Web requesting with a twist

[Drasica]

I'm looking to do a request system with my radio station. I've already used Oddsock's and had success, but due to some changes, I won't be able to use that anymore.

What I'm looking to do is script and otherwise create the links on my own (I do have a webserver at my disposal). I was wondering if somebody here could point me to some websites or a tutorial on how to build a requesting service, and if you yourself know anything could tell me a little bit about how can be done?


I did search for this, but nothing terribly useful came up.

[hulkstillrules]

http://www.hotscripts.com
Have a look on there - might be something.

[djSpinnerCee]

The idea of a requestor involves a database -- this database contains track info -- it can be as simple (title+artist+filenames), or as complex (buy-it URLs, album art, etc..) as you can imagine -- basically, it will always be a custom app, since what I want, is not necessarily what you may want.

The "secret" with respect to WinAMP as a source involves how playlist changes are made -- you cannot externally modify the current WinAMP playlist, so you have to just change the files that the current playlist "Sees" -- there are many ways to do this -- I use generic filenames in the playlist [001.mp3, 002.mp3, etc...], so I only have to copy a requested file (.mp3) to the correct 00x.mp3 -- the numbers correspond to the position in the playlist, which can be as large or small as you want to make it.

One of the difficulties is how the external code can "know" what is the current track (I cannot replace the now playing track in WinAMP), and how to match that with the info in the database. I use a second database that maps the playlist filenames to mp3 database keys for each track, along with their AGE (so I can guess if they have played already) -- I determine the current track by using the forgotten art of DNAS templates, but you could use other methods to get the current track info. My WinAMP uses the %7 in the track titles [%1 - %2 * %3 :%7] so that the actual mp3 filename (sans .mp3 -- :001, :002,...) is appended to the ID tag info to make things a bit easier.

The database is the key... but there are other playlist maintenance issues that you will need to address as well -- examine some of the code samples... It will give you an idea of how it's done.

Instant requests @ http://DigitalMIX.serveMP3.com/

My request code is not ready for distribution yet, but I can steer you in the right direction if you need help getting started.