Get active chat session for homepage

⚙️ Web integration
1

Is there an integration method for getting the current playlist chat session and embedding it on our station’s homepage? This would provider better UX than having to have listener’s click through several pages to find the active playlist

1 Like
2

Hi Tim,

The current playlist iframe widget should work for that.

But given what you’re looking for, you should try the custom layout integration method.

Here’s an example http://www.testradio.org/ that links all the support material we have for it.

Check out https://spinitron.com/WSUM/?layout=1

And https://schedule.ohmradio963.org/WOHM/calendar?layout=1

3

Interesting. I came to this topic because I was searching for the same thing, a way to make the chat more prominent by embedding it on the home page.

However, I fail to see what anything at any of those links has to do with this topic. I don’t see a chat window on any of the pages and it’s not mentioned anywhere on the pages either.

While I’m at it, is there any way as an admin to set the chat system to default to “on”? We would prefer that a chat window opens automatically when they sign on and that users would have to choose to close chat if they do NOT want to use it.

Thanks. Sybil

4

Spinitron pages with a custom layout are not suitable for the home page of a station’s web site. You need to link to those pages so there’s at least one click to get to them. So most of what I wrote 3 years ago to Tim doesn’t apply to your questions, Sybil.

To have the chat widget on your home page www.wortfm.org you’ll need an iframe with your Spinitron landing page in it. Here’s a simplified example.

I expect this is not what you really want for a number of reasons.

  • Chat rooms in Spinitron belong to playlists and always accompany their playlist. That’s why there is no separate chat widget.
  • Chat rooms open when the playlist owner chooses and automatically close at the end of the playlist.
  • So to display the chat on your home page you have to display the playlist and that takes up too much space.
  • And at certain times there might not be a playlist but the iframe takes up space anyway so that looks bad.
  • And even if there is a playlist, there may not be a chat (more below).

If what you really want is a chat feature on the wortfm.org home page then I don’t think Spinitron’s playlist playlist chat is a good fit.

You inquired about a setting so that Spinitron automatically opens a chat room with every playlist. Chat needs to be moderated so I guess we would modify the playlist worksheet so that the green Open chat button would instead be a Close chat button and merely arriving at this page in Spinitron is taken as the DJ’s consent to moderate the chat.

playlist worksheet screenshot
playlist worksheet screenshot1000×868 52.5 KB

I’m not sure how much difference this will make because with Automatic Music Recognition turned DJs don’t need to open this page. How many do? Even if a DJ does, the chat feature is prominent and taking up a lot of space and it’s one click to either activate it or to hide it.

If you want to get uptake of using playlist chat up among DJs then, as a precondition you gotta get DJs to actively log on to Spinitron and open their playlists live, during the broadcast. After that it’s a matter of selling them on the value of chat to themselves, listeners, and the station.