1) Static JavaScript. Instead of using the *.js.php which I have been using, javascript templates are being parsed by a small JS templating engine and stored as static files. This should significantly cut down on the amount of time spent processing php. Each file is stored as filename-hashcode.js.

2) Bootstrapper. People have told me a) They don’t think it’s fair to count the size without jQuery (it probably isn’t) and b) They don’t want to load jQuery on every pageload. To that end, the default install will now include a tiny bootstrapper (hopefully under 200 Bytes) that doesn’t load the player until and unless someone actually wants to use them.

3) Single audio player. For legacy browsers, there will only be one player, the awesome Sound Manager 2 player. User interface will be provided via jQuery based controls. Using a single “invisible” player allows a consistent JavaScript interface for all the players, and, should help to

4) <audio> tag based player. This will probably be beta only in 0.7, but I want to move towards using the native browser implementation instead of flash. Using a javascript interface and sound manager means it should be a seamless user experience, and the only difference is whether the JavaScript is calling the sound manager js or the <audio> tag.

I’ll be at WordCamp in San Francisco this weekend, anyone who wants to bend my ear about a feature can do so. Twitter at jwriteclub to get together.

As always, head over the the µAudio page at WordPress.org or grab a copy from my µAudio page.

Head over the the µAudio page at WordPress.org or grab a copy from my µAudio page.

Those of you waiting for the 0.7 release with the new sidebar widget shouldn’t have too much longer to wait. It’s coming with some major changes to how µAudio handles javascript. There will probably be a 0.6.2 release in the next week or so to fix any lingering bugs with the current implementation, and then 0.7 will have the new code.

Head on over to WordPress.org or grab a copy from my µAudio Page.

And yes, screenshot 5 is real, the minimal installation is just 495 Bytes!

Thanks for all you patience.

A new, improved and very throughly tested 0.3 branch is out. Check out my µAudio page, or head over to µAudio at wordpress.org for a copy of your very own.

Thanks to WordPress.org user jonner for pointing out a couple of bugs.

Please forgive my wrongheadedness in testing the wrong version before the 0.2 release. This time, I’m pretty sure I’ve got it right.

Check out my µAudio page, or head over to µAudio at wordpress.org for a copy of your very own.

If you need a tiny (only 560 Byte initial page load), simple, zero config, drop in and forget audio player, µAudio is for you.

Check out my µAudio page, or head over to µAudio at wordpress.org.

Unfortunately, as I started using the player, I found myself rather at a disadvantage, as there aren’t any good tutorials listing the available FlashVars, etc. The following, therefore, is a list of the variables, lifted from a pod press installation. For a very basic introduction to using the player, (but no info on skinning), please see Mindy McAdam’s excellent tutorial.

The variables required to load an mp3 player into the page come in two categories, the object parameters, and the FlashVars (which are, in fact, just one of the object parameters).

The most basic way to embed a player into the page is like so:

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://domain.com/player.swf" 
id="audioplayer1" height="24" width="290">
<param name="movie" value="http://domain.com/player.swf">
<param name="FlashVars" 
value="playerID=1&soundFile=http://domain.com/music.mp3">
<param name="quality" value="high">
<param name="menu" value="false">
<param name="wmode" value="transparent">
</object>

This “basic” installation produces the following player:

Params:

listed by “name” field

• movie The name of the swf file, value is always "player.swf".
• FlashVars The variables for the swf file. Always at least playerid=1&soundFile=file.mp3. See below for the complete listing.
• quality I believe that this is the Flash Player quality and not directly an audio variable. I plan to try and confirm this hypothesis in the future. Generally, a value of high seems to work quite well.
• menu Whether to display the full length flash menu (on right click), or just the abbreviated menu. Since the full menu displays a huge menu (as in the image), I strongly recommend against any setting other than false.
• wmode Whether areas “behind” the flash file show through. See the illustration for an example of a non-transparent wmode. I reccoment a value of transparent.

  

Required Variables:

• playerid Unique ID for each player on the page. An integer number.
• soundFile The location of the file for the player to play.

Here is an example of the player with all of the default settings except for the two required variables.

Optional Variables:

Note: all color values take the form of “0xCCCCCC” where CCCCCC is the hex value of the color.

• bg The background color of the center “player” area.
• leftbg The background color of the left pentagon.
• rightbg The background color of the right chevron.
• rightbghover The hover color of the right chevron.
• lefticon The color of the “audio” icon on the left pentagon.
• righticon The color of the “play/pause” icon on the right chevron.
• righticonhover The hover color of the “play/pause” icon on the right chevron.
• text The color of the player text.
• slider The color of the slider. Note: This is somewhat diluted by the transparency of the slider.
• track The color of the track.
• loader The color of the loading bar.
• border The color of the border on the slider.
• autostart Whether to start playing the audio as soon as the player loads. Only necessary if you want autostart (i.e. the default implies autostart=no). Use: autostart=yes.

When using these optional FlashVars, it is only necessary to specify those that differ from the default. Thus, if you liked the default player but simply wanted to change the color of the slider and icons and have it autostart, your flash vars would look like this:
...righticon=ox123456&lefticon=0x123456&slider=0x990100&autostart=yes

And produce a player like this: