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Bouncy Radio Center

Bouncy Radio Center 9 & iPhone / iPod Touch Listeners

2 announcments here, first of all, the new v9 radio center will now list all listeners tuned in on the iPhone or iPod Touch and display a cool little icon next to them in the listener info list and secondly all BouncyServers SHOUTcast customers radio streams are listed with SHOUTcast’s stream directory by default, meaning that they now have the potential to attract more listeners, even if they are not visitors to there websites.

This option can be switched off for people who wish to remain private of course and the same applys for our V-Cast customers with video streams.

That’s about it, just a quick update really but there will be more news coming soon on the new progress of the new radio center.

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Bouncy Radio Center 9 RAJAX Module

So I’ve been working a lot on a feature that has been requested for a LONG time, a feature which seen an early implementation in old versions for a brief period. That’s right, AJAX refreshing of radio data “in page”. Basically this is updating details such as the current song playing, DJ, listeners etc. without having to refresh the page.

This is where i would like to introduce to you the brand spanking new RAJAX module for Bouncy Radio Center v9. RAJAX is short for ‘Radio Asynchronous JavaScript and XML’ and comes bundled with the new Radio Center App.

CaptureRAJAX comes with 2 modes, Auto & Manual, quite simple really, Auto Mode will update the radio data every ‘x’ amount of seconds after the page has loaded, while Manual Mode provides buttons to the right of each block of data, which when clicked, will update the relative information, However, Auto Mode also includes the refresh buttons, allowing for you to check the current song for example as you wish.

In addition to this some protection has been put into place for those people who visit the page, fall asleep and forget all about it. This comes in the form of a Decay time. What this basically does is double the wait time if data has not been updated on a certain RAJAX element. Let me show you in detail, lets assume this check is for the name of the current song playing.

Check Time Since Load Starting Decay Did Data Change? Ending Decay Time To Wait Comments
1 00:00 1 N/A 1 30sec Data is deemed changed as there is no prior response to compare to
2 00:30 1 YES 1 30sec song name changed so decay is reset to default which was already 1
3 01:00 1 NO 2 60sec song name not changed, decay and wait time doubled
4 02:00 2 NO 4 120sec still no change, double again
5 04:00 4 NO 8 240sec no change again, double again
6 08:00 8 YES 1 30Sec ahh, data changed, reset the decay and wait times to default

 

So as you can see, if somebody sits on the page, and the radio goes offline for example, rather than there browser making a request every 30 seconds, it will double the wait and decay time if nothing has changed. This means idle users wont hog up resources making un-needed requests.

In regards to how this works if you have a song for example which is 6 minutes long playing on the radio, it should be caught and updated by check 6, if however you have a song which is say 9 minutes long, check 6 would detect no change and would have to wait an additional 8 minutes before the next check picks up the change, this is not a serious problem, as you could just click the refresh button to update that element and the decay and wait time is reset again.

So that’s most of the technical side sorted, well, at least all you need to know for now. Oh yes, RAJAX will also feed any custom radio hooks, apps, modules that users may create letting you take full advantage of it in your own custom modules whether its inside of the forum scripting or not, RAJAX is there to feed you, and your there to be fed.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave me your thoughts and comments.

oh, and before i forget you can test RAJAX live over at our development forums http://dev.bouncyservers.co.uk

Until next time, keep it bouncy! (poor attempt at a sign of line)

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Bouncy Radio Center v9.0 Beta Preview

With IP.Board v3 not far away it is finally time to make a move and start writing all the apps for it and where better to start than with the ever popular Bouncy Radio Center.

Bouncy Radio Center v9 Beta Preview

So there is the preview, now for the information on what’s changed so far.

First of all the left column has had a major change, The members avatar is no longer shown and has been replaced with a radio status image and below 2 of IP.Boards new style percentage bars showing current listeners and peak listeners.

Below this we have the tune in links, eventually these will each have there own little icons to the left rather than the temporary on that shows in this preview. Below this you can then see a new feature also. This is the Radio Availability display and gives a visual and textual representation of how many tune in slots are available on the radio. if there’s more than half of total slots available it will show green, if its around half it will show a grey neutral colour, and below half will show red.

Moving further down the left column is the new status layout. Basically there will be 3 types of DJ’s. Resident DJ’s which are DJ’s with permanent, regular or scheduled slots on your radio. Then there is also Guest DJ, which is for DJ’s who do one off shows, or fill in for other DJ’s and have no set schedule or show, and finally, Not A DJ which is pretty much self explanatory.

Things on the main column look pretty much familiar with a few exceptions. There’s a new Radio announcement bar at the very top of the main window, allowing you to quickly post any important radio related messages to people, such as a show cancellation and a slot needing filling, or if your looking for DJ’s like in the preview above.

The main tabbed area will also be changed. I am currently deciding on a new approach for this. In older versions tabs used a custom AJAX query so that no page reloading was required, this however while beneficial displayed a few problems. Firstly the data on the page such as radio status was not updated whilst changing through tabs, and you could not link directly to a tabbed page. Due to this there is a good chance the functions of this are going to be completely re-written meaning you can directly link to tabs.

Finally we have 2 small boxes below the main window. These are information on the current radio show playing, and the current DJ. Current Show Information shows the DJ who’s on air, the show or song they are playing, and the genre of the show. To the right we have the DJ Contact Information, This contains website and messenger fields, both of which are specified in the SHOUTcast plug-in under “yellow pages” when connecting to the radio.

The new Bouncy Radio Center will also support plug-in modules, allowing owners to create there own custom tabs and plug-in’s for the radio center, as well as custom hooks and admin modules. Additional Hooks and Modules will also be available from BouncyServers for licensed customers. In addition to this i will also be providing some variable documentation to assist in the creation of custom modules.

Check back soon for a preview of the front end global bar and board panel preview and i hope your are liking the new Bouncy Radio Center so far. If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to leave them on this article.

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Bouncy Radio Center v8.2 Released

Were pleased to announce the release of Bouncy Radio Center v8.2 tonight as it brings some nice performance increases as well as a new look.

Version 8.2 now supports 2 licensing methods, either of which you can choose from within the Radio Center settings. The licensing methods are:

1: Remote sockets
2: Local Key

both have there benefits. Remote sockets uses your license key to contact our licensing server to authenticate your license and Local Key uses a key file uploaded to your web space to validate your license. Local Key provides the best possible performance and causes no interruption if your server is busy or the licensing server does not respond, however, the license key needs to be replaced with a new key every 30 days to keep things nice and secure. The Remote Sockets method will contact the license server on every page view of your forum. this can cause quite a bit of traffic to and from the licensing server, but this method requires no updating every 30 days.

In addition to the much awaited licensing methods, we are happy to introduce 7 new skins for the live stream player. and taken note of some requested features to help make your life a little bit easier.

You will now find 3 new settings for the Live Stream player. They are as follows:

1: Live Stream Player Skin
2: Live Stream Player Width
3: Auto Play Live Stream

this solves 2 issues people were having with the live stream player, first of all when the forum used a fixed width or a short width, the live stream player on the board panel would cause the tables to stretch and required editing of template bits in several locations. Now you simply adjust the width from the above setting.

Auto play was another issue, some people like to have it auto play so visitors are constantly drawn to there radio stream. while collapsing the radio panel stopped this, it wasn’t very practical, so now you have an option to enable or disable auto playing of the live stream player.

These 2 settings only affect the player on the main board panel, after all, if a visitor clicks to tune in with livestream, you obviously want it to auto play, and as its displayed in a pop up window, the width does not need to be adjusted.

Height wise we have coded in fixed heights for each skin, so selecting a skin will auto adjust the player to the correct height.

If you find any bugs in this version of the Bouncy Radio Center, please report them over in the bug tracker at BouncyBootlegs here http://www.bouncybootlegs.co.uk/forum/index.php?autocom=tracker&code=show_project&product_id=1

If you have any questions or problems or would like us to upgrade you, please contact the Bouncyservers support department by submitting a support ticket from our main client area.

We hope you and your visitors enjoy the new features as much as we do!

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Bouncy Radio Center v8.1 Released!

Finally its released! below you can see what has changed and been added

New Features

  • New Apply As DJ Application page added
  • New Flash Powered Live Stream Player added
  • PHP powered Tune In links

Bug Fixes

  • Web Hits number formatting applied (10000 to 10,000)
  • Stream Hits number formatting applied (10000 to 10,000)
  • Stats Tab number formatting applied (10000 to 10,000)
  • Licensing function class with YouDude has been resolved
  • Language typo’s fixed
  • Copyright year and version method fixed
  • "Online" images in radio panel center and right cells would replace any CSS background images for that class, this has been fixed
  • "Powered By BouncyBootlegs" line in the radio center’s footer has been changed to "Licensed to *your site name*"

Changes

  • 5 settings removed for tune in links, configuring of tune in links is no longer required.
  • 7 new settings added for DJ Application page.
  • Get Codes page content has been changed to reflect new tune in links
  • new template bit added for DJ Application page
  • HTML cleaned up in the radio_panel template bit
  • HTML cleaned up in the show_page template bit
  • Minor performance improvements made in coding
  • New entries into the language file

 

All v8.0 customers with an active license will get a free upgrade and files can be found in their Licensing Client Area by viewing there license.

New customers can get their copy of Bouncy Radio Center v8.1from the Radio Center Order Page.

Installation & Upgrade Instructions can be found at the Radio Center Project Page.

You can see the new version live in action over at BouncyBootlegs

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Bouncy Radio Center v8.1 (Progress Report 1)

So, time for an update and time for some new features to the ever popular Bouncy Radio Center v8.

Radio DJ Application

dj application

The new DJ Application page takes away the extra work load involved with getting new DJ’s involved with your radio by allowing members to fill in a form providing information on the radio show they want to broadcast and a link to a demo of there work.

The form is protected from guests meaning only registered members of your forum can apply to be a radio DJ. Admin also have 3 methods to be informed of new applications, any combination of the 3 options may be used. The first option is to create a topic in a specified forum containing the applicants information. The second option is for a PM to be sent to a specified member ID, for example if you have 1 person who deals with radio DJ’s you can have information from the application sent to them in a Personal Message. The third and final option is to have a copy of the application emailed to a specific email address.

The new application page also includes some protection to help prevent any problems or malicious use. First of all if any of the form data is failed to be submitted when the application response page is accessed you will receive an error message. Three rules are used in this function to check form data is submitted before anything else is processed.

dj ap 3 checks

As you can see above, the first "IF" Statement sets a global rule for the function, this basically says that if this page is accessed without the submit button being clicked on the application page then display the error message "no_form"data". This then results in nothing else in the function being processed. If the submit button has been clicked then the function moves on to the next 2 "IF" statements. The first checks to see if the user has submitted information about there show, if not an error is returned stating information was missing. If they have provided show information the next rule is checked, which ensures the applicant submitted a demo URL. If all these rules are correctly applied upon submission the form data is then passed onto the rest of the function which checks which of the 3 Notification methods are selected and then passes on the form data to them functions.

Initially I set up a CAPTCHA on the form, but this was proving to be more work than it was actually worth. Due to the fact only registered members can submit applications it wasn’t really needed as any members abusing the system could be warned / banned / suspended using IP.Boards built in admin system.

New PHP Powered TUNE IN Links

So a big part of the Bouncy Radio Center people were having problems with was the tune in links and the files edits and setup involved with them. Also there was an issue with .htaccess files and some tune in links not launching in the desired player. This proved to be one of the biggest problems people were having and generated a lot of traffic in our support department at Bouncyservers. To achieve this I simply create a new set of cases in the radio switch, and then created functions for tune in link. Functions are short and simple, and also allowed me to remove some of the admin settings reducing clutter, remove some now code from the main radio function file and the global file.

In addition to this, users no longer have to edit any files to get there tune in links working properly, no .htaccess file is needed and no additional MIME types need to be set on the server. This has also opened up new capabilities. For instance I should now be able to get the radio center to monitor and display which members are tuned in. This was before a very difficult process, because it involved grabbing IP addresses from the SHOUTcast server, then comparing them to IP Addresses in the forums online list. This however would not of been 100% accurate as some members could be using the same IP address.

What Next?

Well at the rate I am currently working, we could see a release of Bouncy Radio Center 8.1 tonight, followed shortly by a new icon pack for dark Skins. I’m currently working on a few other features such as the above mentioned online list, having another look at AJAX functionality for the radio panel and display.

I also have some other things planned for the radio center which may not be implemented until a later version. This includes a whole new admin section within the forum, to provide admin’s and DJ’s with complete management over there schedule, DJ’s and so on. I am also looking into creating a whole new schedule system, the current schedule page isn’t to friendly to skins with short fixed widths. The code involved with the schedule is also VERY tedious! as I say these may come in a later release.

You can check out the progress of the radio center’s current development at any time over at the BouncyBootlegs Radio Center.

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please feel free to leave a comment in this article and i will be sure to check them out.

Bouncy Radio Center v8.1 will be free to all Bouncy Radio Center 8 license holders with an Active License. This also apply’s for all new icon packs.

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