Not too sure whether this is an mairlist thing or a computer thing.
Basically, one of the studios i have mairlist running in is a school radio station and i have trouble getting the little bu***rs to play what i tell them and not stuff they are loading from other sources.
So, what i want to be able to do is to simply only allow them to load audio from a specific location on the computer. i.e the music folder and not folders of there own with music in it. Is this possible? how can i achieve this?
Also, is there a way that i can reduce others options i.e. what they can load, save etc but so that i can still have all the options on my account to administer what is what. Im sure there is a way but i cant seem to fathom out how it would work with two different layouts and different options.
Any help would be much appreciated.
oh and the other problem would be that if we did lock it down then they could still drag audio across from a folder so is there a way of preventing this.
I know it is possible to add things to the mAirList startup command line/shortcut to tell it which INI files to use. No doubt Torben will be here in a minute to tell you how ;).
(Wearing my Programmer’s hat) Preventing drag/drop from other folders and/or Explorer would be difficult and fiddly, but not impossible. Torben would need to amend his DragDrop procedures to check the source of the drag and disallow a drop from anything except (presumably?) a mAirList Browser pane.
One way to stop the little, er, darlings loading music tracks from unauthorised folders would be to NOT show the Browser Toolbar, or at least to remove the Add button in it. I’m fairly sure this is possible by manually editing MAIRLIST.INI, and I’m also fairly sure this is explained in the Wiki … [later] well, actually it is in the Documentation which is here: http://www.mairlist.com/en/documentation/v2.0/html/ch08s12.html. You need to read 8.12.2 ;D.
There are few ways to secure mAirList agains this kind of “attacks”. You can lock the config, and you can also disable certain buttons. Drag&Drop cannot be disabled.
And after all, this is rather an educational problem than a technical one, isn’t it? How about enabling logging and checking the playlist log after the show?
We had this problem (for the 1st time since we started using mAirList) over the weekend… A couple of presenters managed to screw-up the main Cartwall page - and we have News/Travel/Events bed+tags with Fade Triggers etc. So I had to re-build them today (I’ve made backups of the MLC files now!)…
Our plan is to have the 2nd studio as a prep area and include a mapped drive so that we can admin+prep on a 2nd mAirList machine and have the studio “read-only” (save for a couple of admin staff). Ideally, we want to disable any “Save” button like Playlists/Cartwall and we’ve also had folders/files go missing as people have been aborting their drag ‘n’ drop - thus MOVING a file/folder ;( That’s happened a couple of times now, I guess it’s due to the File Browser being a Windows’y componant… ?
I have spoken to our technician and he is going to make me a new login that basically puts mairlist full screen and will only have mairlist accessible. I can then simply have the browser with the songs, which the login will put as “read-only” so that they can simply play them and do nothing else i.e. copy or save new files.
Then, I will create a student mairlist and a Admin mairlist. The student one doing what you guys said about being that we simply remove add or save buttons to prevent anything being done with the information on the computer.
As for logging, i still need to really sit down and get my head around it as im seeming to get error messages all the time and its not working. Just got to find time to read the wiki.
Also, is there a way of adding a file type to the playlist that automatically plays out regardless to what the presenter does. I currently have a jingle that is for the end of the show but this isnt always being played and also they are going on past the time they should stop. I do tell them but somehow it doesnt seem to soak in. Basically a command or something that at a set time, fires a jingle and then at the end closes mairlist down or even better logs off the computer. is there any such way/script??
Ideally, it would run in the background so that it couldnt be deleted from the playlist and so i know it will get played and they will be forced to stop when i wish them to.
Still no joy disabling items in the toolbar other than insert/title/delete, the other functions remaining active.
Removing the code from the ini files and the functions previously greyed out (inactive) reamin in the same mode (inactive).
This is in 2.1.35/2.1.39 and 2.1.40, yet to try a later version.
Replacing the original mairlist.ini from a backup folder and there is still no change.
**edit*8
Returned to hiding the top toolbar by moving the players up so they sit at the top (we use 2 layouts 1 for admin 1 for On Air). Would still like to remove the add buttons etc on the browser, anyone with a working layout to share?
Can I tactfully suggest that the WWW page is updated to add [Browser] above the example keys shown at the bottom of the page? Without that section heading, one has to guess the correct section name, and we have obviously guessed wrong!
This is because this is the v2.0 documentation, and things are different in v2.0.
In v2.0, it’s “[BrowserToolbar]” in mAirList.ini.
In v2.1, it’s “[Browser]” in skin.ini.
I have changed this for reasons of consistency. Now that we have skin.ini, all display-related settings should go there. And there should be now reason to edit mAirList.ini manually. (Although there are still some undocumented settings which cannot be accessed through mAirListConfig.)
Regarding the documentation, I propose that we continue to update the Wiki, and also start to change all information so that it reflects v2.1 (or v3.0, which will be finished early next year). I’m too busy to maintain and update the official manual, and the Wiki is a nice place to establish a reference.
Without that section heading, one has to guess the correct section name, and we have obviously guessed wrong! 