BREAKING: The new jamendo embeddable player is out !

http://blog.jamendo.com/index.php/2007/01/12/the-new-jamendo-embeddable-player-is-out/

We look forward to having your feedback. This first player is perfectly suited for artists to make their album listenable directly on their websites and for people that want to blog an album :)

Impressions and suggestions:
* Should preload the image rollovers.
* Looks *very* nice on FF 2.0 on Win XP
* Really funky on FF 2.0 Ubuntu Linux (no album cover, only one button shows, doesn't respond)
* The "pop-up" button doesn't make a pop-up! (in either)

So that's what the ALBUM_INFO_embed1 key was about. Seems to work fine in Firefox 1.5.0.7-1mdv2007.0.

* What image rollovers?
* What "pop-up" button?

Looking forward to a seekable player.

* Image rollovers: On mouse-over, the play, back, and forward buttons turn from blue to red. There is a delay the first time, thereafter each switches instantly. Image preloading should be used. I recommend pixy's method.
* When I see the Album Page button, it looks like a "click here to open in new sized window" button.

Yeah, I'm not saying it *should*, just commenting on a point of confusion.

Some scripts respect middle-click by only opening a pop-up when there's an unmodified left-click. (I believe that pressing "enter" on a link will register as a left click, btw -- a nice accessibility feature.)

Ah, OK. Didn't notice the delay, and now I suppose it's cached.

I prefer the album page link as it is now, i.e. not opening any new window or tab unless told to do so (by middle-clicking, like all other links). Automatically opening links in new frames is _evil_. But I agree that the button icon looks like it would "pop up" something.

(Why did my response appear above yours? ~)

Thanks for your comments ;) It's funny that the comments on the english forums are far more technical than on the french ones ;-)

The player is a work in progress. We implemented it in pure javascript instead of 100% flash to make it evolve faster. Hence we welcome your suggestions very happily ;-)

I'll implement the preload thing. Not sure what to do with the popup button (change the icon on the link ? to the jamplayerweb ?)

phyzome: I would be interested in your ubuntu install that makes the player look weird. I tested on ubuntu + FF2 + flash7 and it worked. Can you give me more details about your install ? thanks !

Well, it renders fine now. I suppose that's a good thing... >.>

About the "popup button" -- the question is, what is your goal for that button? Should it take the user to the album page, or to the jamplayer? Should it be in a sized popup window, in a new full window, or in the same window? How should the icon reflect this?

I would highly recommend adding alt attributes to the image elements (for accessibility) and title attributes to the links (for usability).

I notice the embedding uses iframes, which won't validate on XHTML strict blogs. There is another technique, using the object element, that will work just fine (cross-browser) and validates XHTML strict. (For the record, I have verified that the embedding works just as well with this technique.) Unfortunately, due to IE's lack of support for certain standards, the code is a little longer:

<!--[if IE]><object classid="clsid:25336920-03F9-11CF-8FD0-00AA00686F13" data="http://www.jamendo.com/fr/get/track/id/album/id/playerpage/3661/?n=all&item_o=track_no_asc"><p>Visit the album page! Here's a link...</p></object><![endif]-->
<!--[if !IE]> <--><object type="text/html" data="http://www.jamendo.com/fr/get/track/id/album/id/playerpage/3661/?n=all&item_o=track_no_asc"><p>Visit the album page! Here's a link...</p></object><!--> <![endif]-->

You might offer it as an alternative for folks who know they'll need XHTML compliant embedding.

Hi phyzome. Thanks for the object tag idea. After some checks I think that IE supports it without your workaround if you specify a width and height. Am I right ?

Hmm, I'm not sure. I haven't tested in IE, but I think it really needs that "clsid" attribute. Oh, and I did forget to include the width and height attributes. (If you want to go this route, you might need to set style="border: 0; overflow: visible" on the body element of the included page to get rid of scrollbars in IE.)

Hi, does this rely on Flash? I'm using Kubuntu GNU/Linux and don't have Flash installed, though I do have Gnash, an incomplete free (as in freedom) software replacement. All I can see is the album cover, links to the artist page and album page, and the name of the first track. I don't actually have any options to play the music. I think Jamendo should use free and open formats as much as possible, instead of proprietary formats such as Flash.

Well, it's an HTML/CSS/JS interface with a Flash embed to do the sound output. Try clearing cache, perhaps? (I wasn't able to see it at first either, but it started working later on.)

the M3U-switching code doesn't seem to work perfectly yet, I'm running more tests later today

thanks!

This works on GNU/Linux without Flash now, though the stream comes up with an open/save dialog in Firefox. I'm trying to find a way to make it play in the background of the browser, so I can control it with the buttons on the player.

I don't seem to be able to insert the code successfully on Wordpress. Whenever I try to paste the code into an article, when I go to save it, the code disappears... Any idea?

Thanks!

finferflu: I was able to add it to our blog.jamendo.com which is also a wordpress. Which version are you using? Can you open me a temporary redactor account so that I can find a workaround ?

cheers

My compliments to that little nifty mini player! Very cool.

But you should also make the code available in a version that pops up the “album link” in a new browser window - like when you go “target=_blanc” in normal html. I would like to use the mini player on my web sites, but I know it would annoy readers to be taken somewher before they had finished reading the first, referring, page.

By opening the Jamendo Album Page in a new window you give tha reader a chance to finish reading - or check out both pages at the same time, as many folks like to do. Then we would also be able to put the mini player at the very front of our own home pages.

_________________
* CommentAuthorsylvinus
* CommentTimeJan 13th 2007

Quotepermalink
Thanks for your comments ;) It's funny that the comments on the english forums are far more technical than on the french ones ;-)

After watching the movie "Monthy Python And THe Holy Graal" I strongly suspect that this scenarion has to do with the general diffences between French and Brittish folks (Brits running around the fields making percussive noise "no one wants to hear" with coco nut shells while the French stay inside castles throwing cows over the walls)

Greeting from Sweden

I tried to embed it inot a post on my blog at my.opera.com: http://my.opera.com/lsaplai/blog but with no luck: it keeps showing the code instead of the player. It might be because this is an uframe.
Embedding YouTube videos works.

Could you use an object / embed structure instead of iframe? It seems it might be more standard compliant, hence working across more blogs.

Cheers!

Laurent

yes there is the same problem with myspace. It's really a shame but we're going to add an "object" player instead !

thanks!

I still don't seem to be able to embed the player on Wordpress...

finferflu: you will be able to include it on a wordpress blog but not on wordpress.com which has a lot of security restrictions :(

ah! that's too bad then... I guess I'll have to change blog... could you tell me which ones support jamendo straight away please? Thanks!

@finferflu: I have been able to insert the player in DotClear 1.2.5. Not sure if it works in upcoming version 2.

@sylvinus: any news of the new version of the embedded "object" player? Apparently it would solve more than my own problem

Cheers!

All right, after posting my previous message I actually found out that a lot of different player had been created. Good job guys! With that, everyone should fine a plyer to his/her liking.

I have immedialty taken upon myself to make a few tests on various blogs that I own. To make things maybe a little more complicated, I have tried all the players at once, on the same page. I say that because it might explain some of the difficulties that I encountered in creating the posts (it seems difficult for some blogs to accept more complex fomatting) as well as why some players do not play properly in some blogs.

So, here are the results:
My Opera Community journal http://my.opera.com/lsaplai/blog/show.dml/741294 : all players work also some need some convincing (click on them to activate then click again to start)

My personal site, http://www.saplainet.info: http://blog.saplainet.info/post/2007/02/08/Jamendo-embedded-music-players : not everyting works but he basic player does for sure. This blog is ran with DotClear2 as provided by my registrar: http://www.gandi.net. I've had a lot of difficulties to get the editor to accept the code for all the players. Some might not display or run properly.

I also run a couple of test blogs on Ouvaton (http://www.ouvaton.coop a Community host):
With DotClear 1.2.5: http://saplainet.ouvaton.org/dotclear/index.php/2007/02/08/11-trying-out-new-jamendo-players Only the Standards and Radio.Blog seem to work. Maybe if I tried the other player in their individual posts...
With Wordpress 2.0.4: http://saplainet.ouvaton.org/wordpress/?p=16 Again, quite a bit of difficulties to buid this page but eventually it seems all players are able to work.Note, however, that the slim player and DewPlayer do not appear right away. You need to "random click" a bit to find them and then you can use them.

All in all, the Standard Player (small and big) are your best bets if you want to embed a player in your blog. The Radio.Blog player seems to work fine too. For the others, you will have to try for yourself, on a case by case basis.

Note that I have done all these tests with the latest built of Opera Browser, 9.20 Build 8713, which is the only browser that I use. Anything that doesn't work in it is not worth using! The current official version can and should (!) be downloaded here: http://www.opera.com/download/index.dml?custom=yes

Cheers!

thanks a lot for your tests !

What code did you use for embedding? always the same ?

we support multiple <object/<embed/<iframe hacks. I should add a dropdown right above the code to make that clear... let me do that now :) could you try again to insert when it's done? (I'm sure it will work on wordpress2 as our own blog is. however I'm interested in all the others!)

thanks!

could you try the wordpress-type embed for the dotclear2 ?

thanks!

http://blog.jamendo.com/index.php/2007/02/09/widget-improvements-color-customization-for-radioblog-new-destination-selector-more-tests/

@Sylvinus: thanks so much for being so quick and so responsive. I really appreciate that you took the time to create special player formats for the Opera community. No need to say that I'm letting them know!Hopefully, this will bring some traffic to Jamedo too!

I have already posted a test on my Opera blog. Everything works well and the page load is much smoother than previously. I will take the time to try on my other blogs over the week end. I'll post the results here

thanks a lot!

[edit: looks like I posted this to the wrong thread, but the 2nd part is relevant to this thread.]

Success! I just got the player up and running on my MySpace page. It looks great -- gives the impression I actually know what I'm doing ;-) [ho ho ho]

Thank you for choosing sensible defaults, especially for the fact the player doesn't autostart. I tend to view a lot of pages at once, flipping them open in Firefox tabs, and there's nothing more annoying than to be streaming an album from Jamendo while working on the internet, go to someone's MySpace page, and have their music suddenly blurt out into the middle of the song I was listening to. The "play" switch should always be voluntary.

[Here's the part that's in the right place.]

Now, does anyone have any idea how to embed the standard Jamendo player as a sidebar widget in WordPress? I understand the copy and paste principle, but I don't know how to post this as anything but a blog entry or an independent web page. When I look for the list of available widgets on my control panel, there's not one for free range html . . . sensible, I suppose, for site security. Anyone know a way?

yes we have to release a wordpress module.. I still haven't got the time to write one. If somebody out there can do it sooner ... ;-)

You could always try to edit the sidebar code in Wordpress Admin.