Important: If you experience problems with media player and the new Shout Stream release please REDOWNLOAD version 2.7 as a small fix was added. No major changes for shoutcast users. POPUP windows now get title from stream name. Do not forget to read the configuration instructions!

• Features

- Use it as Widget or in a Page (shortcode) or both.
- Mini Media Player or MiniCaster flash player.
- Multiple streams supported.
- Popup windows with player.
- Stats with latest 10 songs history.
- Stats update using AJAX.
- Supports Shoutcast and Icecast.

Shout Stream version 2.7
Updated @ 24/04/2009
Download Shout Stream
(from the Wordpress Repository)

• Description

Shout Stream is a WordPRess plugin that embeds a mini Player at your sidebar to connect to a shoutcast stream along with LIVE stats. You can select Media player, which is readable from all major browsers, or Minicaster flash player, which is readable from all OS as a flash object. It has also links for popup windows so your readers could surf at your blog without stopping hearing the stream.

In this version there is a shortcode available so you can easily built a static page with stats on your WordPress. There are also extended stats with latest 10 songs history and (at last) an options page where you can configure Shout Stream to do what you need.

Everything is optional so you must configure it well to get exactly what you need to show to your visitors. No external files needed to configure and an easy plugin update with the latest WordPress! But as Shout Stream plugin is getting richer and new features are being added, i strongly advise you to read all the info in this page to configure it properly.

• Shout Stream General Configuration

Shout Stream has it’s own options page. So after activation go to your Dashboard and select Options -> Shout Stream configuration page. There are five sections to configure and a sixth which is useful for uninstallation process.

1. Shout Stream Usage is the first section you must configure. Declare the type of your MAIN stream (Shoutcast OR Icecast) and choose where are you gonna use Shout Stream. You can use it as a widget (as it used to be) or have a dedicated page for your stream (using a shortcode) or both. If you plan to make a dedicated page for your stream you must first create the page, publish it and then put it’s URL in the field.

- To create a page make a new static page at WordPress and add somewhere between this code exactly as you see it here: [shout-stream-page]

- To add a widget go at Apperance -> Widgets and add Shout Stream Widget.

At my sidebar there’s a full widget sample and there’s also a sample page with extended live stats enabled. Check them.

2. Default Stream and Alternative Streams is the second section you must configure. Shout Stream needs to know one default stream. This would be the main stream from where it ’ll gets stats and set it up for the default player (the type of your main stream has been set at the previous step above). Additionally you can have up to five alternative streams. Many stations use this option for their audience offering various types of streams like 48Kbps, 64Kbps, 128Kbps etc. You can also use it to put different streams (as I do). New thing here that you can mix different streams, shoutcast or icecast.

Every stream has a row, fill the fields giving a stream NAME, a stream IP (or DOMAIN) and a stream PORT. Only default stream is required, other streams are optional. There is also a mountpoint. For Shoutcast streams leave mountpoint blank but for icecast streams fill their mount point (without .m3u) for each stream.

Different streams settings. Only main stream is required, others are optional.

(Stream name, IP, Port, mountpoint only for icecast, blank for shoutcast)

3. Shout Stream Player is the third section you must configure. If you don’t want a player at your page or sidebar it’s OK, you ‘ll have only popup links which they ’ll use mini media player to open the stream for the visitor. If you choose Media Player you ‘ll also have a player at your sidebar or at your page (depending what you have chosen before). If you enable MiniCaster then ALL browsers EXCEPT MSIE will try to open the stream with MiniCaster flash player.

• MEDIA PLAYER OR MINICASTER? ↓↑

There ‘s also a width and height useful for sidebar Media Player. MiniCaster has a standard width and height but you may want to change the look of Media Player.

A last thing here is align for your sidebar player. This will also influence heading, images and anything is static. If you have a wide sidebar choose left, else choose center. It’s up to you.

4. Shout Stream Stats is the fourth section. First of all if you have Icecast stream and wanna show some stats then only try curl. Icecast stats are experimental. I ‘ve tried different streams and seems to work but as I don’t know it so well it might not work for you. So if you have an Icecast stream please let me know how it goes.

For shoutcast streams you can use fsockopen method but you ‘ll only get basic stats. If you need to show some more try curl method (which is recommended). If you do then you can also have 10 latest songs history at your stream’s page (if you have created one). You can have stats at your sidebar, at your page or both places.

If you want them updated live (using ajax) set a number of seconds to refresh. Minimum is 30 because we don’t want to slow down your blog and have lot’s of useless connections to your stream. Setting something like 40 or 60 secs seems more logical to me. If you don’t want to update stats leave it blank.

Heading Page/Sidebar is the way some heading will be shown like a small title saying: “Current Song”. You can choose anything between h1 till h6, first box is for Page heading and second for Sidebar heading. This also depends on your theme. If you are not happy, play with your CSS.

There’s also a DIV style for page. A basic code is there. Alter it if you want but it only applies to your static page (if you have created one). Check my Radio Casbah page to get the idea.

5. Custom Text Messages is the fifth section. Put anything to replace all messages that Shout Stream displays. Localization is a piece of cake here!

There’s another section called Shout Stream Unistall. If you ever wanna uninstall Shout Stream first reset all database values and then delete the folder. It’s also useful if you wanna start over the configuration. BEWARE: If you press that button action cannot be undone! Click for an image ↓↑

• Shout Stream Widget Configuration

If you wanna use the widget everything is configured through options page. But widget has also two more capabilities. Click for an image ↓↑

- You can place an image with a link. Image could be an ad or a logo or anything you want and will be displayed right after stats/player, whatever you have set above. Two fields to set, image URL (location) and image link URL (where the image is linking to).
- Right after an image (or without an image) you can have a note field (if you want). This is useful for some announcements or anything wanna write there (check my sidebar). Basic html tags are permitted here.

• Important Notes

1. If you make a static page, widget won’t be visible when visiting that page but will be visible to any other post or page at your blog.

2. POPUP Player acts the same as sidebar player. If Minicaster is enabled then every browsers will see it EXCEPT MSIE. If Minicaster is disabled then every browser will try to get the stream through Media Player. POPUP player title is stream’s name.

3. Mountpoint is only needed for icecast streams. For shoutcast streams leave it blank. Alternative streams can be mixed having any shoutcast or icecast streams you want.

4. Icecast basic stats will work only if bitrate is shown at the status.xsl page.

I have also taken some screenshots from popup players in different browsers and sidebar players in the default Kubrick theme of WordPress. Open the following links to see them:

MediaPlayer POPUP (MSIE) ↓↑

Minicaster POPUP (FireFox) ↓↑

Minicaster POPUP (Safari) ↓↑

Minicaster POPUP (Opera) ↓↑

Sidebar Media Player ↓↑

Sidebar Minicaster ↓↑

• Things to be done

First is code optimisation (gonna take a while). A better popup window is a next upgrade. Still searching for a simple open source flash player, which will be smaller and without memory leaking. If you have anything else in mind i’m all ears!

• Installation ↓↑

• Upgrading ↓↑

• Uninstallation ↓↑

• Compatibility ↓↑

• FAQ ↓↑

• Changelog:

1. version 2.7: A fix for icecast and popup titles comes from stream names.
2. version 2.6: A quick fix for IE popup.
3. version 2.5: Support shortcode to add a page, 10 songs history, options page configuration and icecast support.
4. version 2.4: Support multiple streams to POPUP, extended stats, widget only configuration and WP 2.7.X compatibility.
5. version 2.3: Support LIVE stats using AJAX and WP2.6 compatibility.
6. version 2.2: Support cURL for stat.
7. version 2.1: Fixed POPUP dimensions & style.
8. version 2.0: Minicaster flash player added end some JS errors fixed.
9. version 1.5: Fixed an error for IE7 mplayer.
10. version 1.4: Ready for WP2.5 and fixed width popup.
11. version 1.3: Winamp link added and minor fixes.
12. version 1.2: JS in HEAD so POPUP could be opened everywhere.
13. version 1.1: Popup media player was added and changed stats.
14. version 1.0: First release.

• Credits

Thanx a lot to the guys at Draftlight Networks who let me pack Minicaster along with Shout Stream plugin for the Wordpress users!

AJAX live stats was made using a script i found in DYNAMIC DRIVE website. I used the code from Dynamic Ajax Content script which was altered to work with Shout Stream plugin. Thanx a lot to the guys that developed it!

Feedback is more than welcome. So Shoutcasters all over… Happy Streaming!