"Radio" using iframe....I think?

Solaris · Joined: 25 Dec 2004 Posts: 5 Location: The Fortress

Hey everybody,

I'm a very green newbie who is just learning html, so I'm humbly asking for assistance with a little project that I saw on another website that is no longer in existance.

Here's the deal:

I have a website and I want to add a "radio" that will contain original music from my site's members. I saw the "radio" on another website a few months back and I was able to get the html code for it. I've tried getting assistance from the webmaster of the site, but the site is no longer in existance and my email went unanswered.

The main thing I need help with is learning how and where to place the links so that there's a list of tunes "inside" of the radio in an iframe (I think).

Here's the code to the "radio" which I will call "boombox":

kanenas · Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 191

Here's a solution with accompanying code: document in IFRAME uses window.parent to access player and the SetSource function of RealPlayer javascript API to change the file being played, and document containing IFRAME uses standard document.getElementById function to access objects in IFRAME document.

I replaced tables with style as use of tables was HTML abuse.

I also recommend adding code to let visitor pick player in boombox (RealPlayer, QT or MediaPlayer). If you attempt this, you will need to define player.SetSource for plugins other than RealPlayer (among other tasks); see commented code in function setFilesPlayer().

EDITED: Added code to address different browsers' odd style sheet handling.

Make sure you change '$startfile' in boombox.php to whatever initial file you want (or '').

boombox.php (outer page; Jan 20, 2005):

Solaris · Joined: 25 Dec 2004 Posts: 5 Location: The Fortress

Kanenas, thank you so much for helping me. I will try to get this going and let you know how it turned out. If I have any question, I will return here for your help, if that's o.k.

Again, thanks so much! I really appreciate the time you spent on this.

~Solaris

Solaris · Joined: 25 Dec 2004 Posts: 5 Location: The Fortress

O.K, I have a couple of questions:

1) do I edit the file.php by adding my song info, and if so where do I begin?

2) once that's been done, where in the boombox.html do I place the file.php?

Thanks!

kanenas · Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 191

Solaris · Joined: 25 Dec 2004 Posts: 5 Location: The Fortress

Good lawd, I'm soooo lost! Embarassed

I'm sorry Kanenas, but I can't even begin to understand all that you've posted.

Thanks so much for your time and effort. Hopefully, someone will be able to use your information for their site.

I hope you don't get too upset at me for not attempting to use your information. I'm afraid I'll truly mess it up. Thanks again....sincerely!

kanenas · Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 191

Not to worry, for I wrote a test script while researching the problem. The source for files.php has been updated with the new script, slightly cleaned up. Set the default $DOCROOT (only needed if running this script from the command line, but still a good thing to do), and $opts['songdir'] to the virtual directory (i.e. in webspace) containing the artists directories (set to '/songs/'). Stick all the songs for each artist in his/her/their directory. That should be it. The only drawback to this approach as implemented is limitations to filenames apply to artist & titles (e.g. length limitations, invalid characters).

Because I tend to get feature happy, it can sort in ascending and descending order by either artist or title and (at your discretion) insert spaces between lower and upper case letters in the artist name (so a directory named 'DrDre' gets translated to the artist name 'Dr Dre') and has an 'ignore' feature to disable listing of artists & songs.

EDITED: Expanded files.php moved to 2nd message ("Object communication across iframe.").

kanenas · Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 191

EDITED: This message originally held edit information on source code for files.php in above message ("Not to worry") which is no longer relevant.

Solaris · Joined: 25 Dec 2004 Posts: 5 Location: The Fortress

I can't set the player type to anything other than RealPlayer because my hosting company only hosts RealMedia files. So, what do I need to remove from the code you provided?

Also, I still really don't know where to begin. Embarassed

kanenas · Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 191

I've edited boombox.php and files.php in the original reply. At this point, all you should need to do is drop boombox.php and files.php into the same directory, optionally change a few settings, and create the directories to hold songs. In the document root on the web server, create a directory called 'songs'. In that directory, create a sub-directory for each artist. Store all the songs for an artist in his or her directory.

That will give you a plain boombox, so you should probably add style information. Both boombox.php and files.php link to '/css/main.css', so that's one place you could stick style. You have your own site design; I'll leave the rest of the graphic design considerations to you.