YARSP: Yet Another Radio Streaming Player

by Liam Erven

YARSP is a screen-reader-first internet radio player. Many internet radio players exist. I wanted to make my own, with the features I’d actually use and a UI I liked. An agentic coder was used to produce this software.

There is nothing to install. Unzip the YARSP folder anywhere you like and run YARSP.exe. Everything YARSP saves, including favorites, settings and custom stations, lives in the data folder next to the program, so moving the folder moves everything with it, and deleting it leaves nothing behind.

What’s new in 0.8

• Collections, Ctrl+L: group stations however you like. A collection can hold your favorites, your own streams, and stations from any of the directories, all together. Your custom stations are a collection too, and the Collections window is where you manage them.
• Context menus now match the selected item. In a list or a tree you get a context menu about the item you are selecting, instead of the currently playing station.
• Ctrl+P, Ctrl+S, Ctrl+M and Ctrl+Up or Down now work in every window. Play, stop, mute and volume used to work only on the main window; they work from a list or a tree as well, on whatever is playing.
• Import a playlist. Stations → Import Playlist reads an M3U or a PLS file and adds the stations in it to your custom stations. Import Playlist as Collection puts them in a collection named after the file instead. Anything in the file that is not a stream, like a music track on your own drive, is left out.
• Export your stations. Favorites and the Collections window have an Export button. It writes a playlist file you can import again, so you can back your stations up or give them to someone else.
• Messages show on screen as well as being spoken, so what an import did, and anything that goes wrong, can be read as well as heard.
• Copy Stream URL no longer says it failed when it worked.

What’s new in 0.7

• Song history, Ctrl+Y: You can now get a history of what a station played for stations that support it. For the ones who don’t, YARSP will keep track while you listen.
• A sleep timer in the Playback menu. Choose from 15 minutes to two hours to have YARSP stop after a certain amount of time. Ctrl and a number sets one without the menu.
• YARSP won’t spawn multiple instances. Starting it again brings the copy you already have open into focus.

What’s new in 0.6

• YARSP’s windows are real dialogs now. Your screen reader says “dialog”, Escape closes, Enter presses the default button.
• Windows open quietly. No extra speech on top of your screen reader’s own announcement.
• Playing a station leaves the list open. Close Lists When Playing in the File menu puts the old behavior back.
• One shortcut per action: Ctrl+P, Ctrl+S, Ctrl+M, Ctrl+D. Alt+P opens Playback, Alt+S opens Stations.
• F is favorites on every Add or Remove button and menu item.
• The context menu works in every list, not only the main window.
• A dialog’s shortcut returns you to it instead of reopening it.
• The equalizer speaks decibels, not percentages.
• Switching stations while one is still connecting announces the new one.

What’s new in 0.5

• The context menu on a station behaves correctly now. The Applications key or Shift+F10 gives you Play, add or remove favorite, copy the stream address, and delete for your own stations. Enter used to activate the wrong thing.
• Menus open with the first item already selected, so your screen reader reads it right away.
• Copy Stream URL checks that the copy worked instead of assuming it did.
• In any list, a letter on its own no longer presses a button — D no longer reorders your favorites. It jumps to the next station starting with that letter.
• Home and End in Browse stay on the level you are on, so End reaches Load More instead of the bottom of the tree. Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End go to the very top and bottom.
• Announce Connection Status, a new File menu setting, turns off the Connecting, Buffering and Stopped announcements. Failures and reconnections are always announced.
• Bringing YARSP back now puts you in the window. It used to appear without taking the keyboard, so your screen reader stayed in whatever you were using. This covers the hotkey, the tray icon, and Show on the tray menu.
• Closing the tray menu while YARSP is hidden no longer leaves an empty YARSP window behind, and takes you back where you were.

What’s new in 0.4

• iHeartRadio is now one of the directories: its own section in Browse, and its stations turn up in Search alongside everything else.
• A three-band equalizer with presets, on Ctrl+E. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E turns it on and off from anywhere, even with YARSP in the background.
• Alt+1 through Alt+0 play your first ten favorites, from the main window, without opening anything.
• Announcing what’s playing now reads the song before the station, the same order the window title uses.
• When a station stops sending song information, YARSP now says nothing is playing instead of leaving the last song showing as though it were still on.
• YARSP starts with the focus on the Play button.

What’s new in 0.3

• There is now an Add to Favorites button on the main window and in Search, Browse, and Recently Played — so you can find favorites without knowing about Ctrl+D first. It changes the button’s label to Remove from Favorites when the station already is a favorite.
• Browse remembers your place. Play a station and reopen Browse, and you are back on the same station with the categories above it still open, instead of at the top with everything collapsed.
• Coming back to the window with Alt+Tab puts you on the control you were using, the way other Windows programs do.
• Ctrl+U copies the stream address of whatever is playing, or of the station you have selected in a list.
• Pressing Enter on Load More now takes you to the first station of the new batch, instead of leaving you on the Load More item.
• All the accelerator keys work as expected. Alt plus the underlined letter now reaches every button, field, and list.

What’s new in 0.2

• Much smaller download.
• Stations you add by URL now have their own Custom Stations section in the browse tree.
• Genre and Country in Search are now drop-down lists you can also type in.
• After a search, you land on the first result — no extra tabbing.
• You can choose which sound card YARSP plays through — and if that device disappears, YARSP falls back to the default and switches back when it returns.
• New in the browse tree: browse TuneIn by location, from continent down to city, and the Stream Madness network.
• Escape closes any dialog.
• The window title shows the current station and song, so the taskbar and Alt+Tab tell you what’s playing.
• Streams recover from interruptions more reliably: short drops are ridden out without a word, and a lost stream is retried before YARSP gives up on it.
• YARSP tells you when a new version is available, and Help → Check for Updates checks on demand.
• F1 and Help → User Guide open this guide in your browser.
• On the volume slider, Up now raises the volume instead of lowering it.
• Song title announcements can be turned off, and YARSP can start your last station automatically — both in the File menu.

Getting started

1. Run YARSP.exe. Your screen reader should say “YARSP ready.”
2. Press Ctrl+F to search for a station by name, or Ctrl+G to browse.
3. Press Enter on a station to play it.

Searching

Press Ctrl+F, type part of a station’s name, and press Enter. You can also narrow the search by genre, country, or language. Genre and Country are drop-down lists that you can also type into.

You land on the first result. Enter plays it and Ctrl+D saves it as a favorite.

The last column of every station list tells you which directory the station came from.

Browsing

Press Ctrl+G. The tree has six sections:

• Radio Browser: browse by genre or by country. Countries with thousands of stations are divided into states or regions, with an “All stations” item first. Long lists end with a Load More item. Press Enter on it for the next batch.
• TuneIn: browse by location, from continent to country to region to stations.
• iHeartRadio: All Stations for the whole catalog, or Genres to narrow it down. American stations only.
• Networks: broadcasters in one place: the BBC, NPR, CBC, ABC Australia, Radio France, Deutschlandfunk, SomaFM, and Stream Madness. These directories are hand curated, and may not always be completely accurate.
• Collections: the groups you have made yourself. See below.
• Custom Stations: everything you’ve added by URL.

Right Arrow opens a level, Left Arrow closes it, typing a letter jumps by name, and Enter plays the selected station.

Home and End move to the first and last item on the level you are already on, so End in a list of stations lands on Load More rather than leaving the branch. Ctrl+Home and Ctrl+End go to the top and the bottom of the whole tree.

Playing a station leaves the tree open, so you can try another one.

Browse remembers where you were. The next time you open it you are put back on that station, with the categories above it reopened. If the station is no longer in the directory, you land on the nearest category instead. This is remembered until you close YARSP.

Favorites and recently played

• The Add to Favorites button sits next to Play on the main window and in the Search, Browse, and Recently Played windows. It acts on the station you have selected, or on the one playing if you have no list open, and it reads Remove from Favorites when that station is already saved.
• Ctrl+D does the same from anywhere in YARSP.
• Ctrl+B opens your favorites. Alt+Up and Alt+Down reorder the list, and Delete removes the station you are on. There are Remove and Move buttons as well.
• Ctrl+H opens the stations you’ve played recently.

In any list of stations, typing a letter jumps to the next station starting with it. The buttons below the list are reached with Alt and their underlined letter, such as Alt+R for Remove and Alt+D for Move Down, so a letter on its own never presses one.

Importing a playlist

Press Ctrl+I, or Stations → Import Playlist, and choose an M3U, M3U8 or PLS file. The stations in it are added to your custom stations.

Press Ctrl+Shift+I, or Stations → Import Playlist as Collection, to put them in a collection named after the file instead. My Stations.m3u makes a collection called My Stations. The stations go there and not into Custom Stations. If a collection of that name already exists, they are added to it.

Entries that are not web addresses, such as music files on your own drive, are skipped. Stations keep the names the file gives them; where the file has no name for one, it is named after its address.

YARSP tells you how many stations were added, how many you already had, and how many entries were skipped.

To put stations you have already imported into a collection, open Collections, press the Applications key on Custom Stations, and choose Add All to Collection.

Exporting your stations

There is an Export button in Favorites and in the Collections window. It writes an M3U file containing the stations and their names.

In the Collections window it exports the collection you are on, including Custom Stations. In Favorites it exports all your favorites.

You can import the file again, so use it to back your stations up or to give them to someone else.

Adding your own stations

Press Ctrl+N, give the station a name, enter its stream address, and press Enter or choose OK. Cancel closes without saving.

The station is kept under Custom Stations, which you will find both in the browse tree and at the top of the Collections window. Play it from either place.

To delete one, press Delete on it in either place, or use the Applications key and choose Delete Custom Station.

The context menu

On any station in any list, the Applications key or Shift+F10 opens a menu: Play, add or remove favorite, copy the stream address, add to a collection, and, for your own stations, delete.

The menu is about the item you are on. On one of your collections in the Collections window or in Browse, it offers Rename and Delete instead. On something that is not a station or a collection, such as a category or Load More, there is nothing to do, and YARSP says so rather than opening a menu about something else.

Ctrl+U does the copy without the menu: it takes the station you have selected, or the one that is playing if you have no list open.

Choosing a sound card

File → Audio Device is a submenu listing every output device on your computer, with a check mark on the one in use. Choose one and it takes effect immediately, even while a station is playing, and YARSP remembers it.

If the device you chose disappears, such as a USB headset being unplugged, YARSP announces it and keeps playing through the default output. Plug the device back in and YARSP switches back to it. Your choice is kept either way.

The equalizer

Press Ctrl+E, or Playback → Equalizer.

Preset is a list of ready-made curves: Flat, Bass Boost, Treble Boost, Loudness, Voice, and Warm. Choosing one moves the three sliders and reads the new settings out to you.

Below it are Bass (dB), Mid (dB), and Treble (dB), each adjustable from −12 to +12. Arrow keys move a band one decibel at a time, Home and End jump to the lowest and highest settings, and 0 is flat. Moving a slider yourself changes the preset to Custom.

Enabled turns the equalizer on and off without changing your settings. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E does the same from anywhere in Windows without opening this window. YARSP remembers these settings between runs.

Collections

A collection is a group of stations you put together yourself, such as Sports, News, or My Stations. A collection can hold your favorites, the streams you added by URL, and stations from any of the directories, all in the same group. Adding a station to a collection does not move it or change it, and one station can be in as many collections as you like.

To put a station in one, press the Applications key or Shift+F10 on it anywhere in YARSP and choose Add to Collection. The collections it is already in are ticked, and choosing a ticked one takes it back out. New Collection at the bottom makes one on the spot. To add whatever is playing, press Ctrl+Shift+L, or use Playback → Add to Collection. Both give you the same list of collections, ticked the same way.

Press Ctrl+L, or Stations → Collections, to manage them. The tree lists your collections; Right Arrow opens one to see its stations, Left Arrow closes it again. Enter on a station plays it.

The buttons act on whatever you are on:

• New makes an empty collection.
• Rename and Delete work on a collection. F2 renames, and Delete deletes. You are asked first. Deleting a collection also removes the stations in it, but any of them you have saved elsewhere, such as in favorites or another collection, are kept there.
• Remove Station takes the station you are on out of its collection. The Delete key does the same.
• Move Up and Move Down put the stations in the order you want. Alt+Up and Alt+Down do it from the tree without leaving it.
• Export writes the collection you are on to a file. See Exporting your stations.

Custom Stations is at the top of this window, because it is a collection as well. It works like the others except that it cannot be renamed or deleted, and that removing a station from it deletes that station.

To add every station in one collection to another, press the Applications key on a collection and choose Add All to Collection. Stations already in the collection you choose are left as they are.

Collections also appear in Browse, where you can play from them. Delete works there too: on one of your own stations it deletes it, on a station in a collection it removes it from that collection, and on a station from a directory it tells you that only your own stations can be deleted.

Song history

Press Ctrl+Y, or Playback → Song History, while a station is playing. The newest song is at the top. Press Enter or the Copy button to copy the song you are on.

Some stations publish their own list of recent songs, and that list goes back further than the point where you tuned in. When the station also sends the times, a second column tells you how long ago each song played.

Stations that publish nothing get a list of the songs YARSP heard while you were listening. That list starts when you start the station and clears when you change stations.

A station with no song information at all, like a talk station, has no history to show either way. The line above the list tells you which of the three you have.

The sleep timer

Playback → Sleep Timer stops the radio after 15, 30 or 45 minutes, an hour, 90 minutes, or 2 hours. YARSP tells you how long it has been set for. Off cancels the timer, and choosing a different time replaces it.

Ctrl and a number sets a time without opening the menu, in the order the menu lists them: Ctrl+1 for 15 minutes, Ctrl+2 for 30, Ctrl+3 for 45, Ctrl+4 for an hour, Ctrl+5 for 90 minutes, and Ctrl+6 for 2 hours. Ctrl+0 cancels the timer.

The timer runs until the time you set, whatever you do in the meantime. Changing stations does not reset it, and neither does stopping and starting the radio again. When the time is up YARSP says “Sleep timer: stopping” and stops the radio. If the radio is already stopped, the timer ends without saying anything.

Settings

These are in the File menu, and YARSP saves what you set them to:

• Announce Song Titles: on by default. Turn it off if you’d rather not hear each new track; the window title still shows it, and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N still reads it out when you ask.
• Announce Connection Status: on by default. Turn it off and YARSP stops saying “Connecting”, “Buffering” and “Stopped”, so starting a station says one thing instead of three. It still tells you when a station starts playing, and it still tells you about anything that goes wrong. Errors and dropped connections are never silenced by this.
• Close Lists When Playing: off by default, so playing a station leaves Search, Browse, Favorites and Recently Played open and you can try another without finding your way back. Turn it on if you would rather the list closed once you have picked something.
• Play Last Station at Startup: off by default. Turn it on and YARSP picks up where you left off as soon as it opens.

When a stream drops

Short interruptions, such as a stalled connection or a brief Wi-Fi problem, are ignored and playback continues without a word.

If the stream is lost, YARSP says “Connection lost. Reconnecting.” and retries for about a minute. It says “Reconnected” if it succeeds, and tells you if it does not.

Updates

YARSP checks once a day for a newer version and tells you after startup if there is one. It never installs anything by itself.

Help → Check for Updates checks straight away and always tells you the result. When there is a new version it shows what changed and offers to download it in your browser.

The tray icon

YARSP keeps an icon in the system tray. Press Win+B to reach it. Its menu has Play or Pause, Stop, your favorites, Show YARSP, and Exit.

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Y hides the window while the radio keeps playing. Press it again to bring the window back.

Now playing

The window title shows the station, and the current song when the station sends one, so the taskbar and Alt+Tab show what is playing.

New songs are announced as they start. Ctrl+Alt+Shift+N repeats the announcement at any time.

Keyboard shortcuts

These work everywhere in the program, except Ctrl+I, Ctrl+Shift+I and Ctrl+Shift+L, which work on the main window only. Each opens something, and YARSP has one window open at a time:

The buttons on the main window carry no Alt keys of their own. Play, Stop, Mute and the favorites button are the Ctrl keys above, which work from anywhere in YARSP rather than only when the main window is in front. Tab reaches the buttons themselves.

Alt still reaches the menus, the volume slider, and your favorites:

Global hotkeys

These work from anywhere in Windows, even with YARSP hidden or in the background:

To change them: File → Global Hotkeys, arrow to an action, press Enter, then press the keys you want. Delete clears a hotkey, and there’s a Restore Defaults button.

Contact me

Feedback, questions, bug reports, and stations you’d like to see added are all welcome: liam@l-works.net.