VLC Service Discovery / Internet and Search Window add-ons (aka lua scripts) for the Radio-Browser.info database
- Website / DB: https://www.radio-browser.info/
- Various alternative apps and add-ons: https://www.radio-browser.info/users
Copyright © 2020-2023 Andrew Jackson (https://github.com/ceever)
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston MA 02110-1301, USA.
The Radio-Browser search window in VLC:
The Service Discovery / Internet (tab) in VLC:
BUGS & REQUESTS:
Send me a mail or a ticket on github.
UPDATES:
29.09.2023: v0.701/v0.591/v0.591 (ex/sd/pl)
- Updated documentation on where to put the lua files for all users. /usr/share/vlc/lua/ seems to break VLC.
05.03.2023: v0.7 (ex)
- Added a search results list, to select specific stations and only add them to the VLC playlist.
- The search window remains open now after having added stations, so one can continue with another (different) search.
- The search window will close automatically when playback is started in the VLC playlist.
18.02.2023: v0.62 (ex)
- Better handling of names and tags, auto removing unnecessary whitespaces.
- Updated tag search, now only commas count as separators. Space, #, etc. are now allowed in tags. And thus, included an indication of tag search pattern with each new search window: TAG0,TAG 1,LONG TAG 2,#TAG_3
- Updated button order for three buttons—more intuitive now.
- Better API server handling, getting list from the API itself instead of guessing.
- Switched from https to http for performance and certificate compatibility reasons (change lua script if you still want https).
03.02.2023: v0.61 (ex)
- Fixed a Windows 10 / VLC incompatibility
- Changed button order so hitting ENTER starts the search and not closed the window
28.12.2022: v0.59 (sd & pl): Fixed some bugs due to changes to the radio-browser.info API.
INSTALLATION:
Put the relevant .lua file(s) into the according subfolder (see below) of the VLC lua directory. VLC lua directory by default:
- Windows (all users): %ProgramFiles%\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\
- Windows (current user): %APPDATA%\VLC\lua\
- Linux (all users): /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc/lua/ (was /usr/share/vlc/lua/ in the past)
- Linux (current user): ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/ (create directories if they don't exist)
.lua files and according subfolder:
- ex_Radio_Browser_info.lua => ...\lua\extensions\
- sd_Radio_Browser_info.lua => ...\lua\sd\
- pl_Radio_Browser_info.lua => ...\lua\playlist\
(In case you want the nice smiley with the search extension as in the screenshots, place the "Radio-Browser.png" picture from the Github "gfx/" folder or the zip repository into "...\lua\extensions" and change the path of the picture 'd:add_image("PATH")' in the "ex_Radio_Browser_info.lua" script. Note, under MS Windows you may need to use double backslashes, e.g. 'd:add_image("C:\\Program Files\\VideoLAN\\VLC\\lua\\extensions\\Radio-Browser.png")')
Restart VLC.
EXPLANATION & USAGE:
Important: With these add-ons the VLC columns Album, Genre and Description will hold relevant information for each radio station, namely: 1) Album: either Count: XXXX or Clicks: XXXX (to sort on number of stations or popularity), 2) Genre: a genre desciption, and 3) Description: sortable Bitrate information. So, have them displayed and try to use them if feasible.
Inside the Service Discover / Internet tab of VLC you are better off transferring all (relevant) stations into the regular VLC playlist first (right click >> "Add to Playlist"), before trying to sort anything.
pl_Radio-Browser_info.lua (playlist plugin for Service Discovery):
- This plugin is needed by sd_Radio-Browser_info.lua (!).
- It converts Radio-Browser.info API specific links into lists or readable radio links.
- Generally you would not add such links manually.
sd_Radio-Browser_info.lua (Service Discovery / Internet):
- Service Discovery / Internet add-on for VLC ... i.e. listed on the left panel under "Internet".
- Explore and crawls through all radio stations classified by categories (codec, language, country, tag).
- It depends on pl_Radio-Browser_info.lua—both need to be installed at the same time.
- After having found one or more stations in the Service Discovery / Internet, it is best to copy them into the playlist (right click >> "Add to Playlist") and continue searching and them sorting there. The Service Discovery is a little limited in its sorting capabilities, especially after having explored several sub categories.
ex_Radio-Browser_info.lua (Search window):
- Found under the VLC menu: View >> "Radio-Browser.info (Search)"
- This can work standalone, without the other two add-ons/lua scripts.
- Searches are sent unencrypted via http, due to performance and cerificate error reasons. Change the http to https in the lua script if you want.
- Found radio stations are counted, and can be added to the regular (empty or non-empty) VLC playlist.
- Dropdown lists will not update (counts nor values) if one of the others search parameters is specified. Thus, even when specific stations exist, e.g. "Codec: AAC+ (102)" and "Language: Albania (27)", together they might not produce any results.
- In general, the more specific the search the less radio stations—some search parameters might exclude each other, e.g. language=afrikaans and country=Russia.