011, 06:07 PM)

That's an awesome first post.   :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: superboyac on January 17, 2011, 11:49 AM

Just wanted to give my heartfelt thanks for a fabulous little piece of software.
Living near the flood stricken region of SE QLD Australia I found myself safe but without phone, TV, radio or mobile phone reception yet amazing still had internet connection.
Your program enabled me to tune into the local and regional radio stations and get the latest news, and updates on the flood and road closures.
Thank you!  :Thmbsup:

-iebbed (January 16, 2011, 06:07 PM)

That's an awesome first post.   :Thmbsup:

-skwire (January 17, 2011, 09:52 AM)

No kidding!  It's really great to hear stuff like that.  Tranglos has really done a lot for people in his coding career.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on January 17, 2011, 07:06 PM

Just wanted to give my heartfelt thanks for a fabulous little piece of software.

-iebbed (January 16, 2011, 06:07 PM)

This is really fantastic to hear. Thank you so much, and welcome to DC!

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: Leif on January 26, 2011, 03:38 AM

Looks very nice indeed. And now that Screamer seems to be (half) dead we need something that works.   :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: DeVamp on February 22, 2011, 03:24 AM

I'd like to mention one thing:

The program makes use of the proxy settings of internet explorer
At least I think.

At work (portable) I need internet explorer with proxy configured.
At home, I use Opera on the same portable, so I leave the proxy settings in IE.
But I could not make a connection to any radio.

When I cleared the proxy settings in IE, it worked immediately.

I didn't found a mention to this somewhere.

Great job on the program! :Thmbsup:

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on February 22, 2011, 07:48 AM

Hi DeVamp,

The truth is the program doesn't do anything at all (yet) about the proxy. So one part of the program (the BASS library, which downloads and decodes audio streams) uses IE settings by default, while another part (my own code that downloads playlists) does not use proxies at all.

This is one of the things I need to straighten our pretty urgently. I hope to do a new release before the end of the month.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio
Post by: tranglos on February 28, 2011, 05:19 PM

New version: 0.2.4, released 2011-02-28

1. Significantly improved Search dialog box:

- The dialog box now has its own taskbar button (can switch to it via Alt+Tab)

- Search is significantly faster, especially when a large number of matches is returned. (Search is now completed in about 30% of the time it took previously)

- Two search modes: "Basic" and "Advanced". To switch press F4 or use the "Options" button.

a) BASIC mode works as before, the program finds the text exactly as it is entered. However, wildcards (? and *) can now be used in the middle of the string, so that "United States" and "Uni*tes" will return pretty much the same results.

b) ADVANCED mode works a little like Google search.
- Enter terms separated by spaces, e.g.

tango argentina

- Ethervane Radio will find all stations which contain BOTH terms. This is the same as typing:

tango AND argentina

- Phrases must be enclosed in double quotes:

jazz AND "united states"

- AND is the default conjunction (operator), but you can also use OR and NOT, as well as parentheses:

( tango OR salsa ) AND ( argentina OR brazil )
tango AND NOT argentina

- Wildcards can be used anywhere in the search terms. For example, if you are not sure whether to spell "Brasil" or "Brazil", enter:

bra?il

Or, if you don't want to spell a long name, you can say

tango and arg*

- All terms entered as described above will be found in ALL station fields (name, genre, country, region, network, website, tagline, etc.). However, you can also specify that a term must occur in a specific field. To do that, use the full or abbreviated name of a field, followed by colon, followed by the text you are looking for. To find stations from France:

country:France
cou:France
c:France

or even (using a wildcard)

c:Fr*

Note: "city" and "country" start with the same letter. If you only use  "c:", country is assumed.
- Phrases must still be quoted:

city:"New York"

You can combine any of the above in whatever ways you wish. Note that because the default operator is AND, the following will return no results:

genre:jazz genre:chillout

This, however, will work as expected:

genre:jazz OR genre:chillout

To know the available fields and their names, click the "Field" button in the search window. Clicking one of the listed fields will enter it into the search box and let you continue typing.
Note: to search for station websites you can use both "w:" (website) or "u:" (url).

- Synonym matching has been introduced. It cannot be configured yet, and for now only 1 synonym is defined: you can search for "usa" instead of always having to type "United States". (ADVANCED mode only.)

- Using the Options button in the search window you can switch between "Instant search" (search as you type) and "Wait for Enter". Instant search is only available in the BASIC mode.

- A new option under the Options button in the search window is "Automatic wildcards". It applies only to the ADVANCED mode. When this option is turned OFF, ER will find the text exactly as typed, and you may use wildcards anywhere. For example, to search for stations whose genre is "jazz", you can type

g:jazz

However, this will not find stations where genre is "smooth jazz" (or "jazz, smooth"). You can manually add wildcards to find those:

g:*jazz*

If "Automatic wildcards" is turned ON, the program will always automatically wrap your search terms in wildcards, so that searching for "jazz" is the same as searching for "*jazz*". This applies to ADVANCED mode only. (In BASIC mode terms are always wrapped in wildcards).

- All settings described above will be remembered when you close and restart the program.

- Current mode is shown on the Options button. Also, in ADVANCED mode, the search box background is light yellow, so you can easily recognize the current mode.

2. Log window improved (use the Options button, and right-click the message list for more options)

3. Track titles ("now playing" data) are now displayed, if available from the server you are listening to. Still more station and track information will be shown in the next release.

4. Lots of improvements under the hood. (All configuration settings will be reset, sorry about that! It may happen any time as long as the app is in alpha stage, and until there is a proper configuration dialog box.)

5. Added a timer in the status bar to show playback time.

6. From now on, you can also download Ethervane Radio from the following links:
http://www.tranglos.com/free/files/EthervaneRadio.zip
http://www.ethervane.com/files/EthervaneRadio.zip

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio 0.2.4
Post by: tranglos on February 28, 2011, 05:31 PM

Whew... it's taken some time, but I've had to clear the path for mo' better features.  Next up, more station data, proxy configuration (not yet, sorry!) and finally the actual station browser, so you can browse through what's available instead of searching.

I'm going for a short trip this week, so if I don't reply here within a few days, don't worry.

It is always possible to mess something up in a new release. Keep your current version, just in case, so you can revert to it if the new version fails.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio 0.2.4
Post by: tranglos on February 28, 2011, 06:43 PM

...and I also want to say, THE MUG IS AWESOME! Thank you, Mouser, and thank you, Nudone!  :-*

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio 0.2.4
Post by: enar on March 30, 2011, 01:50 PM

one word

...AWESOME...  :-*

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio 0.2.4
Post by: DeVamp on April 14, 2011, 06:42 AM

Lovely update.
Great improvement of the search function  :-*

Keep up the work :-)

P.S. in what language is this written?

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio 0.2.4
Post by: tranglos on April 14, 2011, 10:10 AM

P.S. in what language is this written?

-DeVamp (April 14, 2011, 06:42 AM)

Thanks, DeVamp :) It's written in Delphi XE, which I think is the best Delphi edition ever.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio 0.2.4
Post by: MrEprize on January 16, 2012, 03:01 PM

Nice radio player!  I have been playing around with it a lot.  I was curious if it is still being developed?  If so I would like to offer a suggestion about AAC streams. 
I have a low bandwidth impairment and usually listen to 40-48k AAC streams because they tend to not stutter every 5 minutes.  My request would be a separation or indication of AAC streams, stream rate would be handy also.  I am sure other people would benefit also from these additions.
Thanks for your consideration and time!

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio 0.2.4
Post by: tranglos on January 19, 2012, 05:03 AM

Nice radio player!  I have been playing around with it a lot.  I was curious if it is still being developed?

-MrEprize (January 16, 2012, 03:01 PM)

It absolutely is. It's just that the radio was in many ways a first for me: my first database-backed application, first app that handles internet streams, first app that relies on heavy thread use, first app that's nearly 100% asynchronous, etc. So there's a number of things I did not get right the first time and that need much more work.

If so I would like to offer a suggestion about AAC streams. 
I have a low bandwidth impairment and usually listen to 40-48k AAC streams because they tend to not stutter every 5 minutes.  My request would be a separation or indication of AAC streams, stream rate would be handy also.  I am sure other people would benefit also from these additions.

I totally agree. At the moment there is no way to select a particular stream. The app simply tries all available streams in sequence until it finds one that works. This is one of this things that I'll have to address, but I can't say when this will happen.

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio 0.2.4
Post by: bob99 on January 20, 2012, 12:56 PM

I've been using Ethervane Radio more and more recently.  ESPECIALLY since it gives me access to a few stations I haven't been able to get on some of the bigger named programs.  I've also noticed the sound quality through my external speakers seems better too.  It at least seems I need to tweak the other programs a little with an EQ plug-in for them to sound as good.   Are you doing anything special to make ER sound better or am just (or not) hearing things??  :tellme:

There are times though I would like to boost the bass a little with ER.  Are there any recommendations of an add on EQ that could work with ER?  I've gone through all of my sound/speaker settings and there isn't anything installed.  This is a Dell laptop with whatever stock sound card came with it.

Thanks!

Title: Re: NANY 2011 Release: Ethervane Radio 0.2.4
Post by: bob99 on April 05, 2012, 09:30 AM

Hi Tranglos,

I went to both your new and old sites and noticed Ethervane Radio isn't shown on either. Do you have any further updates/features planned? Not being pushy, just wondering?

Also, one of the links in your initial post is 404'ing.
Links copied from your original post:
This one works ok. Brings up a download file dialog.
http://www.tranglos.com/free/files/EthervaneRadio.zip (http://www.tranglos.com/free/files/EthervaneRadio.zip)

This one comes back with the 404:
http://www.ethervane.com/files/EthervaneRadio.zip (http://www.ethervane.com/files/EthervaneRadio.zip)

I am running v 0.2.4.42. Is this the current one available?  Latest shown in the 1st post just has 0.2.4 and Feb 28 with no year.

It is working fine except for occasionally not being able to connect to a station that comes up in the search.  Luckily for me most of the ones I like ARE connecting.

Thanks fot the great program.