More Information
Some applications, like Rhythmbox or Banshee, are primarily playlist managers, not players, - and cannot be invoked with a play URL by other apps. This makes them less suitable for use with - streamtuner2. (Same goes for streamtuner2 of course. It's not a player, just a playlist tool.)
+ and cannot be invoked with a station URL. This makes them less suitable for use with streamtuner2. + (Same goes for streamtuner2 itself. It's not a player, but just a playlist browser.)URL placeholders
Any listed application can be invoked with a different kind of - URL or filename. Most are rather flexible, but some depend on - specific playlist file types or URLs. You can control this by adding - a placeholder after the configured application name:
+Listed audio players get run with a streaming server address (URL). + These can either be direct MP3/Ogg servers (http://example.org:7843/) + and sometimes playlist files (http://example.org/listen.pls) + - depending on the channel directory.
+Most audio players automatically handle any station URLs. Some however + support just a few formats, or can't handle modern XSPF playlists for + instance. Which is why you can control this by adding a placeholder + after the configured application name:
Placeholder |
Alternatives |
URL/Filename type |
@@ -115,16 +119,24 @@
%smil |
Standardized multimedia sequencing lists (which nobody uses either) |
Preferrably use the long %abbr names for configuration.
+Preferrably use the long %abbr names for configuration. The + default is %pls if you leave it out. (Most directories + already provide PLS files, which avoids any extra conversion by ST2 + which sometimes delay playback.)
+A few channels (like Jamendo) send custom JSON playlist snippets, + which no audio player would understand. Which is why they're always + pre-converted.
Most audio players like pls, yet sometimes the - older m3u format more. Streamripper requires %srv for recording.
-Leave it to the default %pls to avoid Streamtuner2 doing unneeded - extra conversions (just delays playback).
+Most audio players like %pls, yet sometimes the + older %m3u format more. Streamripper requires %srv for recording.
+Use the newer %xspf format if your player supports + it. This format retains the maximum of station infos (such as + homepages etc.), and thus often makes for better bookmarking directly + in your player.
Application names are most always lowercase binary names. Double click an entry to edit it. - After editing the icon next to the application name will be updated. If it stays green, it's + After editing, the icon next to the application name will be updated. If it stays green, it's likely to work. If it turns red / into a stop symbol, then the entered name is likely incorrect.
After the application name, you can use a placeholder like "%pls" (default), - or "%m3u" and "%srv". See placeholders.
+After the application name, you can optionally use a placeholder like "%pls" (default), + "%m3u" (old), or "%xspf" (modern), and "%srv" (for direct + streaming URLs). See placeholders.
Catch-all entries like */* or a generic audio/* entry allow to configure a default player. While video/youtube is specific to the Youtube channel. And url/http a pseudo MIME type to configure a web browser (for station homepages).
You can remove default entries by clearing both the Format field and its associated Application. Add completely new associations through the emtpy line. (Reopen the dialog to add another one.)
@@ -154,34 +155,58 @@System
- Temporary files
Streamtuner2 creates temporary .m3u files - for audio players that are configured to use %m3u files instead of %pls or %srv URLs. For archival purposes you might want to set a dedicated directory - for this. Leave this to the default /tmp else.
+ for this. In recent versions streamtuner2 will create a /tmp/streamtuner2 directory
+ for itself. (You cannot set just `/tmp` anymore, because that will be mapped to the longer name.
+ You can trick the old behaviour with `/tmp/.` however. Don't do that unless you have a reason).
+- Reuse .m3u/.pls files +
When converting online station playlists, streamtuner2 creates temporary files like + shoutcast.11539398391891.m3u for your audio player. It'll keep those + files around until you quit streamtuner2. That speeds up switching between and reconnecting to + a previous station. It's in particular necessary when you use ⏭ or ⏪ + directly in your player. For %pls references your player typically usues the online-only + playlist files anyway. If you disable this option, then converted pls/m3u/xspf files get recreated + repeatedly.
- Config directory
Is where streamtuner2 keeps its settings.json and channel caches, favicons, etc. You can't set this in the config dialog. This is just for display. Set the XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable to adapt.
- Enable debug messages
If you start streamtuner2 from a terminal window (xterm/rxvt), you can get a load of state and processing or debug infos. Enable this only for testing, as it might slow down station rendering.
+- Disable threading +
Now "threading" is a somewhat technical term. It means that an + application runs different tasks internally at the same time. It's + used for snappier interfaces. However, it's also difficult to get + right at times. In Streamtuner2 some concurrent tasks conflict with + updating the Gtk3 user interface. Which is why the application may + crash even on reloading station lists or when switching between + categories too quickly. This is only an issue for Python3 on Gtk3 with + streamtuner2. In such cases you can disable the concurrent-tasking + mode. The GUI will appear slower at times, and freeze between fetching + lists, but remains stable on the upside. There's also a command line + flag --nt to enable this workaround.
