Quill Radio 3.2

Version 3.2.0 (build 5), the beta for testers, October 2026. 3.2.0 was prepared on 2026-10-03 and is not yet published; the last published version is 3.0.4.

Welcome to Quill Radio 3.2. You can now ask the radio about what you are hearing and get an answer in words, and the radio keeps a list of everything it has told you, so nothing slips past while your screen reader is busy.

There is a new station made for this community, Double Tap Live. You can leave yourself a note on any station. Apple’s podcast categories are full lists now, and Preferences has a box that finds a setting as you type. And updates install themselves properly again, after one last update by hand.

Testing rebuild: 3.2.0 (build 5)

This beta is not a GitHub release or a Stable-channel promotion. Builds 2 to 5 are testing rebuilds of 3.2.0, and everything they added is part of 3.2.0. It is gathered here by subject; the rest of these notes describe 3.2.0 as first prepared. Help > What’s New (Ctrl+Shift+F1) opens the changelog in your browser, with every change and when it arrived.

What build 5 added: Slider Keys in Preferences, the 181.FM and laut.fm branches with three more music networks, and Help > What’s New. Build 4 ran Quill Radio on Python 3.14 and added most of what follows. Builds 2 and 3 added Start Quill Radio with Windows in Preferences, editing a station’s website in your own copy, and the fixes under “Updates and installing”.

Later Windows testing update (2026-10-27)

Quill Radio now closes cleanly after Windows audio-device enumeration or a device switch. This fixes a process-exit crash; choosing an output device and playing through Windows Media work as before.

New stations and networks

A listener in Hawaii asked for 181.FM by name, and it is now a branch of its own in Browse Stations: every channel the network lists, about eighty of them, by 181.FM’s own genres, with All stations first. Explicit channels say so, and the Christmas genre is marked seasonal. laut.fm is another new branch: thousands of stations that people run themselves, by the platform’s most-listened genres. Search Stations finds both, and so do Search All Sources and Find inside either branch. In Networks > Music you will also find 181.FM, Big R Radio and 1.FM, each showing only that network’s own stations. If you chose your sources before these existed, they are switched on for you once.

Volume and sound

Slider Keys is new in Preferences (Ctrl+,), for every Quill app at once. Up is more stays the default: Up, Page Up and Home raise the volume slider, and Home is now the top, 100 percent, with End the bottom. Or choose As Windows sliders, where Down, Page Down and End raise it. Right is more and Left is less either way. Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down, the volume keys that work from anywhere, are not changed. Each key press also tells your screen reader the new value straight away.

Quill Radio’s own sounds now play on the same sound card as the radio. If you send the station to a broadcast card, the playing, stopped and stream error sounds are there with it, so you can tell by ear that you are on air. They follow the radio wherever you move it. If you would rather keep them somewhere else, App Sounds Play On… in Preferences can leave them on the system default, give them any sound card of their own, or turn them off with None. Alt+Shift+M turns them off and back on, the same key in every QUILL app. After a change you hear one sound on the new device. If that device is unplugged, the sounds play on the system default until it comes back, and Quill Radio tells you. Your screen reader is never moved.

• A sound for resuming. Resuming after a pause plays a short sound of its own, so you can tell carrying on from starting a new station. Alt+Shift+M turns it off with Quill Radio’s other sounds.
• A background station on another device. Audio > Background Station on Another Device… (Alt+Shift+B) plays one of your favorites quietly on a second sound card or headset, underneath whatever else is playing. Press Alt+Shift+B again to turn it off.
• Mirror to another device. Audio > Mirror to Another Device… (Alt+Shift+D) plays the same station on a second device as well, following the main player in everything. This and the background station both need the mpv playback engine. See “A second device: a background station, or a mirror” in Chapter 5.
• No more “mpv is missing” at every start. With Playback engine on Automatic in Preferences, Quill Radio no longer warns about mpv each time it starts, because playing through Windows Media is what Automatic is for. You still hear it if you chose mpv yourself and it cannot be loaded.

Recording

• Every recording says how it went. When a recording is over you hear one message, once, with the station, when it started, how long it is and the folder it is in. If the station goes away for good before the end, you hear the error sound, how much was kept and why, and Activity (Shift+F9) keeps the message with Open Folder. See “When a recording ends” and “Cannot find a recording?” in Chapter 8.
• Radio Recordings lists every recording. Raw stream recordings, such as AAC or Opus files, are in the list now. So is a file that could not leave the temporary recording folder, and it says “still in the temporary recording folder”.
• Recordings comes back when it is already open. Record > Recordings… (Ctrl+Shift+R) opens the recordings list or restores its existing window, including when it is minimized. The last public 3.0.4 build could silently leave that window minimized. The shared opener has been checked with real Windows controls, with empty and with full recordings folders.
• Stop All Recordings stops a recording that is waiting to reconnect. It used to say nothing was recording, and the recording carried on after its wait. Now it stops, and you hear “including 1 waiting to reconnect”.
• A reconnect that records nothing keeps what you have. The earlier parts of the show are kept, and it counts as one more try to reconnect.
• A scheduled recording that cannot start stays in Activity, with the reason, so you can still find it when you come back hours later.
• Recordings no longer start with the station’s advert. Many stations play an advert to every new listener, and a recording is a new listener. When a recording ends, Quill Radio cuts the advert it began with, and any repeat of it after a reconnect, and tells you how much was removed. There is nothing to set. See “Station adverts at the start of a recording” in Chapter 8.
• One file per song. Turn on Split the recording at each song change in Record > Recording Settings… (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+I, then Alt+N). A recording from a station that sends song names is then cut into one file per song, named after the song and numbered in play order. A cut can land a few seconds early or late, and if the split cannot be done, the recording is kept whole and you hear why.

Listening

• Lyrics. Playback > Lyrics… (Ctrl+Alt+B) opens the words of the song on the air as text to arrow through and copy, and the Lyrics button (Alt+Y) in Song History does the same for a song heard earlier. Lyrics are looked up only when you ask, and nothing about what you heard is saved. See “Lyrics, step by step” in Chapter 5.
• Rewind live radio by an hour, or five. Quill Radio now keeps an hour of a live station, and up to five hours if you choose it with Time-shift buffer in Preferences. Ctrl+Shift+Left and Ctrl+Shift+Right go further the more quickly you tap, and say where you landed. See “Rewinding live radio, and going back to live” in Chapter 4.
• Identify This Song. On a station that never says what it is playing, Identify This Song on the Playback menu (Ctrl+K) asks the free AcoustID service and tells you its best guess and how sure it is. It needs a free AcoustID key in Preferences and Chromaprint’s fpcalc program, and until both are there it tells you what is missing. See “Identify This Song” in Chapter 5.
• QUILL Lineups. Playback > Lineups… (Ctrl+U) keeps named lists of anything Quill Radio and QUILL Cast can play: stations, podcasts and episodes, YouTube videos, Local Media files and recordings. Fill one by hand with Add to Lineup…, or give it rules that fill it for you, then play it straight through. See Chapter 17, QUILL Lineups, and the tutorial Build a lineup that fills itself.
• Stopping, three ways. To stop what is playing, press Ctrl+Period from anywhere, the Stop button (Alt+T), or Playback > Play (Ctrl+P), which reads Stop while something plays.
• Properties describes the drive. Properties… (Alt+Enter) in Local Media now describes the drive a file is on.

Finding and keeping stations

• Your YouTube channels are in A to Z order. Asked for on QUILLVille: the channels you follow, under YouTube in Browse Stations, and **My YouTube

  Subscriptions > Your Channels** are both listed alphabetically, so you can type the first letters of a channel’s name and land on it. They used to come in the order you followed them, or in YouTube’s own order.

• Mark several rows, then delete them with one question. In your favorites, Manage Favorites, Radio Recordings, Browse Stations and Schedule Recording, press . (period) on each row you want; you hear how many are marked. Delete then asks once, for example “Delete 5 stations?”, and Ctrl+Shift+Delete clears the marks.
• A key that plays a favorite from anywhere. Choose System-Wide Key… on a favorite’s Shift+F10 menu to give that station its own key, which works even with another program in front. A key that is already taken is refused, with the reason.
• Saved places in Favorites come back. A genre, country or other place you saved to Favorites is still there after Quill Radio restarts.
• Escape walks back out of Browse Stations one level at a time. Inside a branch, Escape goes back to the row you opened it from and folds it. Only on a top-level branch does it close the window, and playback carries on.
• Station Details finds a station by its call sign, frequency or slogan. View > Station Details… (Alt+Shift+I) searches by name, call sign, frequency, slogan, format or city, and says why each result matched. No station pack ships yet, so for now the window says so.
• Add Custom Station accepts a station’s web page. Paste a home page or a “Listen Live” player link into Stream URL, and Test and OK find the real stream behind it. See “Add Custom Station, step by step” in Chapter 6.
• Correct a station’s website in your own copy. Choose Edit Website… on a station row in Browse Stations or Manage Favorite Stations. The correction is saved in this Radio profile only; it does not change the directory, and Quill Radio checks only the address format, not the website itself. Clear the address to return to the directory’s version.
• Spotify is on the Station menu from the start. Connect to Spotify… (Ctrl+Alt+P) and Browse Spotify… (Ctrl+Alt+O) are there in a new install. Spotify is still experimental, and nothing is sent until you connect an account.
• Community > Suggest a Station or Podcast… sends nothing until you choose whether it is a station or a podcast.

Podcasts and show notes

• CBC podcasts play again. Podcasts you have just imported no longer arrive as hundreds of new episodes, and a podcast that fails says why in plain words.
• Find on an Internet Archive folder puts the best matches first, so new uploads are found.
• Show notes read as words. Apostrophes and other punctuation in show notes, titles and station descriptions are read as themselves, not as a string of symbols and numbers.
• View Show Notes. An episode with notes has View Show Notes… on its context menu. The notes open with working links you can Tab between, and Save As keeps them as links.
• Podcasts over http and https. A new user guide section, “Podcasts with http and https addresses”, explains that https is tried first, that a password is never sent over plain http, and what to try when a certificate cannot be verified.

Notifications and reminders

• Community > What’s New, in one key. Community > What’s New (Alt+Shift+N) tells you in one sentence what arrived since you last looked: new episodes, new videos from channels you follow, and reminders that went off. It is not the same as Help > What’s New (Ctrl+Shift+F1), which opens the changelog.
• How many notifications are unread. The status bar has a Notifications cell, such as “3 new”, and Help > Notifications… shows the count too whenever some are unread.
• Reminders wait in Notifications. A tune-in reminder now stays in Help > Notifications… (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F3), so you can find it if you were away, and Enter on a station reminder plays the station. A reminder also reads the Note to Self you keep on that station.

Dictation and the QuillVille family

Edit > Dictate Here (Ctrl+F11) dictates into Search Stations or any text box through QUILL Transcribe, coming on 1 November 2026, and the QuillVille menu has Open QUILL Transcribe. See “Dictating a search”.

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R shows and hides Quill Radio even while other QUILL apps run.

• A pin on the taskbar opens Quill Radio’s own window, every time. Every QuillVille app now does what Quill Radio has done since 3.0.2: its shortcuts carry its own taskbar identity, so pinning the running app pins its shortcut. An older pin that still opens “Several QuillVille apps are installed” now opens the app you pick through its own launcher, with all of its settings, instead of a copy that cannot find its speech engines.

Settings, keys and saving

• Start Quill Radio when you sign in. Start Quill Radio with Windows is in Preferences as well as on the Station menu. Both control the same per-user Windows setting. It is available for an installed copy, needs no administrator rights, and is unavailable for portable copies, which do not change Windows startup settings.
• Choosing a show and hide key is easier. Record Key… (Alt+R) in the Show and Hide Key window writes out the combination you press. You can still type it.
• Settings saves are steadier when Quill Radio closes. A change made just before the window closes is saved, and a save that fails after closing no longer speaks over whatever you have moved on to. Routine history and preference saves run in the background.
• Certificate problems said plainly. Every secure connection now checks certificates the way Windows does, using the Windows certificate store while still checking certificates and hostnames. When one cannot be verified, Browse Stations says so in one sentence with what to check, instead of “could not be reached”, and the Troubleshooting chapter has a section on it.

Updates and installing

• Python 3.14. Build 4 and later run on Python 3.14. The installer also removes the older Python 3.13 runtime once no QuillVille app on your computer uses it.
• No administrator prompt. The installer is for you alone and does not offer an administrator-only installation. The startup update check no longer makes a bookkeeping write while the window opens.
• A portable copy updates in place and keeps its data folder where Quill Radio looks for it.
• A failed update puts back the version you had and says so.
• The Beta engine’s 335 MB are removed when the last app on Beta returns to Stable.

A word about the number

The last Quill Radio you could download was 3.0.4, and this one is 3.2.0. You have not missed anything in between. This release was prepared as 3.1.1 and never went out under that number, so there was never a public 3.1, and the next number is 3.2.0. Your favorites, settings and recordings come with you exactly as before, and after the one update by hand described next, Check for Updates works the way it always has.

Before you update: one last time by hand

In 3.0.4, Check for Updates could offer you an update you had already installed, and Install and restart closed Quill Radio without installing anything. Both are fixed in 3.2.0. But the fix lives in the new version, so the old one cannot install it for you. Just this once, please update by hand:

• If you installed Quill Radio, download Quill-Radio-Setup-Shared-3.2.0.exe from the releases page and run it.
• If you use a portable copy, unzip Quill-Radio-Portable-3.2.0.zip over the folder you already have.

Your favorites, settings, recordings and history are not touched. Every update after this one installs itself. If Windows ever refuses to start the installer, Quill Radio now tells you, stays open, and Open folder takes you to the file it downloaded so you can run it yourself.

The new number also clears up one old muddle. For a few days, files shared by the QuillVille apps said Quill Radio was already 3.1.0, and QUILL Lite 1.1 came out during those days, so a computer with QUILL Lite 1.1 might think it already had a Quill Radio 3.1. Because 3.2.0 is newer than that, every copy is offered this update.

Help > About (Alt+F1) now shows the version of Quill Radio you installed. If another QuillVille app’s newer shared files are the ones running, About says that too. That is useful to include when you write to support.

Try this first

1. Press Alt+F5 to open Community > Use My ChatGPT Subscription, then press Continue with ChatGPT and sign in once in your browser.
2. Play a station, then press Ctrl+Shift+8 for Ask QUILL Radio. Press Ask About What’s Playing and listen to the answer.
3. Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F3 to see Notifications, the list of everything Quill Radio has told you.
4. On one of your favorites, press Shift+F10 and choose Note to Self. Write a few words. The next time you arrow onto that station, you hear them.
5. Press Ctrl+, for Preferences and type “podcast” in Find a setting. Press Down, then Enter, and you are on that setting.
6. Press Ctrl+Shift+6 for Search YouTube, type something you like, and arrow through the videos, playlists and channels it finds.
7. Press Ctrl+O for Local Media, then Ctrl+Alt+O and choose a folder of music or an audiobook. Press Enter on the first item and listen.

Asking the radio about what you hear

Every radio listener has asked the air a question. Who is this? What was that song? Where is this station? Now Quill Radio can answer. It knows the name of the station you are on and the title the station is sending, and it uses them to answer you.

Signing in with your ChatGPT plan

Ask QUILL Radio runs on the ChatGPT plan you already pay for. There is no key to paste and no bill per question, and nothing goes through our servers.

1. Press Alt+F5, or choose Community > Use My ChatGPT Subscription.
2. Press Continue with ChatGPT. Your browser opens on OpenAI’s own sign-in page.
3. Sign in, allow “QUILL Radio” to use your plan, and come back. You are signed in.

The model list comes from your own account, and the first one is chosen for you. What you ask counts toward your plan’s usage, which OpenAI sets. If you reach a limit, the window tells you in plain words, and Open ChatGPT Usage shows when it resets.

Quill Radio never sees your password. Sign Out (press it twice) signs you out with OpenAI and here. Forget on This Computer forgets the sign-in on this computer only. Quill Radio, QUILL Cast, QUILL Lite and QUILL each sign in on their own, so signing out of one leaves the others signed in. If another of them is already signed in on this computer, the window tells you, and signing in here is one Allow in your browser.

Asking a question

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+8, or choose Community > Ask QUILL Radio. A conversation window opens. It is on the Window menu, one Ctrl+Tab away, and the player keys keep working while you are in it.
2. Type your question in Your message and press Enter.
3. The answer is read aloud as it arrives. It is also added to the conversation above the box, so you can read it again word by word.

If you would rather not type, press Ask About What’s Playing. Each press asks the next natural question. It is a real conversation, so “and where can I hear more of them?” follows on from the answer before.

Some things to try with a station on:

• “What is this song, and who made it?”
• “Tell me about this station: who runs it, where, and what it plays.”
• “This is in Spanish. What are they talking about?”
• “Explain the rules of the sport they are commentating on.”
• “Is there a podcast like this one?”

Quick questions, including three about you

Above the message box is a Quick questions list with nine ready-made questions. Arrow through it as much as you like. Pressing Enter or Use This Question only puts the question in the box. You still choose whether to send it.

Six are about what is playing. The other three are about you:

• Recommend stations like my favorites sends the names of your favorites and asks for five stations you do not have yet.
• What have I been hearing on this station lately? sends the songs Quill Radio has noted on this station.
• Suggest something new from everything I have played sends the stations you have played lately, with a few songs from each.

Before you send one of these three, Quill Radio tells you exactly what goes with it, for example “This question also sends the names of your 32 favorite stations.” Nothing about you leaves your computer unless you choose one of them.

Letting it search the web

With web search allowed, the assistant can look things up for you, such as a station’s schedule or a news story the presenter mentioned. It is off until you turn it on:

1. Press Alt+F5.
2. Press Alt+W to reach Allow web search.
3. Press Space. You hear “Web search is allowed.”

Press Space on the same checkbox to turn it off again.

It reads words, it does not listen

Ask QUILL Radio never listens to the station and never records anything. It only knows what Quill Radio already knows in words: the station’s name, and the title the station sends, when it sends one. If a station sends no titles, the assistant knows the station but not the song, and it tells you so. Ask QUILL Radio is turned off in Safe Mode.

Your own music and audiobooks: Local Media

Quill Radio now plays the files on your computer too. The album you ripped years ago, the audiobook you bought, a folder of old radio shows, even videos: put them in playlists, arrange them exactly the way you like, and they play one after another with the keys you already know. Nothing is ever copied or moved, and nothing in Local Media touches the internet, so it works in Safe Mode and when you are offline.

It is the kind of thing that feels small until you use it. Your own music sits right beside your stations, every verb is on the keyboard, and Quill Radio tells you where things landed every time you move them.

A short walk through it

1. Open it with Ctrl+O (Station > Local Media…). The first time it is empty, and your cursor is already on Add Media Files…, so pressing Ctrl+O twice takes you straight to picking files.
2. Bring in a folder with Ctrl+Alt+O. Every file in it, and in the folders inside it, comes in the order you would read the names, so track 2 comes before track 10. The playlist is named after the folder.
3. Follow the Folder (Ctrl+Alt+F) is on for a playlist made from a folder: copy new music into the folder later and it joins the playlist the next time you open it. Check the Folder Now (F5) looks straight away.
4. Make your own playlists with New Playlist… (Ctrl+N), and fill them with Add Media Files… (Ctrl+O). Insert puts new files before the item you are on, and Shift+Insert after it, so you can slip a song in between two others.
5. Press Enter on any item. It plays, and the rest of the playlist follows. The row that is playing says so. Space pauses, and Ctrl+Right and Ctrl+Left move to the next and previous item.
6. Arrange it. Alt+Shift+Up and Alt+Shift+Down move items one place and tell you where they landed. Ctrl+J moves them to a place you type. Ctrl+X then Ctrl+V (or Ctrl+Alt+V for after) moves them a long way. Ctrl+Shift+S sorts once, by title, artist, album, length and more. Ctrl+Z takes back any change.
7. Shuffle and repeat. Ctrl+H shuffles in one order that stays put, so going back always takes you to what you just heard, and Ctrl+Shift+H deals a fresh one. Ctrl+R goes from repeat off, to the whole playlist, to this item.
8. Line things up. Play Next (Ctrl+Shift+Enter) plays the selected items straight after this one, and Add to Up Next (Ctrl+Alt+Enter) puts them after anything already waiting. Stop After This Item (Ctrl+Alt+S) stops when this one ends: perfect for one more chapter at bedtime.
9. Pick up where you stopped. Continue Where I Left Off (Ctrl+Alt+C) goes back to the item you were last listening to, at the place you stopped. It is the one to use for an audiobook.
10. Move through it from any window. The chapter keys, Ctrl+Shift+. and Ctrl+Shift+,, move to the next and previous item in the playlist that is playing, and Where Am I (Ctrl+Shift+W) adds where you are in it.

Playlists from other players, and files that moved

• Import a Playlist… (Ctrl+I) reads an M3U, M3U8 or PLS from Winamp, foobar2000, VLC or anything else. Export as M3U… (Ctrl+Shift+X) goes the other way. Save it in your music folder and it keeps working when you copy the folder to another computer.
• A file that moved says missing and keeps its place. Locate Missing File… (Ctrl+Shift+L) asks where it is now, and if the whole folder moved, the rest of it is found too. Remove Missing Items (Ctrl+Shift+Delete) tidies up the ones that are gone for good.
• Delete takes an item out of the playlist, never off your computer, and Ctrl+Z puts it back. Deleting a whole playlist asks first, with No already chosen, and only the list goes.
• Properties… (Alt+Enter) shows a file’s tags, length, size and where it is, and Show in File Explorer (Ctrl+Shift+E) opens its folder with the file selected.

In Browse Stations too

Local Media is the second branch of Browse Stations, right under Favorites. Open a playlist and press Enter on an item to play it and the rest after it. Shift+F10 on any playlist or item offers everything, including Shuffle and Play, Copy Path and Open in Local Media Window.

QUILLBee’s tip: The keys worth learning first are Enter to play, Alt+Shift+Up and Down to move, Ctrl+Z to undo, and Shift+F10 for everything else. The Local Media window’s menus show every other key.

Play a song straight from File Explorer

Julie asked whether she could be looking at the music on her external drive, pick a song, and choose Quill Radio to play it, the way you might choose VLC. Now you can.

• Open with. Press Shift+F10 on a song in File Explorer, choose Open with, and Quill Radio is on the list. It is there for music, audiobooks, video and M3U or PLS playlists as soon as Quill Radio is installed.
• Make Quill Radio your media player. In Preferences (Ctrl+,), under Windows and your files, press Make Quill Radio My Media Player…. Windows does not let any app make itself the default, so Quill Radio opens the Windows page where you choose, already on Quill Radio. Chapter 10 of the user guide walks you through that page.
• Several songs at once. Select a few and press Enter, and they become a list called Opened files in Local Media, so Next and Previous work. The next songs you open replace it, unless you keep it with Save as Playlist… (Ctrl+S in the Local Media window).
• Quill Radio already open? The song goes to the copy that is running, and you stay in File Explorer while it plays.
• Right-click. Play with Quill Radio and Add to Quill Radio Playlist are on the right-click menu of every song.

There is a new tutorial, Play your own files in playlists, and a whole new chapter in the user guide: Chapter 10, Local Media, your own music and audiobooks.

Finding stations

Double Tap Live

Double Tap is the daily show where blind people talk tech, with Steven Scott and Shaun Preece. Since 30 September 2026 it is also a radio station, on the air around the clock with talk, tech, music and the best of the Double Tap podcast.

Press Ctrl+B for Browse Stations. Double Tap Live has its own branch, right under ACB Media. Open it and press Enter, and you are listening. What’s Playing (Ctrl+T) reads the segment or song. You can favorite, record and schedule it like any other station.

Hiding a source you never use

In Browse Stations, press Delete on a top-level branch, such as Podcasts, to hide it. That is the same as Hide This Source on its menu. Reset Sources to Default brings it back.

Podcast categories that fill up

In Browse Stations, Podcasts (Apple) has a storefront for each country, and each storefront has Apple’s categories, such as History or Comedy. A category used to hold only the few shows that made the overall chart, and some held none at all. Now every category and subcategory lists Apple’s own top shows for it, up to 200. History and Comedy Fiction are full lists now.

The Podcast Index says what it needs

The Podcast Index branch has Trending Now, By Category and a search. If a folder there cannot load, Quill Radio now tells you why, instead of saying “Nothing in here”.

The Podcast Index needs a free key. If your copy of Quill Radio has none, the branch shows one row, Add a Podcast Index Key…. Press Enter on it to open the Podcast Index Credentials window, and enter your key and secret there. You can get them free at api.podcastindex.org/signup. A key you enter in Quill Radio or QUILL Cast works in both.

If the Podcast Index turns your key down, Quill Radio says the key was not accepted, rather than saying the service could not be reached.

Smoother browsing in long lists

When you arrow through a long list, such as Top Podcasts, Quill Radio no longer loads every show you pass. It waits until you stop on one. The list stays quick to move through with your screen reader, and a big folder fills in all at once.

• Searching the Internet Archive finds new uploads. Find on an Internet Archive folder now puts the best matches first, so a series uploaded last week turns up instead of being lost behind older items.

YouTube

A listener asked for two things, searching YouTube properly and reading a video’s comments. Both are here, with a few more that grew out of them.

Everything YouTube in Quill Radio, old and new, now has its own chapter in the user guide: Chapter 11, YouTube.

New in 3.2.0:

• Search YouTube for videos, playlists and channels (Ctrl+Shift+6).
• A Live folder on every channel, with what is live now first.
• Read Comments on any YouTube video (Ctrl+Shift+7).
• Follow This Channel in Quill Radio and Subscribe on YouTube… on every channel.
• Notify Me About New Videos on a channel you follow.
• My YouTube, with your own sign-in, if you turn it on, now with your History.
• Live Chat for a live stream, or a finished stream’s replay (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+7).
• The YouTube Video window: description, the moments it lists, and a countdown for a premiere (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+8).
• Skip Sponsor Segments, off until you turn it on (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+9).
• Search YouTube with Filters, and YouTube Music songs (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+0).
• Shorts and About This Channel on every channel.

Search YouTube for videos, playlists and channels

Press Ctrl+Shift+6 (Station > Search YouTube…), type what you are looking for, and press Enter. The answer appears in Browse Stations, and every row says what it is: “Bristol walking tour (video, 12 minutes, Rick Steves)”, “Europe Through the Back Door (playlist, Rick Steves)”, “Rick Steves’ Europe (channel, 1.2 million subscribers)”. You hear how many were found once, not row by row. Enter plays a video, and opens a playlist or a channel. A channel opens into its uploads, anything it is broadcasting live, and its playlists. Search YouTube… is also the first row under YouTube in Browse Stations.

Read a video’s comments

Press Ctrl+Shift+7 (Video > Read Comments…) while a YouTube video is playing, or choose Read Comments… on a video’s row. A window lists the comments, one per row, with replies right after the comment they answer. The whole comment is one Tab away, ready to read or copy. Type in Search comments to narrow the list; you hear how many match when you pause. Choose Top comments or Newest first, and Load More for the next hundred. Escape takes you back where you were.

Follow a channel, or subscribe on YouTube

Every channel row now offers Follow This Channel in Quill Radio, which keeps it under Browse Stations, YouTube, with no account needed, and Stop Following This Channel once you do. Subscribe on YouTube… opens the channel’s own subscribe page in your browser, where YouTube asks you to confirm. Quill Radio never subscribes for you. That same page in your browser is where YouTube offers its own notification bell.

Notify Me About New Videos

On a channel you follow, choose Notify Me About New Videos. Whenever Quill Radio checks your podcasts, it also looks at that channel’s newest videos, and each new one arrives in Notifications as “New on Rick Steves’ Europe: Bristol walking tour”, with the same desktop notice, sound and quiet hours as a new podcast episode. Enter on it plays the video. It is off for every channel until you turn it on.

My YouTube, with your own sign-in

If you would like your Home page, your subscriptions, Watch Later, Liked videos and your own playlists, turn on Use my YouTube sign-in from my web browser in Preferences and choose your browser, or a cookies.txt file. A My YouTube branch appears under YouTube in Browse Stations. It is off until you turn it on. Quill Radio reads your browser’s YouTube sign-in each time it asks YouTube for something; it never copies, saves or logs it, and anyone who can use your Windows account can already do this, so it opens nothing new. Turn it off any time.

Edge and Chrome sometimes keep their sign-in locked or protected. When that happens Quill Radio says so in one sentence and suggests what to try: close the browser, choose Firefox, or use a cookies.txt file. The user guide’s “When the YouTube sign-in does not work” goes through each message.

Live Chat

Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+7 (Video > YouTube > Live Chat…) while a live stream plays, or choose Live Chat… on a video’s row. The chat is a plain list, oldest at the top. New messages are added at the bottom without moving you, taking focus or making the list read itself again, so you can read at your own pace however busy it gets. Each row reads who wrote it, what they said, and whether it was paid or from a member, a moderator or the owner: “Sam: great show, moderator”. Emoji are read as words and links say they are links.

Press Space to pause the list; you hear how many came in when you resume. Follow new messages steps down onto each new one, but only while you are on the last row, and only if you turn it on. Speak new messages is off until you choose it: every message, only paid messages and moderators, or only messages with your word in them. It speaks at most once every few seconds and says a burst as “12 new messages”, and Quiet Hours silence it. Ctrl+S turns it on and off. Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down move to the same person’s previous or next message, Ctrl+J jumps to the newest, Ctrl+L reads the newest without moving, and F6 moves around the window. A finished stream’s replay keeps in step with playback.

The YouTube Video window

Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+8 (Video > YouTube > YouTube Video…), or choose YouTube Video… on a video’s row. It says what the video is right now: live, finished, or a premiere with how long until it starts. It shows the description, and lists the moments the description gives a time for, so Enter on “The interview, 12:40” jumps there. For a premiere, Remind Me When It Goes Live… sets a reminder.

Skip sponsor segments

Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+9 (Video > YouTube > Skip Sponsor Segments…), check the box, and pick what to skip: sponsor reads, self-promotion and reminders to subscribe to start with, and intros, credits and more if you like. Quill Radio uses SponsorBlock’s volunteer list, jumps over a marked part as playback reaches it, and says “Skipped a sponsor segment.” once. To look a video up it sends only four characters of a scrambled form of the video’s id, never its address and nothing about you. It is off until you turn it on.

Search with filters, and YouTube Music

Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+0 (Video > YouTube > Search YouTube with Filters…) for YouTube’s own filters: videos, live now, playlists or channels; uploaded in the last hour, today, this week, month or year; under 4 minutes, 4 to 20, or over 20; and sorted by relevance, date, views or rating. Or choose YouTube Music songs to find songs rather than music videos. The answers arrive in Browse Stations like any search.

More on every channel, and in My YouTube

A channel now opens into Uploads, Live, Shorts and its playlists, and its menu has About This Channel…, with its subscriber count and description. With your YouTube sign-in on, My YouTube has your History, and videos for members only, or kept for grown-ups, play when your account is allowed to see them.

Keeping up with podcasts

Quill Radio has always checked a podcast for new episodes when you opened it. Now it can check on its own.

How often it checks

Press Ctrl+, for Preferences and find Check subscribed podcast feeds under Podcasts. Choose anything from Manually only to Once a day. Quill Radio and QUILL Cast share this setting, so turning it on in one turns it on in both, and they never check the same feeds twice. If you had already chosen something in Quill Radio, your choice is kept.

Refresh on a podcast’s row always checks that podcast, whatever the setting says.

Being told about new episodes

New episodes are noted quietly in the Notifications list. Nothing pops up over what you are reading, and nothing plays. A daily show can bring nine new episodes in a week, and you want to be able to find them, not hear about them nine times.

If you do want to hear about one podcast, press Shift+F10 on its row and choose Notify Me About This Podcast. You then get a desktop notification and a short sound when a new episode arrives. Stop Notifying About This Podcast on the same menu goes back to quiet.

Quiet hours hold back the notification and the sound, but the episode still goes in the Notifications list.

Knowing what happened

Notifications

Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F3, or choose Help > Notifications.

A desktop notification pops up, says its piece and goes away. If your screen reader was in the middle of a sentence, you may never have heard it. This list keeps all of them, newest first. Anything you have not read yet starts with the word “New”.

• Press Enter on a row to go to what it is about, such as the podcast it names.
• Mark All as Read takes the word “New” off every row.
• Clear List empties the list. It only removes the record, never the episodes or stations.

QUILL Cast shares this list, so whichever app you have open can show you what the other one found.

Activity, and Repeat Last Result

Help > Activity (Shift+F9) lists everything Quill Radio told you since you opened it, newest first. A row can offer Retry, Open Folder or Copy Details, so you can do something about it on the spot.

For example, if Quill Radio could not save your settings, you hear it once, with the reason, and the Activity row offers Retry. When a later save works, you hear that too. Recordings that finished or failed, and files you exported, are kept there as well, so Open Folder takes you straight to them.

Help > Repeat Last Result (F9) says the last important thing Quill Radio told you again. That is Quill Radio’s own last message, not the last thing your screen reader read.

These two keys do the same in QUILL, QUILL Lite and QUILL Cast.

Windows knows what you are listening to

When you press a volume key, Windows shows a small “now playing” panel, and the same information is on the lock screen. It used to be blank for Quill Radio. Now it shows the station, with the song underneath when the station sends one. Your screen reader reads the panel when it appears, so you can find out what is playing without going back to Quill Radio. It never speaks on its own when a song changes.

Your stations

A note to yourself about any station

Every row in Browse Stations and Favorites now has Note to Self on its menu. Press Shift+F10 on a row and choose it.

Write whatever helps: “the morning show is the good one”, “only worth it on Sundays”, “the 6am repeat is the one with the interview”. The next time you arrow onto that row, your note is read in the details box. You never have to open a window to find it.

To remove a note, empty the box. The note stays with the station even if you rename it, sort your favorites or refresh the catalog.

Find a station by the team it carries

Type Tigers into Search Stations and you get 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit, with “carries the Detroit Tigers” right in the row. Quill Radio now comes with a checked list of the stations that carry MLB, NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL and MLS teams, so a team name, a city and a sport (Detroit baseball), or a league (MLB) all find the right station. It works in Search All Sources and in the Favorites Manager’s search box too. A team that only streams its games, or whose station we could not confirm, is not on the list yet.

Your own tags on a station

Some things about a station only you know. Press Shift+F10 on a station and choose Edit Station Tags…, then type a few words with commas between them, such as Red Wings, hockey, Saturday folk. From then on, a search for any of those words finds the station, and the row says which tag matched. The directory’s own tags are shown in the same box so you can see what is already there.

Your tags are read in the details box, they travel with a favorite into backups and Export My Setup, and Edit Tags for the Playing Station in the Command Palette tags whatever you are listening to.

Taking back more than one step

Ctrl+Z takes back what you just removed, such as a favorite, a recording or a podcast you stopped following. Press it again and it takes back the one before, up to ten steps.

Sometimes the mistake was a few steps ago, and you want to keep what you did since. Choose Edit > Undo History (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+A). It lists the last ten things you can take back, newest first. Choose one and press Undo This One. Only that one comes back, and the others stay as they are. QUILL Cast has the same list.

Listening

The Play button says what it will do

A listener asked why the Stop button never turned back into Play. It should have, and now it does. The button in the main window changes with what is happening, and it names what it will act on:

• Play and the name of the favorite you are on, while nothing is playing. Its access key is Alt+L.
• Stop and the name of what is playing, while something plays. Its access key is Alt+T. If you renamed a station in Favorites, it uses your name.
• Resume and its name, while a podcast, recording or file is paused. Its access key is Alt+U.
• Play, nothing selected, when you are on a folder. Pressing it tells you to choose a station in Favorites first, or press Ctrl+B to browse for one.

Ctrl+P and Playback > Play press this same button from anywhere, and the menu item uses the same word as the button.

The station’s website, one Tab away

A listener wanted to reach Double Tap Live’s schedule without hunting for it, and that is a good reason for a button. Right after Play and Stop in the main window there is now a Website button. Its access key is Alt+B.

Press it and the website of the station that is playing opens in your browser. When nothing is playing, it opens the website of the favorite you are on. Quill Radio tells you which site it opened. If the station never gave a website, it says so instead of opening something you did not ask for.

One key moved to make room: the Volume slider is now Alt+O. Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down still change the volume from anywhere.

Choosing where the sound goes

Audio > Output Device (Ctrl+Shift+D) now really moves the sound. A station that is playing moves to the new device straight away, without a break, on either playback engine.

If the device cannot be opened, perhaps a Bluetooth headset that is asleep or a card another program is using, you hear which one, for example “Speakers (Logi USB Headset) could not be opened, so the output device is back to System default.” The sound keeps playing where it was. Wake up or plug in the device, then choose it again. The same happens if a saved device will not open when Quill Radio starts.

A tip: Windows calls both a laptop’s built-in sound and a USB headset “Speakers”. The part in brackets is what tells them apart.

On an older copy of Windows, the Windows Media engine cannot choose a device. There, choosing one tells you so and opens Windows’ own Sound settings, where you can give each app its own output device.

In Preferences, the Playback engine list now only offers the engines your computer actually has. And if a station will not play on the main engine and Quill Radio switches to Windows Media instead, it tells you.

What’s Playing says it all, every time

Ctrl+T used to say the station, title and artist the first time, and only the station after that. Now every press says the whole thing.

Your settings

Finding a setting

Preferences (Ctrl+,) has a Find a setting box at the top. Type a word, such as “podcast” or “record”, press Down to reach the matches, and press Enter on one to go straight to it. Ctrl+F takes you back to the box. Searching never changes a setting, and OK and Cancel work just as before. QUILL Cast and QUILL Lite have the same box.

Sharing choices with your other Quill apps

If you use QUILL Cast too, you may want the two apps to behave the same way. In Preferences, turn on Share these choices with my other Quill apps. From then on, Announce dialog transitions stays the same in Quill Radio and in every other Quill app where you have turned this on. Quill Radio tells you when it picks up a choice from another app. Nothing about your keys, your cursor or your screen reader is ever shared, and it stays off until you turn it on.

Choose Stable, Beta or Dev

New in this version: Release Channel…, on the Help menu. Every copy stays on Stable, the version we check with JAWS and NVDA, unless you choose otherwise. Beta gets new features a few weeks early; Dev is the work in progress, for testers.

Arrowing through the three only explains them. If you choose Beta or Dev, a short warning says plainly what could go wrong and how to come back, and nothing moves until you check I understand and choose Move. Before it moves, Quill Radio saves a copy of your favorites, history and settings. Your recordings are not copied, and updates don’t change them.

Coming back to Stable is safe. If Stable can read everything you have saved, Quill Radio offers to go straight back. If it can’t yet, Quill Radio says so plainly and lets you either wait for Stable to catch up (it moves you across by itself), or go back to the copy of your favorites, history and settings saved when you joined. A copy of how things are right now is saved first, so nothing is thrown away.

On Beta and Dev, Quill Radio downloads new versions in the background so they are ready when you are, and never installs one without asking. It waits on a metered connection, during Quiet Hours, and while you are recording.

QUILL Lite and QUILL Cast share one engine with Quill Radio on your computer. When one of you moves to Beta or Dev, it gets its own copy of the engine, so the apps you leave on Stable are never touched. That copy uses about 335 MB of disk space until your last app comes back to Stable.

If an update ever fails to start, it undoes itself, puts back the version you had, and tells you so the next time Quill Radio opens. The window’s Update History button shows everything the updater has done.

Help > About now shows a build number after the version: this release is 3.2.0 (build 1). If a fix comes out without a new version number, it is a newer build, and Check for Updates offers it to you.

Things that work better now

• Windows you minimized come back. Pressing Ctrl+Shift+R for Recordings, or asking for any other big window, now restores it if you had minimized it, with focus where you left it. Before, nothing seemed to happen.
• Start with Windows works again. Some listeners got an “Unhandled exception in script” box at every login instead of the radio. The installer now repairs this while it installs, so your next login works. If it ever opens the wrong thing, turn Station > Start Quill Radio with Windows off and on again.
• Preferences opens straight away. It used to take two seconds or more, and the list of sound devices was sometimes empty. Both are fixed.
• Enter in Preferences presses OK, even after you change a list. This works the same in every QuillVille app.
• Closing a window while it loads really closes it. You no longer hear about a search or a schedule after you have left its window.
• A failed save while closing is no longer silent. If Quill Radio could not note the time it closed, or that a recording had finished, it tells you the next time it starts, and Recent Problems offers a Retry.
• Undo says Unfollow. Undoing removing a podcast now says “Undid Unfollow”, the same word QUILL Cast uses.
• Bringing favorites into a portable copy works. Answering Yes to copy your favorites into a portable copy you had opened before now copies them.
• Portable copies now start from a folder whose name has a space in it.
• Backups say what they hold, and name anything left out. A backup now carries the podcasts you follow and where you are in each episode, your notes, tags, bookmarks and recording settings, as well as your favorites and settings, and takes recordings from the folder you chose in Recording Settings, even a OneDrive one. If anything is left out, from a backup or from Export My Setup, you are told how many and can choose Show what was left out, and why? to hear each one and what to do. See “Moving to a new or reset computer” in the user guide.
• Live stations stay close to live. After a hiccup in the connection, a live station now catches up rather than playing further and further behind.
• Four keys work even with the other QuillVille apps open. Restore from Backup (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+W), Recording Settings (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+I), Recent Problems (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+P) and Choose Columns (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C) did nothing while Quill Weather, Inkwell, the Media Player or Converter was running, because each of those apps took one of these keys for itself. Those apps now have no show and hide key until you choose one, so the keys are Quill Radio’s again. And Ctrl+Alt+Shift+R stays Quill Radio’s own: QUILL, QUILL Lite, QUILL Cast and Audio Studio each had a command on it, and those commands have moved.

Where to learn more

The user guide, Help > User Guide (Ctrl+F1), covers everything here:

• Chapter 3, Finding your way around, for the main window and its Play and Website buttons.
• Chapter 5, What’s playing, and how it sounds, for What’s Playing, Output Device and Slider Keys.
• Chapter 6, Finding something to listen to, for Double Tap Live, 181.FM and laut.fm, Apple’s podcast categories, the Podcast Index, hiding sources and notes to yourself.
• Chapter 9, Podcasts, books, video and more, for checking your podcasts.
• Chapter 10, Local Media, your own music and audiobooks, for playlists of the files on your computer.
• Chapter 11, YouTube, for searching YouTube, comments, following channels, new-video notices and My YouTube.
• Chapter 12, The ACB Media schedule and reminders, for Notifications.
• Chapter 13, The Community menu, for Ask QUILL Radio and your ChatGPT plan.
• Chapter 14, Making Quill Radio yours, for Find a setting and sharing choices with your other Quill apps.
• Chapter 15, Safety nets, for Activity, Repeat Last Result and Undo History.
• Chapter 16, When you need a hand, for updates and getting help.

Help > Tutorials (Ctrl+Alt+F1) teaches the radio one short lesson at a time. Good places to start are Play your first station, Wander the browse tree, Follow a podcast and What was that song?

Help > Release Notes (Shift+F1) opens these notes. The 3.0 release and its updates have their own notes, Quill Radio 3.0.

If you get stuck, choose Help > Get Help from Support (Ctrl+Alt+F2), or write to support@community-access.org. A person at Community Access reads every message.