WPaudio and SoundManager 2

sm2visualWhile redesigning my portfolio site at johnkeston.com I decided to research some of the latest audio plugins for WordPress. Prior to today I was using a fork of Audio Player called Anarchy Media Player (AMP), which was nice for several reasons. One being that it automatically converts MP3 links to the player in posts. Unfortunately the player has not been updated in sometime and after upgrading the the most recent version of WordPress the admin panel for AMP stopped working properly, forcing me to hack my wp-options table.

The alternative that I have put in place is called WPaudio. Wpaudio uses the SoundManager 2 sound library that works by wrapping and extending the Flash Sound API, and exposing it to Javascript. This technique allows the Flash component to be hidden and transparent to both developers and end users.

SoundManager 2 is what’s used by mix sharing sites like SoundCloud and 8tracks. I have yet to find any difficulties, other than some alignment issues that I was able to resolve via CSS. Here’s an example of the player in use. Please comment on how it works for you.

Panopticon
One Day to Save All Life, Keston and Westdal (Unearthed Music, 2009)

4 thoughts on “WPaudio and SoundManager 2

  1. Thank you so much! I’ve searched an Audio player which support HTML5 for a long time.
    I will give it a try! :D

  2. Hey man – yeah just stumbled across SM2 yesterday after trying in vein to customise the HTML5 Soundcloud widget…..This js library is great – one thing is the lack on linear single track playing skins such as the one above in your post. Is this a freely available skin for SM2, or did you do the custom job yourself? At the moment I’m fiddling with the playlist-player skin and trying to make that work as a linear (eg. Horizontal bar) player.

    All the best, Peter

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