radion

radion is an internet radio TUI client, written in Bash, for Gnu/Linux and MacOS.

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Radion can be costumized as far as the station selecting program is concerned. The user can choose between:

• read
• fzf
• rofi
• dmenu

Through the menus, the user can :

• Select directly a Favorite Station.

• Select a random station.

• Select a tag to pick a station from

• Edit Stations and their tags, by editing the specific file:

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• Configure Preferences, by editing the .conf file:

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• Find new Stations, visiting https://www.radio-browser.info/

• ❌ Quit Radion.

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Finding a New Station

• Selecting the option 🔎 Find Stations, the user is directed to https://www.radio-browser.info/.

• There the user can search and find one or more stations that fit their particular and personal taste, e.g. :

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• Clicking on this station, the user is directed to a page with the station's specific details. From all this data, the user picks the station's url:

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The user should use this url while he adds a new line with this station's data to $HOME/.config/radion/stations.txt, selecting the 📋 Edit Stations option.

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Adding a Station to Radion

In order to add a station to radion, the user edits the $HOME/.config/radion/stations.txt file, either within radion (📋 Edit Stations), or through any text editor.

The format of the line should be the following:

station-url ~Name-of-the-Station~ #Tag1 #Tag2 #Tag3

for instance:

https://lyd.nrk.no/nrk_radio_jazz_mp3_h ~NRK-Jazz~ #Jazz #Favorites

• The station-url should go first: https://lyd.nrk.no/nrk_radio_jazz_mp3_h

• Name of the Station should come next, between tildes ~, and whitespaces substituted by hyphen - : ~NRK-Jazz~

• Finally, tags come next, starting with number sign #. #Jazz #Favorites

  There can be as many tags in a line as the user likes .

  The #Favorites tag adds the station to the Favorites.

• Adding empty lines to the file has no repercussions to the functionality. Separating lines to groups is also done only for demonstative purposes. To comment out a line, add // at the beginning.

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Recording

Recording a radio stream in radion can be done with another bash script called record-toggle.sh. This script uses the powerful sox program to record the default output, which evidently plays the radion mpv output.

The user has minimum direct control over this script, in effect the script just toggles recording on and off. Through the mpv shortcuts, the user can navigate to the exact desired point to start recording. Then the script is executed once to start recording, and then once more, to stop recording, normalize and save the audio file.

The script can either:

1. be binded to dedicated keyboard shortcut (e.g. Alt+r or any keybinding preferable to the user),
2. be executed through a .desktop file from the desktop (desktop shortcut/launcher), or
3. be executed through a desktop panel launcher.

It is up to the user to select one of the above alternatives, or follow any other. Creating a keyboard shortcut, a desktop or a desktop panel launcher depends more or less on the user's Desktop Environment (or perhaps its abscense), and describing such procedures is beyond the scope of this document.

Through the `Preferences' option, the user will be able to define audio file saving destination directory, configure/toggle recording notification dimensions position and duration, output file format and naming protocol.

NOTICE: The script will not just record the Radion (mpv) output. The main dependency program used to record (sox) will use the default sound device is used as input source. Take care with microphones attached, or with system sounds, because if not, you may as well capture them, too.

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Configuring radion (Preferences option)

As mentioned above, selecting the Preferences option (or editing $HOME/.config/radion/radion.conf file using any text editor), the user can set the following preferences:

• Preferred selector. Acceptable values: read, fzf, rofi, dmenu.
• Preferred editor. Acceptable values can be vim, nano, gedit, xed or any other terminal or graphical text editor command + any flags. For further info, visiting the respectable command man pages is recommended.
• fzf format, dmenu format, rofi format: Here the fzf, dmenu and rofi command string can be configured. If the user is not sure they know what they are doing, they are advised to leave these variables alone. At any rate, visiting the respectable command man page is highly recommended. Also, pipe symbols | are not to be ignored, they stand for the end of the string.

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Rofi theming

• There is a rofi theme included in the repo, radion-rofi-theme.rasi, which install process will be copied in the $HOME/.config/radion/ directory. The user can either:

  • Use this configuration for rofi
  • Use the default rofi theme in the system by editing the rofi_format line in $HOME/.config/radion/radion.conf file( remove the -theme $HOME/.config/radion/radion-rofi-theme.rasi flag).
  • Edit the $HOME/.config/radion/radion-rofi-theme.rasi according to their liking.

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• Prompt text. Prompt text defines the prompt text for fzf, rofi and dmenu.Pipe symbol | is not to be ignored, stands for the end of the string.
• Show mpv keybindings. Acceptable values: yes / no. This variable toggles the appearence of a little mpv keybinding cheatsheet:

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• Show emojis. Acceptable values: yes / no.

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Configuring record-toggle (Preferences option)

As far as recording is concerned, the user can set the following preferences:

• Record directory defines the record-toggle.sh audio file saving directory.Defaultvalue is : /Music/radion/

  CAUTION: Ommit $HOME or ~:

  /Music/radion/ => ~/Music/radion/)

The following values are about notifications using yad.

For more info, visit man yad.

• Yad toggle toggles notifications with yad. Acceptable values: yes, no.

It is advisable not to disable yad notifications, as it would be challenging to keep in mind if the script is running or not.

Keeping the script recording indefinetely could have comicotragical repercussions.

If, however, you decide to proceed without notifications (perhaps because the user can't / won't install yad), it is advisable to always run the script in a terminal and never headless, regardeless whether the launcher is a keybind, desktop or panel launcher.

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With notifications toggled off, blank naming protocol defaults to epoch. Same thing happens to icy, when there is no title available with notifications toggled off.

Yad notifications in this script never steal focus, but are sticky (appear on all workspaces) and always on top.

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Yad dialogs that prompt the user for the output audio file appear in the center of the screen.

• Yad duration controls notifications duration (seconds).

  Acceptable values: integers bigger than 0. Default value: 3.

• Yad dimensions evidently is about notifations dimensions (width, height).

  Adjust values according to screen resolution and preference.

• Yad position configures the notifications positions (horizontal, vertical) on the screen (pixels).

  Adjust values according to screen resolution and preference.

  Default values: 0 0 (Top left of the screen).

The following values are about the actual recording process using sox.

For more info, visit man sox, man soxformat.

• Out format defines recording output file format.

  Acceptable values: ogg, vorbis, flac, mp3, wav

  Default value: mp3

• Rec name protocol defines the way the output audio file is named.

  Default value: date

  Acceptable values: date, epoch, icy, blank

  • date: output audio filed is named using date_time, e.g. 2023-10-23_17:31:34.mp3

  • epoch: output audio filed is named with the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC, e.g. 1698138047.ogg

  • blank: The user will be prompted by a yad dialog for the file's name.

  • icy: In this option the user will be prompted by a yad dialog for the file's name, with one difference:

    Using a mpv lua script, if icecast is available, the name of the icecast title is detected and suggested as a probable filename:

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CAUTION: icy option requires icecast-logger.lua installed in ~/.config/mpv/scripts/, so follow the install instructions included. icecast-logger.luais a mpv script that logs metadata from Icecast streams. It was found here and slightly modified to serve record-toggle.sh's needs.

CAUTION: See DISCLAIMER at the end of this file

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Dependencies

Radion Dependencies

The principal dependency is the almighty mpv

Debian based linux:

sudo apt install mpv

macOS:

brew install mpv

Radion can function with no other dependencies, however, the user can install fzf, rofi or dmenu, according to their preference.

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Record-toggle Dependencies

The main dependency is sox

Debian based linux:

sudo apt install sox libsox-fmt-mp3

Another important dependency is yad

sudo apt install yad

This dependency is not 100% necessary, as the user can toggle off notifications, and define a file naming protocol between date and epoch while editing the ~/.config/radion/radion.conf file. However, for reason mentioned above, it is advisable that yad is installed and used.

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INSTALL

• Open a terminal window and run:

git clone https://gitlab.com/christosangel/radion/

• Change directory to radion/, make install.sh executable:

cd radion/

chmod +x install.sh

• Run:

./install.sh install

You are ready to go!

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Run

from any directory, run the command:

radion.sh

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The mpv player is controlled with the mpv defined keybindings.

The user can also create a launcher using one of the images from the png/ directory:

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The radio.png and radio2.png icons were created by Freepik - Flaticon.

In order to record, the user uses the assigned by themselves keyboard shortcut/launcher/desktop laucher

• Once, to start recording

• A second time, to stop recording

Uninstall

• To uninstall, from the radion/ directory, run:

./install.sh uninstall

• To purge the dot files as well, run :

./install.sh purge

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Python version

For users who prefer using python scripts from using bash scripts, there is also the Python Version of this project:

https://gitlab.com/christosangel/pyradion

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Enjoy!

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Disclaimer: No responsibility is taken regarding the stations, their content, status or whether they are operational or not. Their presence in the stations.txt is exclusively demonstrative, represent nobody's taste, nationality, affiliations or orientation, what is more the user is expected to populate this file with stations of their preference. No resposibility is taken regarding use of this software and copyright laws.

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