Make a short to an audio stream and load a playerIn Win XP

UsernameIssues · 29 Jun 2015

somafm.com/dronezone/ is a bit harder...
...only because they give you so many options
...so many ways to stream their content.

I'll put some instructions together for you a bit later.

loninappleton · 29 Jun 2015

All help appreciated.

I will see about inspecting pls files in the meantime.

In the ancientfm example they show Winamp as the default player plus a couple others.

Winamp auto-loads when selected and pls turns up in there. Maybe I can locate the .pls itself with the search box? Only asking because so much of this seems embedded on autoloading programs.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone here used the programs which can build a shortcut?
I'm thinking those are just the .bat files you describe with input fields, but just guessing.
One thing and another it might be easier with more advanced website trees like SomaFM.

A good discussion. I hope we aren't re-inventing the wheel and others will be able
to use the technique.

loninappleton · 29 Jun 2015

A correction. I thought there are a variety of shortcut makers but not so. I just was
searching for those applications at Cnet etc and came up empty. The dialog in the
XP or Win7 should be adequate for everything once it is understood. I'm not saying I'm there yet.

UsernameIssues · 29 Jun 2015

loninappleton said:

~~~
Winamp auto-loads when selected and pls turns up in there. Maybe I can locate the .pls itself with the search box? Only asking because so much of this seems embedded on autoloading programs.
~~~

When you click on the WinAmp link, the browser downloads the PLS file to some folder. Then the browser opens that PLS file by passing it to Windows (file) Explorer. Explorer checks to see what app is supposed to play PLS files... then Explorer opens that app (passing the path/filename of the PLS file to the player*). In your case, WinAmp is the player that opens. In my case, Media Player Classic. However, I do not let any browser automatically open files like these.

*As mentioned earlier, you can probably do this via a shortcut. You don't have to open the PLS file in a text editor to locate the URL. You just make a shortcut that points the player of interest to the PLS file that you have saved on your hard drive. You might even be able to make a shortcut that points the player to the PLS file online. I think that I've done this in the past, but I cannot test that right now.

Mouse over one of the links and notice that it is a PLS file:

Make a short to an audio stream and load a playerIn Win XP-1-dz-aac-128k-pls.png

If you have told your browser of choice to always open PLS files, then you might not see the options to save the PLS file to a convenient folder when you click on that 128k link. In that case, right click on the link shown in the screenshot ABOVE and select something like "Save link as...".

Once you get the PLS file where you want it - drag/drop it into Notepad.

Make a short to an audio stream and load a playerIn Win XP-2-dz-aac-128k-pls.png

The URL of interest is highlighted.

On the SomaFM website, you can go to their direct links and copy/paste the same info without downloading/dragging/opening a PLS file:

Make a short to an audio stream and load a playerIn Win XP-3-dz-aac-128k-pls.png

Sidebar:
Notepad shows all of the lines of info crammed together. (See the second screenshot in this post.) That is because these PLS files use a LF (Line Feed) to terminate a line of info. (Unix/Linux based systems/software use that to terminate lines.)

Make a short to an audio stream and load a playerIn Win XP-4-dz-aac-128k-pls.png

If you edit the PLS file via Notepad, you might end up adding a CRLF (Carriage Return/Line Feed). (By default, Windows based systems/software use those to terminate lines.)

Make a short to an audio stream and load a playerIn Win XP-5-dz-aac-128k-pls.png

I have no idea is the way that a line is terminated matters to various players.

On SomaFM, you might want to test several URLs - some players will display info about what is playing - if you get the correct URL.

loninappleton · 01 Jul 2015

GokAy said:

Apply button is greyed out because you haven't made any changes yet. It will be clickable as soon as you change a value.

If you can keep the example same it will be better. As I understand it, your previous example (foobar and webpage) is supposed to:
1- Run: foobar2000.exe
2- Open http://audio-ogg.ibiblio.org:8000/wcpe.ogg in default web browser

Is this true?

What is not working with it? Maybe you need to change directory of foobar2000 to "Program Files (x86)" instead of Program Files, you have to check which folder it is in, I simply used the one which you provided. Is this the case?

Like this:

Code:

@echo off 
cd C:\Program Files (x86)\foobar2000
start foobar2000.exe 
start http://audio-ogg.ibiblio.org:8000/wcpe.ogg
exit

I am catching up n re-reading all the info here. This older post I did not answer properly
about the shortcut:

No I don't want it to open in the browser, that's what I'm trying to eliminate i.e. load music
but be able to navigate the browser when my previous shortcut job accomplishes.

In fact I do not know how/why the IP address (given below in the thread) can work at all
but I will be getting to that.

loninappleton · 01 Jul 2015

UsernameIssues said:

loninappleton said:

OP here,

I see the path you constructed and the whole routine for that I've had in use for a long time.

But in trying to set up a new one ......

Looking at the source code for that website, I don't see a URL that can be used directly from there.

If you visit the station's website (Ancient FM - Commercial-free Mediaeval and Renaissance Music) they offer a playlist file (playlist.pls). If you have the .PLS file extension associated with the app of interest, you can save the PLS file to your desktop and double click on it from there.

Or, you can open the PLS file in a text editor and copy out the URL to create a shortcut like:

Code:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\foobar2000\foobar2000.exe" http://5.152.208.98:8058/

Success.

I have edited a sample text shortcut with the code above and can install the shortcut in the
tray.

I'm still unclear on how to get the IP info from the PLS file so I'm not stuck in a jamb in the future.
Will try at ancientfm when it opens to Winamp.

Other thing I noticed was 1.) Setting the target file correctly should be at Foobar
2.) Select a new icon (other than duplicate Foobar) is locked.

This is a big step forward though for this job. Thanks for the time given to it.

loninappleton · 01 Jul 2015

I see part of the icon problem now. The browse path is not going correctly to where icons are stored:

Where is the directory to find these? I have seen it but in these shortcuts the only path is to foobar etc.

loninappleton · 01 Jul 2015

I have found how to open the .pls file to read the IP address. Since I am now doing screenshots I made one for this:

UsernameIssues · 01 Jul 2015

loninappleton said:

I'm still unclear on how to get the IP info from the PLS file so I'm not stuck in a jamb in the future.

I see that you found one way to get the IP... but let's go over the steps to do it another way.

Do you have any problems saving the PLS file to some temporary location on your hard drive? (perhaps the desktop) Once that PLS file is saved somewhere, do these steps:

Manually open Notepad (perhaps via the Start menu).

Left click (and hold) on the PLS file.

Drag the mouse (& thus the PLS file) until the mouse cursor is over the body of the Notepad app.

Release the left click (drop the PLS file into the body of the Notepad app).

UsernameIssues · 01 Jul 2015

Some websites change those PLS files quite often. Other websites leave them alone for years and years.

What happens if you make a shortcut like this:

Code:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\foobar2000\foobar2000.exe" http://www.simplexstream.com/tunein.php/telegram/playlist.pls

That is the kind of shortcut that I mentioned in post #24 where the text is red in that post. If that works for you, then you don't have to open the PLS file and get the IP address or URL (which can change).