Streamsicle v1.11 User Manual
Last updated 04-06-2002
The following properties are located in the conf/fluid.config configuration file, and control all aspects of Streamsicle that can be configured.
c:/my music/here
The play directory can also be a list of multiple directories delimited by a semi-colon. An example following this usage of the playdir property is listed below:
c:/music/Alternative;c:/music/Electronica
When using multiple directories, Streamsicle will randomly choose songs from all directories specified by default. This master directory will be displayed as the 'Virtual Directory' in Streamsicle’s web interface.
Available options (with brief descriptions) include:
o com.Streamsicle.RandomSelector
This is the default "generic" random song selector originally found in
Streamsicle. It simply picks any song from it's list of available files,
irrespective of how many times or the last time a song was requested.
o com.Streamsicle.RandomWithHistorySelector
This random selector will randomly select songs from its list of
available files without repetition until all available files have been
selected one time each. When all files have been selected, all files
become available for selection again, and the process repeats.
o com.Streamsicle.WeightedRandomSelector
This IRandomSelector implementation provides random songs based on a
weighted selection scheme. In short, the more a song is requested, the
more often it will be randomly selected. In addition, songs requested
more recently will have a higher weight than those requested some time
ago. Using these two selection schemes together should more or less
provide a radio station like popularity selection routine.
· external.stream.url: Enter a valid stream, and then uncomment this property to rebroadcast another server's stream from your own Streamsicle server.
Users can be permitted to modify and interact with Streamsicle on a per IP basis. The rules that define who has access to this stream and who doesn’t is found in the Streamsicle/conf directory in the hosts.rules file. This file contains a list of Unix-style IP addresses, each on it’s own line prefixed by a + or – sign. The text ‘ALL’ is also understood by Streamsicle. By default, the only line that exists in this file is + ALL, which permits any user to interact with Streamsicle. Wildcards can also be specified, so the rule – 10.1.1.* would deny everyone who has an IP of 10.1.1.0 – 10.1.1.255. By definition, *.*.*.* is equivalent to ‘ALL’.
By default, the web interface to Streamsicle can be found at the address specified in the configuration file, port 8080. If your server's address it www.myserveraddress.com, then you can view the status of the Streamsicle by typing in the address http://www.myserveraddress.com:8080. Connecting to this URL will bring up the web interface to Streamsicle. Here, you will see Streamsicle’s interface, partitioned into several sections. At the top left corner is the currently playing song. The first icon beside the song name that looks like two arrows pointing to the right is the skip button. Clicking it will cause Streamsicle to stop streaming the current song and to begin playing the next song in the queue. The next icon is the view this album icon, and will cause Streamsicle to change the request panel to the right to the directory the currently playing file resides in. The third icon will display extended id3 information about the mp3 currently playing, if it is present in the file.
Beneath this is a second section that displays the songs currently in the queue to be played after the currently playing song in the section above has finished. To the left of each of these songs is a trash can icon. Clicking this icon will remove the song from the queue. If you remove the last song from the queue, Streamsicle will automatically pick another song to insert into the queue based on the random selection method chosen in the configuration file. If more than one song exists in the queue, there will also be an icon with two up arrows beside each song. Clicking on this icon will move the song associated with the icon to the top of the queue.
The third section shows which directory random songs are currently being selected from. If the random play directory has been changed from its default, clicking the curved arrow icon beside the directory listed will reset the random play directory to its default/root directory. The fourth section on the left hand side of the browser displays information about the users currently connected, include who is connected and how many people out of the total number allowed if the number of max clients has been specified to be something other than zero. The fifth and final section on this side of the screen is the section controlling the chat server. Entering your name and then clicking the chat button will allow you to join in the chat session currently in progress, or start a new session if no one else is yet chatting.
To the right is a panel with three tabs. By default you will see the contents of the request tab, mirroring the underlying directory structure on the file system Streamsicle loaded its available mp3s from. Clicking on a directory in this panel will display the contents of the directory selected. Clicking on a file will add the file to the queue. If a file is added to the queue and there is only one file queued in Streamsicle and this file was also randomly selected by Streamsicle, this file will be replaced by the file chosen by the user. If any m3u files are present in the current directory, clicking on one of these will add all songs in the m3u file in the order specified by the m3u file to Streamsicle’s queue. Clicking on the talk icon to the left of a song will display information on the selected file via allmusic.com. Clicking on the icon of circle with an ‘i’ in the middle will display information gathered by Streamsicle from the id3v1/id3v2 tags present in the mp3. If no such information could be parsed, this icon will not be available.
The second tab on the right side of the browser window is the history tab. This will display the names of the last ten songs played by Streamsicle along with the icon to display any associated id3 information if present. The third tab is the search tab. Typing in a song or directory name that Streamsicle is aware of will display all matches of both files and songs meeting the search criteria. Clicking on a directory in this window will change the tab to the request tab and display the contents of the selected directory. Clicking on a song here will simply add it to the queue. If no matches were found meeting the search criteria, Streamsicle will display the ‘No matches’ message.
At the very bottom of the page are two links. The first will take you to the Streamsicle project homepage. The second link is for reconfiguring the server. This is useful when you’ve added songs to your directory structure, and you need to let Streamsicle know of the changes without restarting the server. During the reload process, Streamsicle will display a message about the server is (re)initializing. When Streamsicle has finished refreshing it’s internal file list, the normal Streamsicle page will be displayed.