It was really great to see how Playr popped up on different blogs; Sometimes mentioned as part of a project/experiment, sometimes mentioned in lists of handy AS3 classes. That really made me happy and it inspired me to add even more features, and make it even more useful. But those are to yet to be built

For now I just fixed a few bugs and I added a pretty important feature which wasn’t there yet: the debug property. Set debug to true and Playr will trace any errors that occur without breaking your app, without you having to listen to these errorEvents.

I also changed the shuffle internals (I still wonder what I was thinking when I wrote a ‘setShuffle’ instead of simple getters/setters…) and as far as I know: Nothing seems broken after updating old projects using Playr to the new Playr version (but I’ve been wrong before…).

And the last thing I want to mention: I changed the way Playr handles stream errors. The old version would just skip the track, and try again later. However I think the new implementation is better: The ‘broken’ track just gets removed from the playlist before proceeding to the next track.

So there you go: It’s online, it’s free, it’s open-source, it’s for you to use and save time!
(And it’s created by me, so you’ll probably find bugs sooner or later: Do tell me about them and I’ll look into fixing them )

Happy playing!

Playr Site: Playr.noCreativity.com
Download Playr: Click
Playr Documentation: Playr.noCreativity.com/docs

Let me start by saying that I am a passionate Actionscript Creative (if someday I might grow up, you can call me a Flash developer but not just yet) and I absolute love the web as it exists today. I love HTML and CSS. I even like Javascript (a bit) (it’s not my favorite, but we get along pretty good). So don’t go off thinking I’m taking sides.

What are we talking about today?

Earlier this week, Serge Jespers wrote about Adobe vs the open web, which kinda looked like a Flash vs HTML5 article from a distance (because let’s face it: The Adobe platform on the web is mainly the Flash platform). I had a lot of conversations about that in the past and the one thing I have come to conclude is that you can’t actually compare those to each other.
Not even remotely.

So to what should we compare it then?

People keep referring to the features that the Flash Player offers and which the developer might want to use. And then their statement goes on with ‘You can’t do that with HTML!‘
Of course you can’t! There are thousands of things you can do with Flash, which you just can’t pull of with HTML, CSS or Javascript. But if you really want to compare Flash and HTML, you gotta do it right:

Flash Player vs FireFox ( or IE or Safari or Opera or any other browser)
Timeline and Actionscript vs HTML and Javascript (and CSS if you really want)

(Please, stop throwing those vegetables at me… Thank you.)

Comparing the Comparables

So now you’re looking at me, thinking I am completely nuts… So let me clarify…

The Web Browser

A piece of software that allows you to browse the web and renders HTML and CSS into a beautiful layout (depending on the website that is) for your viewing pleasure.

The Flash Player

A browser plugin that allows you to view .SWF files and render them as described in the bytecode (or wherever) into a vector based movie.

This is a very brief description, and despite that I think you could already conclude their first difference (and what they got in common).
Both the Flash Player and the browser are built to display content, and render that content using a specific set of rules. They are both the same on a different level.

W3C and ‘Web standards’

I really like how ‘Web standards‘ is such an often used term (which sounds so professional and simple at the same time), and yet I am unable to describe exactly what it means (even after reading the Wikipedia explanation, I understand but don’t quite know it…). But I bet you, you already know where I’m heading… Exactly. There are rules being written, just to make sure everybody is writing valid code, and every browser displays it the same. Silly to say: Not everyone is writing valid code and nearly no browser displays exactly the same. I’m not bashing the W3C people here (although this might really look like it). In fact, I admire them for their effort. But in spite of that: The problem is there. Everybody is building browsers; websites look different on each and every one of them – even if the HTML/CSS you wrote is 100% valid.

Adobe and the Flash Player

Adobe is (mainly) the only instance developing, evolving, releasing and publishing the Flash Player (mobile devices and such left out). A lot of people think that this is a bad thing. Only one company in charge of whatever is going to happen with our beloved browser plugin? Hell yea!!
I can see how open-sourcing the Flash Player might help evolving the capabilities (features AND efficiency) but the payoff would be ‘Crossplayer compatibility issues’.
Imagine how you would publish your SWF, upload it to the server, and then test it in different Flash Players. (This is actually where my previous point of ‘Browser vs Player’ should start making sense)

So there’s our second conclusion. Browsers can be built and released by about anybody whereas the Flash Player is developed and maintained only by Adobe. Both do have ground rules to which you better stick when creating content but seen as only 1 company is creating the Flash Player and a lot of people are creating browsers, the browser implementation of those rules differs and results (may) vary. (Flash content which is not perfectly ‘valid’ will just result in a ‘movie not loaded’ message…)

Soooo…

Comparing ‘Flash’ to ‘HTML’ is wrong. The Flash Player is more like a browser, but on a different level (it runs as a plugin inside the browser). Comparing them is just plain senseless.

Okay… Still… SWF kicks HTML’s ass!

That’s a plausible one… but I don’t know any self-respecting webdeveloper that would agree (same goes for the opposite). If you’re on the same page as I am you’ll agree that it’s a situation depended statement.

If you want to build a game, Flash is the right choice.
If you want to create an experience to promote your latest product, Flash might be the right choice.
If you want to build a message board, Flash is undoubtedly the wrong choice.

Back to basics

In it’s early years Flash was meant to be used as ‘animated vector graphic’. For the sake of simplicity let’s just say: ‘the enhanced version of an image’. Of course today the capabilities and the use-cases of Flash have long exceeded this basic idea.

But doesn’t it feel strange to deliver information using a technology that was meant to be used as an ‘entertaining addition’?
Google doesn’t present its search results using an image or a Flash movie, right?
I can hear you go “Yea duh! That’s because Flash isn’t intended to be used for that kind of application“. Exactly…

‘The problem is choice’

It’s not about what you like most… It’s not about what is ‘the best’. It’s about what is ‘better in this case’. Right now, if somebody asks you to put a video on their HTML site, you’ll use a Flash Videoplayer (because right now Flash is the best choice to deliver video on the web: Everybody (about 99%, Adobe?) has a Flash Player installed, no (additional) codecs are needed, and not everyone is able to view HTML5 in their browser yet). That’s a no-brainer. You could go for Windows Media/Quicktime plugins but Flash would be the better choice in this case.

But if people are being asked to build a datadriven application, they’ll have a different idea about what to use. Some keep it simple and stick to basic HTML tables. Some others go nuts using jQuery and other Javascript libraries to enhance the dataviewing experience and useability of those tables. Others push it even further and choose a Flex based solution. All 3 of them will get the job done, that’s for sure, but what is the better choice in this case ? (Personally I’d go with the jQuery enhanced version)

The use of Flash or HTML each come with their own pro’s and con’s. And this is where people start arguing…

Pro’s and Con’s

Google can’t index Flash sites

Bad implementation of 'Alternate Content'

That’s true, although they’re working on it, it’s for from being ready (Google apparently has a special Flash Player that indexes Flash Movies. The only thing I can say about that: I don’t know about any of my previous Flash sites being indexed by Google yet…) . You could make use of the alternate content feature when embedding your Flash movie in the website. That way Google can actually index the content of the website, and bring the user to your website (where he/she can then view the Flash based version). But you have to implement the alternate content. And: No. ‘You need Adobe Flash Player to view this site‘ is no alternate content (read: Bad Alternate Content). And talking about alternate content: I haven’t seen many Flash sites being built to be able to ‘gracefully degrade‘. What if you users just don’t have the requested Flash version (company computer networks often disallow installation of new software). How do you enable them to use your website/webapplication? Right: Progressive enhancement. But building a Flash website, and not providing decent alternate content (read: alternate HTML/JS version of the Flash application) is not it!

People with accessibility issues can’t rely on screenreaders and such on a Flash based website.

As far as I know, today it is possible to help screenreaders understand what Flash is doing, and what the user can do. However: You have to implement this in your website.

You can now manage the browser history in a Flash site

Sure, and by all means: SWFAddress is great! But you have to manage it and that’s where it boils down to: It’s standard browser behaviour! You shouldn’t have to manage that.

Let’s face it: Flash breaks the regular web. So choosing Flash because it’s prettier isn’t the right choice. Choosing Flash should ALWAYS be a result of weighing the pro’s and con’s; not a result of you (or your client) liking Flash sites better than standard HTML sites…

Grand conclusion

(I’ll start this one with a disclaimer. Unlike Serge Jespers, I’m not paid by Adobe so this is really my opinion and not the one of my employee )

For now (and even for the HTML5-era): Flash will always offer a bigger and probably faster featureset than HTML (video, audio, audio analyzing, drawing, shape morphing, complex animations, special effects, levels of interaction perharps, etc…) but as long as you don’t really have to rely on Flash’s special features, stick to plain old HTML and CSS.

Flash and HTML are no opponents. They should be seen as couple that complement each other. Both should be used for what they’re best at. There is no winner, there’s no best. There’s only ‘better in this case‘.

After I downloaded the theme I realized a lot of features were missing: No searchbox, no searchresults page, no archives, no global archives, no blogroll support, no pages support, no 404 pages and a few design flaws…

I actually went on, and built those things myself. Later on I wanted to contact the orginal author (Patrick Behrend) of the theme to send him my updates but by the time I got to send my mail, his site was down and he completely dissappeared from the web. I never received an aswer regarding the theme updates I sent him.

UPDATE: Patrick commented in on this post and I got in touch with him. Patrick seemed pleased I kept the theme alive. I updated the URL in the footer which now links to Patrick’s (new) site. Make sure you go check it out and leave him a comment

By now the original download isn’t even online anymore, and Smashing Magazine disabled the link to the SuperMini theme (as it is a 404). So I recently decided to finish the theme, and translate it back to English and re-publish it. I thought the initial theme was awesome, and I figured it would be cool if other people would be able to actually use the completed theme.

I think Patrick did a great job designing a very clean and simple theme, which doesn’t look like most other WordPress themes.

SuperMini V1.0

Download: Click
Preview: ikDicht.be

Screenshots

It’s a one column theme, showing the latest post. Other posts are shown, but only the title and post date is visible.Pages and blogroll links are also featured in the same column, in almost the same style as the links to the other posts.

The searchbox is initially hidden and replaced by text in order to keep the layout as clean as possible.
Clicking the search links reveals the search box.

The list of other posts, blogroll links, pages, and the searchbox is set up as clean as possible, yet very transparent.

The comments area is as clean as the rest of the theme. No gravaters in order to keep the comments area pretty light.

I hope you guys like it. Feel free to report bugs, or browser errors.

I did some pretty naughty things in there, but it worked out the way I wanted it… So be nice :p
Make sure you have got the MP3 tracks in place You’ll need at least one. Make sure you change the tracknames too.

I’m very happy to finally release this. A lot of people helped me test it and gave me feedback.
That helped me a lot, and changed a lot of features. Special thanks to all of you!

I’ve put up a dedicated site for Playr where all of the information, code examples, downloads are gathered.
Head over there to read more about it!

More info:
Playr site: Click
Download Playr 2.0: Click
Playr 2.0 documentation: Click

In the past week, I’ve been pretty busy adding the finishing  touches to the features and fixing the last few bugs that popped up. Most of the last-minute changes are a result of using the class in one of my own projects.

It’s then when I realized I’m missing some key features like adding the music directory, and some properties of the PlayrEvents. I also added some ear candy like fadeIn() and fadeOut() methods.

On a more functional note: I’ve abstracted the playlist to an independent class. So now you’re provided with lots and lots of ways to customize and manage your playlists.

The shuffle mode is now smart. In English that means the playlist remembers what songs have played and which ones haven’t.

Finally I’m happy to tell you guys won’t ever have to write an XML playlist file yourself. I’ve got a PHP4 and PHP5 version of PlayrDiscovr which reads a directory and returns the corresponding XML listing the tracks and their properties.
On top of that, I’ve got some help from other people (I still need to contact you guys) who are willing to help me out with building PlayrDiscover in ASP, Ruby and Python.

Even though I’m listing all of the new features, the Playr class is still the easiest way of implementing any kind of sound-feature in any Flash/Flex/AIR application. But the simplicity shouldn’t be a limitation, which it isn’t: you’re still able to build full-feature media-playing applications.

One of the little challenges I still have to tackle is the Tween problem. I’ve implemented fadeIn() and fadeOut() methods. Those methods actually tween the volume property of the Playr instance. The problem with that is when using the Playr class in a Flex project, you get a cool error message telling you it can’t import fl.transitions (which is the class package for the Tween class and the easing package).
I still haven’t figured out how to work around this problem. If any of you have any suggestion on this problem, feel free to tell me about it.

I plan on releasing Playr 2.0 in the coming week (or 2) depending on PlayrDiscovr impementations, final changes, demo’s and site development (yes, I’m building a dedicated site for Playr ) Feel free to suggest other implementations you’d like

Ik heb hier al vaker aan gedacht, maar altijd de hoop opgegeven als ik moest denken aan de ID3 tags… Ik ben geen PHP guru, waardoor ik nooit echt heb beginnen zoeken.
Nu heb ik mij vandaag toch opeens afgevraagd of er nog geen ID3 support in PHP zit…
Daar heb ik in feite geen antwoord op gevonden, maar ik heb wel gevonden wat ik zocht: Een open-source project waarmee de ID3 tags van MP3 bestanden (en meer) kunnen gelezen en gebruikt worden, namelijk getID3.

Sinds dit het moeilijkste van het hele automatiseren was kon ik meteen aan de slag. Ik ben echt positief verrast over hoe simpel getID3 in te zetten is, en hoeveel informatie daarmee op te halen was.

Om een lang verhaal kort te maken heb ik dus nu een geautomatiseerde versie van de playlist.xml gebouwd.
Het leuke is dat je nu zelf de lengte van de track niet meer moet uitrekenen (wat op zich het meest storende van het hele playlist.xml gebeuren was). En natuurlijk: Nooit meer playlists updaten!

PlayrDiscovr

Download

Gebruik

Gewoon PlayrDiscovr unzippen, en de inhoud van de map uploaden naar je server.
De MP3 bestanden komen in de ‘music’ folder te staan.
In Flash moet je nog even de URL naar je playlist aanpassen van ‘playlist.xml’ naar ‘playlist.php’, en je bent klaar. Nooit meer playlists updaten!
PlayrDiscovr haalt alle info over de tracks op vanuit de ID3v2 tag. Als deze dus in orde is, is zijn je playlists automatisch aangepast, vanaf dat je een liedje op de server hebt upgeload.

Veel plezier!

Op het moment van schrijven ben ik zo goed als klaar met de nieuwste versie van Playr, de Actionscript musicplayer class. Ik moet nog even kijken of ik geen domme fouten heb, en nog wat schoonheidsfouten opruimen. Eens ik daarmee klaar ben, zal ik deze versie releasen.

Relatief veel mensen hebben deze klasse gebruikt, velen zonder problemen, sommigen met.
Nu is mijn vraag:

Wat heb ik vergeten in de vorige versie? Wat willen jullie er nog meer bij?

Als er voorstellen zijn die bij Playr aansluiten zou ik deze met plezier verwezenlijken.
Alvast bedankt voor jullie tijd

Ik heb gisteren de laatste wijzigingen aangebracht aan de vroegere MusicPlayer class. Zoals het er nu uitziet lijkt deze klasse af, voor een eerste ronde echt gebruik, keiharde feedback en vele suggesties.

Belangrijke wijzigingen zijn:

• Classnames, en package names zijn aangepast.
  • De klasse zelf heet nu Playr in plaats van MusicPlayer.
  • Package name is aangepast. com.noCreativity.MusicPlayer is nu com.nocreativity.playr (met dank aan Peter Elst voor de best practice tip )
• Shuffle mode toegevoegd
• Trackprogress kan nu ook opgevraagd worden
• Singletrack werkt nu volledig
• Bug ivm repeat weggewerkt

Wat doet Playr?

Playr is een Flash Actionscript 3 klasse die het maken van een volwaardige music player in Flash/Flex/AIR reduceert tot enkele regels code. Of je nu maar 1 loop wilt laten spelen, of een volledige playlist wilt afspelen in Flash/Flex/AIR: Playr kan het sneller dan jij!

Playr kan je gebruiken om een enkele loop af te spelen, of voor volledige XML afspeellijsten te laten afspelen. Zowel shuffle als repeat zijn mogelijk. Ook de interactiviteit met de gebruiker kan snel worden toegevoegd.
De Playr class is ontworpen met snelheid en gemak voor ogen

Hoe gebruik ik Playr?

3 Korte voorbeelden hoe je de Playr class kunt inzetten.

Minimaal
Je wilt gewoon één track laten afspelen.

import com.nocreativity.playr.*;
var myPlayer:Playr = new Playr();
myPlayer.singleTrack = true;
myPlayer.loadTrack("music/myTrack.mp3");
myPlayer.play();

Minimaal
Je wilt een volledige playlist afspelen zonder interactie of weer te geven informatie.

import com.nocreativity.playr.*;
var myPlayer:Playr = new Playr();
myPlayer.autoPlay=true;
myPlayer.loadPlaylist("playlist.xml");

Maximaal

Je wilt een volwaardige music player maken, met alles erop en eraan.

import com.nocreativity.playr.*;
var myPlayer:Playr = new Playr();
myPlayer.autoPlay=true;
myPlayer.repeat = false;
myPlayer.volume = 100;
myPlayer.shuffle = true;
myPlayer.loadPlaylist("playlist.xml");
myPlayer.registerPlayButton(btnPlay);
myPlayer.registerStopButton(btnStop);
myPlayer.registerPauseButton(btnPause);
myPlayer.registerNextButton(btnNext);
myPlayer.registerPreviousButton(btnPrevious);
myPlayer.registerMuteButton(btnMute);
myPlayer.ID3SourceEnabled =true;
 
myPlayer.addEventListener(PlayrEvent.SONGINFO,infoHandler);
myPlayer.addEventListener(PlayrEvent.SONG_PROGRESS,songprogressHandler);
myPlayer.addEventListener(PlayrEvent.LOAD_PROGRESS,loadprogressHandler);
 
function songprogressHandler(e:PlayrEvent):void{
txtSongProgress.text = "Time elapsed: " +  myPlayer.trackProgress;
}
function loadprogressHandler(e:PlayrEvent):void{
txtLoadProgress.text = "Load progress: "; + e.loadprogress;
}
 
function infoHandler(e:PlayrEvent):void{
txtTrackInfo.text = myPlayer.artist + " - " + myPlayer.trackName;
if(myPlayer.album != ""){
txtTrackInfo.appendText(" ("+myPlayer.album+")");
}
txtTrackInfo.appendText(" | " + myPlayer.trackDuration);
}

Playlist.xml?

Hoe deze noemt maakt in feite niet echt veel uit, zolang de inhoud volgens deze structuur is.
Betekenis van de verschillende nodes:

• Artist: Naam van de artiest
• Title: Naam van het liedje
• TotalTime: Totale duur van het liedje in seconden
• Filename: bestandspad naar de af te spelen MP3 file. (absoluut of relatief).

Documentatie over Playr?

Deze is er en kun je hier vinden.

Download

Download de Playr class hier.

Feedback & Suggesties

Heb je vragen, of zijn er onduidelijkheden? Schiet maar raak, ik bijt niet!
Zijn er onvolmaaktheden, of heb je dat geniale extra dat deze klasse nog tekort heeft? Laat mij het weten, en ik zal er zeker naar kijken.
Gebruik je deze class en ben je er tevreden mee? Ik hoor het graag. Laat ook zien in welk(e) project(en) je de class inzet!

Veel plezier!

Ik release de Playr class en de PlayrEvent class onder de Creative Commons license. Dat wil zeggen dat je alles in deze classes mag aanpassen zolang je er een verwijzing naar de originele auteur ( ik dus ) in laat staan, en je deze classes met dezelfde rechten verder verdeeld.

Na een half uurtje te prutsen had ik door hoe het werkte en ik kon ik ik er wat verder in gaan, en gebruik maken van de Filters die je in AS3 kunt gebruiken. Echt coole shit zit daarin!!

Ik heb wat speelse dingen gemaakt, en ik moet zeggen dat ik best wel onder de indruk ben van de kracht van AS3: telkens opnieuw vind ik AS3 een stuk cooler!

Hieronder staan de links naar de SWF’s

• Versie 1
• Versie 2
• Versie 3
• Versie 3 (gewijzigd)
• Versie 4
• Versie 5
• Versie 6 (livestream) (werk alleen offline)

Enkele opmerkingen hierover:

Versie 5 is op zich wat zwaar. Ik wou een Windows Media Player-achtig effect namaken.
Versie 6 werkt in mijn lokale Flash Player zonder veel problemen, online lijkt dat een ander resultaat te zijn… Ik heb het gevoel dat dat met de security sandbox van de FlashPlayer te maken heeft. Als iemand weet wat het probleem is: Shout! Ook performantie tips zijn meer dan welkom, want ik heb al andere visualisaties gezien die maar tot 20% van de CPU gaan, terwijl deze hier met gemak de 50% halen.

De sources van deze items staan hier zodat je ernaar kunt kijken, en er zelf ook wat mee kan gaan spelen!
Gewoon ergens een MP3 plukken uit je collectie deze in bij je fla gaan plaatsen en de code zo aanpassen zodat je deze dan ook inlaadt. Ik geef mijn gebruikte liedjes in de voorbeelden niet mee door auteursrechten e.d.

Aarzel niet om te posten wat er beter kan, wat jullie in elkaar gestoken hebben, of welke tips jullie voor me hebben! Ik hoor het graag.

Alvast veel plezier met de sources!