Scheduler and Events

Scheduler and Events

Events let Radio Automation do things on its own: start or stop the player, or announce the time or temperature. Open the editor with Edit > Events.

An event has a trigger (what causes it to run) and an action (what it does). Triggers are either a cron schedule or an MQTT message.

The Events window

Column	Meaning
Name	The event name. The checkbox enables/disables the event
Trigger	Cron or Mqtt
Expression	The cron expression, or the MQTT topic
Demand	Immediate or Delayed
Action	What the event does

Buttons: New, Edit, Delete, Open, Save, then Ok to apply. Open and Save load and save the schedule as an .evs file (JSON). The last schedule is reloaded at startup. Click Ok to rebuild the running schedule from the list.

A new event defaults to a Time Announcement with Delayed demand.

Event settings

Setting	Description
Event Name	Free text, shown in the lists
Start Date and Time	Informational. The scheduler currently begins at the next matching time after the schedule is loaded
Expires / Expire Date and Time	When checked, the event stops firing after the expire time. When unchecked it never expires
Demand Type	Immediate or Delayed - see below
Trigger Type	Cron shows the cron expression box; Mqtt shows Topic and Message boxes
Event Type	The action - see below

Disabled events (checkbox cleared) are not scheduled and do not subscribe to MQTT topics.

Actions

Action	Behavior
Play	Starts playback if the player is stopped or paused. Does nothing if already playing
Stop	Stops playback
Time Announcement	Plays the current time using the time/temp files
Temperature Announcement	Plays the current temperature from Weather Underground using the time/temp files
Pause, Humidity Announcement	Listed in the editor but not implemented yet - the event fires but nothing happens

Immediate vs Delayed

Demand decides when an event that has fired actually runs.

Demand	Player playing or paused	Player stopped
Immediate	Runs right away, interrupting the current track	Runs right away
Delayed	Queued, and runs after the current track ends. Queued events run in the order they fired, before the next playlist track	Discarded - delayed events never run while stopped

Guidance:

• Use Delayed for announcements you'd like to land between songs.
• Use Immediate for Play/Stop events, for anything that must happen at an exact time, and for internet streams (they have no gap between tracks).
• A Play event that should start the show must be Immediate. A Delayed Play never fires because the player is stopped.

Time and temperature announcements that interrupt playing music play over it on a second player while the music fades down, then it fades back up.

Cron expressions

Radio Automation uses a six-field cron expression. The first field is seconds:

second  minute  hour  day-of-month  month  day-of-week
0-59    0-59    0-23  1-31          1-12   0-6
                                     or JAN-DEC  or SUN-SAT

A common mistake: a standard five-field expression such as */15 * * * * is rejected. The event is not scheduled, an error is written to the log, and no message is shown. Always include the seconds field.

Examples:

Expression	Runs
0 0 * * * *	Every hour, on the hour
0 */15 * * * *	Every 15 minutes
0 0,30 * * * *	On the hour and half hour
0 */10 7-17 * * *	Every 10 minutes from 07:00 to 17:59
0 0 7 * * *	Every day at 07:00
0 0 18 * * MON-FRI	Weekdays at 18:00
0 30 17 * * SAT,SUN	17:30 on weekends

Times are in the computer's local time. The scheduler is provided by NCrontab.Advanced, so its extended syntax (ranges, lists, steps, names) is available.

A typical off-hours setup

Name	Trigger	Expression	Demand	Action
Show start	Cron	0 0 17 * * *	Immediate	Play
Announce time	Cron	0 0,30 17-23 * * *	Delayed	Time Announcement
Announce temp	Cron	0 15,45 17-23 * * *	Delayed	Temperature Announcement
Show end	Cron	0 0 23 * * *	Immediate	Stop

Up Next

The Events panel on the main window lists events due in the next 5 minutes. An event leaves the list once it runs (or, for a Delayed event, once it's discarded because the player is stopped).