I've been spending the weekend studying Airtime code and attempting to come up with a solution that will allow the delayed & automatic creation of shows containing smart blocks. I'll offer more on my proposed solution after this question.

I think that pypo fetch component routinely uses the Airtime API via api_client.py - it imports and calls the get_schedule function.
       def get_schedule(self):
        # TODO : properly refactor this routine
        # For now the return type is a little messed up for compatibility reasons
        try: return (True, self.services.export_url())
        except: return (False, None)

From here I've had to make some jumps of logic because self.services.export_url() I believe is the URL for the API which I believe calls the ApiController.php. In the API controller code I don't see a get_schedule function only a function called scheduleAction() which seems like it would return the actual schedule data via instantiating a the Application_Model_Schedule object. and calling getSchedule function. Is this scheduleAction() called routinely by PypoFetch or am I mistaken ?

If I'm mistaken what does PypoFetch actually hit in the API ? I plan on testing this if I don't hear back from anyone but I thought I'd ask as I need something that will routinely trigger a function that I can use as a jumping point for my proposed automatically scheduled playlist.

So in more details here is the partial solution that I came up with after analyzing the code. (any feedback/suggestions are welcome)

My solution is for shows to have an additional field added to them called Default Playlist.

This would be connected with an AJAX based autocomplete form that would allow the show producers to select a Play List from Airtime's list of Playlists and tie it the default for that show and add it to the schedule whenever that show is created or repeated (and added to the schedule). By itself this isn't much different from a linked show.

But in conjunction there will be an option (checkbox) for Delay Scheduling of Playlist and a optional Time Select Dropbox (default 1 hour) that would allow you to select a time before this show is set to air to schedule the addition of the playlist. There would be another option (checkbox) that would be something like Wipe Existing Show when Scheduling Playlist.

Basically there would be a hook (possibly placed inside of a function call from getSchedule()) that gets called and checks to see if any upcoming shows have a delayed scheduling request that is now within the time window. If so the AddPlaylistToShow function is called with the default playlist for this show.

If the Wipe Existing Show option was checked it will first wipe out any content in the show already scheduled and then build the play list, otherwise it will simply append the play list onto the end of the show with whatever content was already scheduled. If the show content was already fully scheduled it will simply overbook, but if for instance a program producer forgot to schedule their show or left a lot of dead air this could be used as a filler mechanism.

If the Default Playlist contains Smart Blocks they should be scheduled dynamically at this time as well, using the modifications to the Smart Blocp { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }k that allows filtering via newest or oldest (that I contributed) you could say for instance have it schedule the most recently added News Item into your block without requiring manual human intervention.

I think this will work based upon my code analysis and would use the existing functions without requiring a huge rewrite of the code or breaking backwards compatibility with the existing functionality. It opens up more options for hands-free automation and I plan to code this as my time allows, although I'm more than happy to confer with the airtime developers to make this happen.

The other option I considered coding was to have some kind of placeholder inside of the shows for unscheduled dynamic smart blocks, that would then be scheduled automatically when a threshold happens. This seemed like it would be more complicated and would require rewriting/modifying a lot more of the code than simply adding a default play list that gets added based upon a scheduled delay. Option 2 also has the potential to cause a lot more headaches and introduce bugs for users as the behaviour of the smart blocks would be harder to predict (ie knowing how long the would last beforehand). So I thought I'd try to do it in the least intrusive fashion so that it has a higher probability of getting into the next version of airtime and actually being useful.

If I am able to get this coded then our station will finally be able to use Airtime as our primary automation system instead of simply a piece of middleware.

Once this functionality is implemented I plan on adding a RSS podcast importer option to Airtime so that podcasts can be automatically imported then scheduled. Also I may be spending more time adding more functionality to the Smart Playlist (so that you can be more granular with sorting ie sort by other date fields such as last played or scheduled).

Again any thoughts and especially help with determining the best way to hook back into airtime for automatic scheduling is appreciated. I think that the rest of it should be pretty straightforward after really reading the code.

Robbt