RadioBox

This stuff turns your Raspberry Pi into internet-radio box. It wraps MPD and provides Web-UI for controlling it's playback and volume.

Since commit #28 RadioBox also uses 8 GPIO pins to control playback and indicate current player state. The pins are:

• 3 Input pins (for button switches)
• 2 Output pins for LEDs
• 1 Output pin for smooth LED blinking
• +3.3V
• Ground

The schematic.png shows how it is supposed to be implemented.

Input and output pins are to be specified in config.json file.

Building

Checkout from Github repository to your PC/Mac and run

npm install
npm run prod

By default, output directory is ./target. You can change it in webpackfile.js

Installing

I mean that Nodejs and MPD have been installed and configured already.

First, copy files from output directory anywhere to your Raspberry Pi. Then install needed Nodejs modules

npm install http express socket.io mpc-js [rpi-gpio] [fs path node-id3]

Install rpi-gpio only if you require LEDs or buttons. Install fs path node-id3 only if you are going to deal with music files. These modules are required for make_playlist.js.

Configuring

The config.json provides all required settings as a JSON object. The stations field is array of [title, url, genre] pairs. The include filed is a path to external playlist file. External playlist could be created by running make_playlist.js The pins field contains pin numbers (not names!) used in this project. The timeouts field describes, how fast LEDs will blink and how button long press will be handled. The volume field describes, what the maximum and default comfortable volume levels are and how fast change volume via buttons/UI. The autoPlay field tells if MPD should start play on boot or not.

Every field is optional. RadioBox will combine items from stations field and files from external playlist described in include. The only condition to run RadioBox - that resulting playlist has at least one entry. All other fields can be missed, empty of partially filled (in case if you do not need full functionality).

Running

sudo nodejs index.js

or if you require neither LEDs nor buttons

sudo nodejs index.js --no-gpio

Or create service using systemctl or init.d.

Http- and WebSocket- servers will run at port 80 (so you need sudo). Now browse

http://<your_raspberry_ip>/

or

http://<your_raspberry_hostname>/

and enjoy your favorite stations!

How to deal with files on disk

First, remember that MPD supposes music files to be located in the special directory. Check the music_directory parameter int the /etc/mpd.conf file.

grep music_directory /etc/mpd.conf

Locate required music files in that directory and|or it's subdirectories.

Then, run make_playlist script, which will create playlist.json file.

nodejs make_playlist.js </path/to/music/files>

Finally, add this playlist to config.json

{
    /* .... */
    "include": "./playlist.json",
    /* .... */
}

And restart index.js.