rad.io: Listen to your code

Turn the file you are editing into music. Every character becomes part of a track (letters make the melody, symbols make the drums, brackets make the chords), and the editor follows along: the character that is playing is highlighted and kept in view.

It is the rad.io web app running in a panel inside VS Code, with 13 styles to choose from: Default, Chillstep, Lo-fi, Rock / Metal, Emo / Pop Punk, Chiptune, Ambient, Synthwave, Techno / House, Trance, Dubstep, Neo-classical and Cinematic. The same text always gives the same track.

Using it

A rad.io tab opens in the bottom panel (next to Terminal and Problems) the first time you play. Drag it to a side bar if you prefer it there.

Open the Command Palette and type "rad.io":

Command	What it does
Play this file (`Cmd+Alt+R` / `Ctrl+Alt+R`)	Plays the active file from the start.
Play the selection (also in the right-click menu)	Plays just the selected text.
Play from the cursor (also in the right-click menu)	Plays the file starting at the cursor.
Stop	Stops playback. The rad.io button in the status bar toggles play and stop.
Show the player	Opens the panel without playing, to change the style, tempo, key, scale, background voice, layers and seed.

The first time, click Play in the panel once: audio cannot start without a click inside it, and the status bar tells you if a command was not enough. Keep the tab open (it can sit behind the terminal) while the music plays.

In a narrow side bar the player is a compact strip (the equalizer, Play / Stop, the Style menu and the track length), and the Settings button unfolds everything else. Drag the panel down to a thin strip and it becomes a mini player with just Play / Pause and Stop.

Settings

Setting	Default	What it does
`radio.theme`	`editor`	`editor` follows your VS Code theme (colours, font, light or dark); `radio` keeps rad.io's own dark look.
`radio.followPlayback`	`true`	Highlights the character that is playing in the editor and scrolls to keep it in view.

Good to know

Network: the instrument samples (piano, guitar, bass, cello and violin) are downloaded the first time a style needs them, from tonejs.github.io and nbrosowsky.github.io; with no connection the styles fall back to synthesized voices. Nothing about your code is sent anywhere: the music is made on your machine, and the extension collects no telemetry.
Your files are not changed. The extension only reads the text of the file you play.
The music is built from the characters of one file. It does not (yet) use errors, symbols or git history.

Credits and licence

MIT licensed. Sounds are made with Tone.js (MIT); the piano samples are the Salamander Grand Piano by Alexander Holm (CC BY 3.0) and the guitar, bass, cello and violin samples come from tonejs-instruments (CC BY 3.0). See NOTICE.md.

Issues and ideas: https://github.com/seckela/rad.io/issues

rad.io: Listen to your code

Mikhail Thomas

rad.io: Listen to your code

Using it

Settings

Good to know

Credits and licence