                 CONFIGURING NOW & NEXT IN RIVENDELL

SCOPE
Rivendell has the ability to automatically send information regarding
the current and next-to-play events in RDAirPlay logs to external
systems (such as RDS/RDBS encoders or web servers) using TCP/IP UDP 
datagrams.  This capability is referred to in Rivendell as 'Now &
Next'.  This document provides some pointers on setting up this
capability.

CONFIGURATION
Now and Next is configured in RDAdmin->ManageHosts->RDAirPlay.
Pressing the 'Configure Now & Next Parameters' button here will open a
dialog.  Each RDAirPlay log machine can be seperately configured, as
follows:

  IP ADDRESS:  The IP address, in dotted-quad notation, to which
               packets should be sent.

    UDP PORT:  The UDP port number to which packets should be sent.

  UDP STRING:  The contents of the update string.  The following
               placeholder macros can be used, which will be replaced 
               appropriately when a packet is sent:

	       %n - The currently-playing CART NUMBER
	       %g - The currently-playing GROUP NAME
	       %t - The currently-playing TITLE field
	       %a - The currently-playing ARTIST field
	       %l - The currently-playing ALBUM field
	       %y - The currently-playing YEAR field
	       %b - The currently-playing LABEL field
	       %c - The currently-playing CLIENT field
	       %e - The currently-playing AGENCY field
	       %u - The currently-playing USER DEFINED field
	       %h - The length of the currently playing cut, in mS.
	       %r - A "Unix" style newline (naked ASCII 10)
	       %R - An "MS-DOS" style newsline (ASCII 13/10)
	       %% - A literal '%'.

	       Additionally, with the exception of the '%r', '%R' and '%%'
               placeholders, the corresponding field for the next-to-play 
	       event can be specified by simply uppercasing the above 
	       placeholders.  Any other characters will be sent unchanged.


ENABLING AUDIO
Before any data is sent, RDAirPlay checks to see that the Group
to which the event's cart belongs has been enabled to send Now & Next
data.  This can be set on a group-by-group basis in
RDAdmin->ManageGroups by setting the 'Transmit Now & Next data' box
appropriately.


OPERATION
Once properly configured, RDAirPlay will send a UDP packet as
specified every time the corresponding log changes status.
