/Gapless-5

Gapless JavaScript/CSS audio player for HTML5

Primary LanguageJavaScriptMIT LicenseMIT

Gapless 5  

A gapless JavaScript/CSS audio player for HTML5

PROBLEM: There are 2 modern API's for playing audio through the web, and both of them have problems:

  • HTML5 Audio: the last chunk of audio gets cut off, making gapless transitions impossible
  • WebAudio: can't play a file until it's fully loaded

SOLUTION: Use both!

  • If WebAudio hasn't fully loaded yet, it begins playback with HTML5 Audio, then seamlessly switches to WebAudio once loaded.
  • NOTE: Most mobile browsers don't fully support HTML5 Audio objects in js, so we're stuck with only WebAudio in that case.

Getting Started

Gapless 5 is a registered bower package, so installation is as simple as:

 $ bower install gapless5 --save

Demos

Features

  • player can have multiple tracks
  • page can have multiple players
  • seamless transitions between tracks
    • pre-loading of subsequent tracks
    • files don't need to be fully loaded to start playback
  • no Flash!

Browser Support

  • Safari
    • tested on OSX and iOS
  • Chrome
    • not tested on Android yet
  • Firefox
  • unsupported on IE
    • can't seem to programmatically create audio objects

NOTE for Boostrap users: Bootstrap's css will mess up the player's look. If you don't need Bootstrap in its entirety, try using Twitter customize to get just the subset of rules you need.

Setup

  1. HTML head: reference the following
  • jQuery (1.0 or greater, must be referenced before Gapless5.js)
  • Gapless5.js
  • Gapless5.css
  1. HTML body
  • create any element with a particular id
  1. JavaScript
  • create a Gapless5 object, passing the above id as a parameter
  • add tracks using addTrack() or via options (see below)
  • optional stuff:
    • manipulate tracklist with insertTrack(), replaceTrack(), removeTrack(), and removeAllTracks() (see example)
    • register callbacks (see below)
    • link keys to actions using mapKeys() or via options (see below)

Example:

<head>
  <link href="gapless5.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
  <script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.min.js" language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"></script>
  <script src="gapless5.js" language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"></script>
</head>
<body>
  <div id="gapless5-block" />
  <script type="text/javascript"><!--

    var player = new Gapless5("gapless5-block");
    player.addTrack("audio/song1.mp3");
    player.addTrack("audio/song2.mp3");

    // extra stuff to manipulate tracklist, indexes start at 0!
    player.replaceTrack(0, "audio/song1_alt.mp3");
    player.insertTrack(1, "audio/transition.mp3");
    player.removeTrack(2); // removes third track
    player.removeAllTracks(); // clear all tracks

    player.mapKeys({cue: "7", stop: "8", next: "9"});

  --></script>
</body>

Options

  • tracks
    • path to audio file(s)
    • can be an array, or a single track as a string
  • loop (loops playlist)
    • default = false
  • playOnLoad (plays immediately when you open the page)
    • default = false
  • useHTML5Audio
    • default = false on mobile browsers, true otherwise
  • useWebAudio
    • default = true
    • if you don't care about gapless playback, set useWebAudio to false for better performance
  • mapKeys
    • pressing specified key (case-insensitive) will trigger specified action.
    • Actions that behave like the buttons:
      • prev: matches behavior of "prev" button (scrubs to start if you've progressed into a track)
      • playpause: matches behavior of "play/pause" button
      • stop: matches behavior of "stop" button
      • next: matches behavior of "next" button
    • Actions that differ from the buttons:
      • prevtrack: unlike "prev" button, this will always jump to the previous track
      • cue: play from start
      • play: non-togglable "play"
      • pause: non-togglable "pause"

Example:

var player = new Gapless5("gapless5-block", {
  tracks: ["loop1.mp3", "loop2.mp3"],
  loop: true,
  playOnLoad: true,
  mapKeys: {prev: "a", playpause: "s", stop: "d", next: "f"}
});

Callbacks

  • onprev
  • onplay
  • onpause
  • onstop
  • onnext
  • onerror
  • onfinishedtrack
  • onfinishedall

Example:

function prevCallback() {
  console.log("user clicked 'prev'");
}

player = new Gapless5('gapless5-block', {tracks: ["track1.mp3", "track2.mp3"]});
player.onprev = prevCallback;
player.onnext = function () { console.log("user clicked 'next'"); };

License

Licensed under the MIT License.