[Announce] : Radio Favourites Plugin - Manage live radio favourites and see what's on

[expectingtofly]

The Radio Favourites Plugin allows to organise your live radio stations in a playable lists and/or folders. It displays the programme that is currently playing on each station so that you can visually choose what to listen to.

See https://github.com/expectingtofly/LM...ourites_Plugin for full details.




The plugin is available to install from the standard 3rd party plugins list. Once installed it is, by default, installed into your "Radio" folder.

How does it work?
Adding a station
To add a station to your Radio Favourites list, select the station from a compatible radio plugin (see list below for compatible plugins). You will be able to add the station by selecting the "info" menu on the station menu option. This is supported by all controllers.
e.g, on Orange Squeeze :

Using the "Material Skin" controller is similar, select the "more" option on the info option to access the option to add the station. On Jive/SqueezePlay type interfaces, long press on the station to get to the "Add to Radio Favourites" option.

You can remove a station from your Radio Favourites by selecting info menu on the station in your Radio Favourites folder.

Folders
You can create folders to organise stations into groups. Type the name of the folder in the "Create Folder" option to create the folder, then add stations to the folder by selecting the "info" menu on the station and selecting the folder.

Compatible LMS Radio Plugins
The following are the Radio Plugins that support/compatible with the Radio Favourites plugin. Hopefully more to follow ...

• BBC Sounds
• Times Radio
• UK Radio Player **
• Virgin Radio (UK)

**Please Note a small number of stations on UK Radio don't provide the current programme information, in particular that includes Times Radio and Virgin Radio, so use the specific plugin to add those.
Also, please note, for Global Player stations (LBC, Classic FM etc), use UK Radio Player, they provide programme data etc.

It is now available from the Main 3rd Party Plugins repository.

[SpiderJon]

The Radio Favourites Plugin allows to organise your live radio stations in a playable lists and/or folders. It displays the programme that is currently playing on each station so that you can visually choose what to listen to.

Another excellent plugin — many thanks!

[castalla]

A great addition to the plugins. Thanks.

[staresy]

A great plugin Stuart, very useful as a now playing guide - all ready getting very comfortable using as a "whats on now" lookup. It's like having your own personalised Radio guide.

One comment, some of the feeds (UK Radio Player) are low bitrate, beyond your control I know, but there are higher bit-rate feeds available for some stations (eg. Classic FM, Jazz FM as I have these in my favourites).

Would it be possible to add the ability to add "custom urls" for feeds, so the metadata is collected by your plugin from UK Radio, but clicking to play plays from a custom URL?

[expectingtofly]

A great plugin Stuart, very useful as a now playing guide - all ready getting very comfortable using as a "whats on now" lookup. It's like having your own personalised Radio guide.

One comment, some of the feeds (UK Radio Player) are low bitrate, beyond your control I know, but there are higher bit-rate feeds available for some stations (eg. Classic FM, Jazz FM as I have these in my favourites).

Would it be possible to add the ability to add "custom urls" for feeds, so the metadata is collected by your plugin from UK Radio, but clicking to play plays from a custom URL?

That's great to hear you are finding it useful. I agree, your suggestion would be useful. I'll have a look at adding that for the next release.

[philchillbill]

Nice one, Stuart.

Can the list of defined Radio Favorites be queried in any way from jsonrpc.js or the XML browser (to potentially allow playback from Alexa)?

[expectingtofly]

Can the list of defined Radio Favorites be queried in any way from jsonrpc.js or the XML browser (to potentially allow playback from Alexa)?

Not specifically, only the standard call to get the menu in the same way the contollers do.

[indifference_engine]

Hi, Great plugin!!

Are there plans to make your excellent "Global Player (UK)" plugin compatible with Radio Favourites? I use it a lot for Heart, Classic FM and LBC.

[tw99]

Thanks for creating this, it's a useful addition.

[expectingtofly]

Hi, Great plugin!!

Are there plans to make your excellent "Global Player (UK)" plugin compatible with Radio Favourites? I use it a lot for Heart, Classic FM and LBC.

Unfortunately, due to a technical reason, its not possible to add compatibility into Global Player Plugin. But the good news is that the same streams are available in the UK Radio Player plugin and that plugin is compatible, so just add them as a Radio Favourite from that plugin to them into your Radio Favourites list.