Lately we've been focusing a lot on Salamadra vs. Zara, but there's anothet out there that seldom gets talked about here, LunarCaster (I love the name). I've mentioned it before a few times and played with it in the past. Johnny C. had ran it through it's ropes 10 years ago and concluded the only advantage over Zara is its streaming capabilities (Johnny opted to return to Zara at the time,). https://www.part15.org/lunarcaster-radio-automation-software/
Lunarcaster came out in 2010 and has been under development ever since. -Or rather untill last July when he announced discontinuing any further development.. But so what? the free Zararadio discontinued delevopment 20 years ago and lots of us still swear by it.
Anyway, just thought I'd throw it in the mix again since theres been so much talk on the Zara/Salamandra options lately.. Over 40 thousand people have downloaded it so it might be worth a second look.
Now all it has is the following announcement with a download link, but the archive provides the site as it appeared last year:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240708073551/https://www.lunarcaster.com/
Lunacaster is currently NOT under any further development and I am not sure when/if I will resume development in the future.
I will continue to provide this software download as long as I can. It is provided free of charge with NO guaranty of functionality, usability, or security in any way shape or form. Download and use at your own risk.
I'd like to see someone develop automation software for Android.
Currently, the only thing that approaches this functionality is Foobar2000, but the Android version doesn't support the plug-ins that transform a media player into an automation package.
There are various hacks you can try, such as attempting to program one of the many phone automation apps, but even with the best, you really can't approach the functionality of a dedicated radio broadcast app. These automation apps allow you to start other apps, such as media players, under specified conditions, but there are no playlists, rotation files, etc. - you have to kludge your own with directories.
@artisan-radio Yeah, there are boatloads of android music automation apps but nothing comparable to something like Zara for example.
I just stumbled across this (not android) free radio automation, though it's been in developement for about a year now it doesnt seem to tell you much about it.. I don't know, I'm just mentioning it be ause I never heard of it before
ARAS is a free broadcast automation system
https://sourceforge.net/projects/aras/reviews/