Song Request Feature Enhancement (an offline version)
Firstly, I want to say that this works well: https://github.com/playitlabs/song-requests
But, am looking to expand/improve on its functionality.
Before the discovery of this plugin, I thought of this:
The concept would be to add a song request feature like this, so the PlayIt web interface can be used to output a HTML widget from the software direct that can be embedded to a website or app, then, when the user requests a song, queue it up in a special "cache" queue, ready for it to playout in a specific place.
The plugin already in existence from GitHub works well if the radio station is online, in say a pub or public space environment, where PlayIt is offline, this is useless.
The difference in this idea is to set a "Requestable" track group up, so the tracks eligable for requesting can be defined, then, in the clocks, the ability to schedule a type of "Request" (where we'd normally choose Track Group, Voice Track, Hook Sequence etc.), and have the software fill this in via the cache "queue" I mentioned earlier, and if the queue is empty, either skip that item or fill it from the Playout Pattern.
By being a embedable widget from the port opened by PlayIt itself, it should then be possible for the local IP to be shared on public WiFi meaning it would work internally as well as externally.
Doing it this way also means that if an hour contains no "Requestable" blocks, the queue can be closed (or if the software is smart enough to realise it's run out of slots for the day, maybe something that can be pre-defined as a hard-figure).
This differes from the existing way of doing this by taking away the Digital Ocean/API requirement but I understand this may also make it too easy for those in territories where this feature would be prohibited, but then again, the legality on use isn't on PlayIt!
Thanks for your consideration on this.