Wow, thank you very much for this!

I have tested this new version and it works great! Unfortunately, I tested it in the unique platform I hoped to use it and it’s not going to work there. It’s at no fault of your own; it seems the in-game web browser in Team Fortress 2 and other Source engine games doesn’t support JavaScript. I’m surprised, since they do support Flash applications! Very well, then…

So, I’m sorry I cannot put it to use like I hoped. I’ll keep an eye on things, though, and if they ever add JavaScript support I’ll put your great program to use.

At the moment I have not got round to including the ability to set the position of the song on the first track but I will hopefully get to this at some point soon.

For those who want to enable these new features then you need, first to download the file from the link above, then to add the following code to a script tag in your html file – this replaces the code shown in line 7 above, i.e. this replaces the old variable _MyPlayerLocation_ :

var _MyPlayerSettings_ = {
location: "myplayer",
startTrackClass: "play_me_first",
startVolume: 19
};


If in doubt what to do just check the included index.html file.

I’ll write a more detailed description of this on a blog post soon but I just wanted to get this stuff out there to those who need it.

I’ve been having a look over the things that you were looking for tonight, and I think that I should be able to implement at least the first two pretty quickly – I’ve actually got most of it done. I’ve not had a change to look at your third point yet but I’ll look into it more tomorrow.

On your first point though, I had a quick try and it seems to me that the $(’.myplayer_mp3′).click() does play a track, however it plays the last track on the list! Anyway, if you want to wait until tomorrow, I’ll release something that allows you to specify a css class that selects the first song to play, and you can see if it works from there.

To address your second point would, as you suggested, break the current UI for the player. However, I’ve created something that sets the volume you specify regardless – it will however set you to the nearest increment the first time you click the plus or minus buttons.

I’ll post an updated version of the plugin that addresses some of the things that you were looking for tomorrow.

Anyway, thanks for using and commenting, and check back soon.

1. I need the script to automatically play when it loads. I followed your advice to Iain, but adding $(‘.myplayer_mp3′).click() as described does not work in Chrome nor IE. Can you suggest a better way?

2. I need to be able to set the playback volume on load by passing a variable into Javascript via PHP sort of like how the _MyPlayerLocation_ variable is passed. Value can be passed as percentage from max out of 100 or whatever is appropriate. Because of how your volume meter works, this might be tricky to do without breaking the meter. If this is an issue, then it would be okay to change the volume without updating the volume meter, as in most contexts the user cannot see the interface.

3. I need to be able to define the starting position of the first track before playback begins, passing a variable like described about. The value can be passed as the number of milliseconds into the track or whatever is appropriate.

I know that the SoundManager2 API supports these things, but I know very little of JavaScript and have a hard time figuring out how to modify your code to achieve these things. FYI, since the user will indeed see the interface when loaded from an alternate website-based system, so I’d like to retain the integrity and usability of your interface after applying these things.

Also, a couple comments about your program:
- There is a small glitch that prevents the user from dragging the track position slider all the way to the end of the song. It seems the art for the slider object, which enlarges when selected, prevents it from going all the way to the end.
- I would prefer more finite, variable control of the volume over rigid interval selections. That’s my personal preference, though.

I very much appreciate your help with all my questions. Thanks for this great plugin!

You would probably have to add this to the function whenInitComplete (line 608) in the file myplayer/myplayer.js. The code for this function would then look something like:

function whenInitComplete()
{
// Wait for both the auto layout to have finished and
// the soundManager has loaded before we setup the
// player
toComplete--;
if(toComplete == 0) {
var myPlayer = new MyPlayer();
myPlayer.init();
$('.myplayer_mp3').click();
}
}


I’m not 100% sure this would work but you can give it a try. I should probably have created a better way to hooking in this functionality but I never really thought about it at the time. One for the future I think!

My new challenge is to get the player to play the first song automatically when the page launches; if you have any pointers on that I’d appreciate it.

I Love the band, also. If you’re ever gigging in the north east of England, please do let us know!


#myplayer_playlist_container {
scrollbar-highlight-color: #272525;
scrollbar-3dlight-color: #272525;
scrollbar-shadow-color: #272525;
scrollbar-darkshadow-color: #272525;
scrollbar-track-color: #272525;
scrollbar-arrow-color: #272525;
}

Or, you search through the CSS file that is included with the files you downloaded from my site (it can be found in myplayer/player.css). You can then search for the word “scrollbar” in the file, where you will find a set of lines that look similar to that above. You can then change the colour values to the values that you require.

Alternatively if you just want to stop the scroll bars from displaying then you can just change the height attribute of the above style to make it big enough to accommodate all your tracks.

Hope this helps.