I'm trying out using the player in my personal music jukebox (works
pretty well. congrats guys!), so I'm making some customizations (i.e.,
maximizing the player, putting it in a fixed location etc.

I'm using a combination of subscribing to the WebPlayer.onLoadEvent
and assigning custom styles w/ !important rules, and I thought I'd
share what I've done so far and get some feedback on the potential
"right" way to do these also further customizations.

I'm maximizing the panel by setting:
   YAHOO.music.WebPlayer.ui.ePlayerUIState = "maximized";

I tried calling YAHOO.music.WebPlayer.ui.maximize(), which I suspect
is the proper way to do it, but it actually gave some rendering
artifacts (extra text that disappears - any idea what that is? maybe
it's an image that gets loaded?)

I place the player itself in a static position on the page like so:
   yp = document.getElementById('ymwp-player-overlay');
   document.getElementById('player').appendChild(yp);

I was thinking there is probably a more stable way to reference the
overlay, but appending YAHOO.music.playerPanel.element didn't seem to
work.  Am I doing something wrong there?

I override all the positioning calculations it does w/ CSS, although
I'd prefer to be able to override the JS code itself...

#ymwp-player-overlay {
   position: relative!important;
   top: 0!important;
   margin-bottom: 10px;
}

The things I'm still looking to do (if there are easy ways to call and
override):
* a custom width for the panel

* having a 'bottom' version of the playlist queue (in the meantime
i've just blown it away w/ display:none)

Also, one question, will there be track seeking added? (a la the
Easylistener?)

Also, I haven't seen a lot of publicity on the new media player -
maybe writing it up on next or ymusicblog would help get some extra
feedback?

FYI, the media player team hangs out in #heavy on irc.landoleet.org if
you want to drop by.

ian

Yo lhl_yinc --

Here is some misc background info.

The design principle for the player is that the standard is the API.
Because of that it makes me a little bummed that you're having to go
so deep into the javascript to do what you need.  Ideally you'd be
manipulating plain old HTTP, HTML and CSS rather than library
internals, and if the library was more developed, there would be HTTP,
HTML and CSS interfaces which enabled all the stuff you're working on.

On the other hand, JavaScript is a standard also.  But really what I
want to do is put you in a position to write the Javascript to enable
anybody else to do the same things you want using HTTP, HTML, and CSS
interfaces.  Unfortunately the work to enable you to do that is in the
future, along with the customization interfaces.  ...  :*\

Even given that, I'm not sure that it's a good idea to make the player
positioning static, move the playlist from top to bottom, and modify
the width.  This is a usability thing -- the user wins when the player
has a consistent interface from site to site.  The place for
variability is in the page.

My working plan for customizations that do make it over all these
hurdles is to have them be URI parameters, so that we can create an
HTML form for editing them and make it easy for people to share.  This
is where I want to put the initial panel state.  For example,
maximizing by default would be something like
http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com?uistate=max .  My reasoning for doing
this with query args is that the form is machine-readable
documentation, so the interface is as much of a web standard as possible.

So let's say there is a need to customize the initial load state.  I'd
tackle this with javascript in the loader to check the query args and
go from there.  That way only one person ever has to deal with the
non-standard internals of the player.

- Lucas




--- In yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com, "lhl_yinc" <lhl@...> wrote:
>
> I'm trying out using the player in my personal music jukebox (works
> pretty well. congrats guys!), so I'm making some customizations (i.e.,
> maximizing the player, putting it in a fixed location etc.
>
> I'm using a combination of subscribing to the WebPlayer.onLoadEvent
> and assigning custom styles w/ !important rules, and I thought I'd
> share what I've done so far and get some feedback on the potential
> "right" way to do these also further customizations.
>
> I'm maximizing the panel by setting:
>   YAHOO.music.WebPlayer.ui.ePlayerUIState = "maximized";
>
> I tried calling YAHOO.music.WebPlayer.ui.maximize(), which I suspect
> is the proper way to do it, but it actually gave some rendering
> artifacts (extra text that disappears - any idea what that is? maybe
> it's an image that gets loaded?)
>
> I place the player itself in a static position on the page like so:
>   yp = document.getElementById('ymwp-player-overlay');
>   document.getElementById('player').appendChild(yp);
>
> I was thinking there is probably a more stable way to reference the
> overlay, but appending YAHOO.music.playerPanel.element didn't seem to
> work.  Am I doing something wrong there?
>
> I override all the positioning calculations it does w/ CSS, although
> I'd prefer to be able to override the JS code itself...
>
> #ymwp-player-overlay {
>   position: relative!important;
>   top: 0!important;
>   margin-bottom: 10px;
> }
>
> The things I'm still looking to do (if there are easy ways to call and
> override):
> * a custom width for the panel
>
> * having a 'bottom' version of the playlist queue (in the meantime
> i've just blown it away w/ display:none)
>
> Also, one question, will there be track seeking added? (a la the
> Easylistener?)
>
> Also, I haven't seen a lot of publicity on the new media player -
> maybe writing it up on next or ymusicblog would help get some extra
> feedback?
>

Got this bug report from a user on aurgasm:
> At first it was totally annoying, the whole page would freeze
> when I click play, it simply would not work for me -- "Timed
> out. Please retry".

I can't reproduce, but the system was mac os x, firefox 2.

I also think that if the attempt times out, it should retry itself
after a few seconds:
"Connection to media failed. Currently retrying..."

 
 


Got this bug report from a user on aurgasm:
> At first it was totally annoying, the whole page would freeze
> when I click play, it simply would not work for me -- "Timed
> out. Please retry".

I can't reproduce, but the system was mac os x, firefox 2.

I also think that if the attempt times out, it should retry itself
after a few seconds:
"Connection to media failed. Currently retrying..."

 
    

New release is out:
http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2008/02/yahoo_media_pla.html

This has a lot of incremental improvements based on feedback on the previous
release. Also it has an interesting new feature called "Play this page"
which creates a lot of creative possibilities.

Questions, comments, kudos and suggestions are welcome.

Congrats!

And it's great to see webjay's linguistic legacy living on!
Cheers.

hey group-

the player renders a bit awkwardly on my page. any ideas? in the HEAD,
i am including YUI lib version 2.4.1. has anyone else seen something
similar?

link: http://yahooza.com/play/good_songs

thanks hombres!

Webjay is far from gone. We have a plan.

But I need to say that the key concept behind Webjay was an uncompromising recognition that the Web is made of URLs, and that the Media Web should/will be no different. I'd like to see us adhere to the same spirit, I think it'll work the smoothest and create the most opportunity.

Thanks to Lucas for teaching me to recognize this.


ian

----- Original Message -----
From: yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com <yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com>
To: yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com <yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sat Feb 09 08:18:04 2008
Subject: [yhoomediaplayer] Re: Release #3 out

Congrats!

And it's great to see webjay's linguistic legacy living on!
Cheers.

I think I've found the problem. I've already declared a function
called $() in my framework libs, and I think the Media library does as
well. There is some conflict, tough I don't know how or where.

Just FYI, if y'all do the same.




--- In yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com, "Walter Punsapy" <wally@...>
wrote:
>
> hey group-
>
> the player renders a bit awkwardly on my page. any ideas? in the HEAD,
> i am including YUI lib version 2.4.1. has anyone else seen something
> similar?
>
> link: http://yahooza.com/play/good_songs
>
> thanks hombres!
>

I take that last one back =)




--- In yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com, "Walter Punsapy" <wally@...>
wrote:
>
> I think I've found the problem. I've already declared a function
> called $() in my framework libs, and I think the Media library does as
> well. There is some conflict, tough I don't know how or where.
>
> Just FYI, if y'all do the same.
>
>
>
>
> --- In yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com, "Walter Punsapy" <wally@>
> wrote:
> >
> > hey group-
> >
> > the player renders a bit awkwardly on my page. any ideas? in the HEAD,
> > i am including YUI lib version 2.4.1. has anyone else seen something
> > similar?
> >
> > link: http://yahooza.com/play/good_songs
> >
> > thanks hombres!
> >
>

 
 

Is there a way to prevent YMP from playing all the linked mp3s in sequence, when you click on one of them?  

Example: http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/~britainw/

I would like the quotes to play one at a time, when clicked on.

Thanks,

Britain.
 

 
 

Greetings all,

I spent some time tonight hacking together this Wordpress Plugin to make it easier for people to get Goose up and running.  I'm not sure if someone has written one already...

http://www.8bitkid.com/files/2008/02/goose_plugin.zip

I know it is somewhat ridiculous to have a plugin that contains more lines of code than it would take to just embed it in the header/footer, but I thought some people might not want to modify any files in their theme, and so this is for them.  Plus, it was an excuse to make my first plugin :-)

I have it running on my site already, and nothing has broken yet.  Its official title on the plugin page is: "Yahoo Media Player".

I'd love to get any feedback/bugs/etc. you may have, and please pass along the link to anyone interested.

Cheers, Max
 
    

Thank you for the Bugzilla req., Lucas.  I didn't know if there was a
flag in the documentation I somehow missed or something, and didn't
want to artificially inflate the open bug count.

I'll keep an eye on YMP, it's quite nice!

--- In yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com, Lucas Gonze <lgonze@...> wrote:
>
> Thatıs a perfectly natural request that Iım sure weıll get to, but
for now
> itıs not in the works.
>
> I created a bugzilla for this and pasted in your message.
>
>
> On 2/11/08 11:29 AM, "Britain W." <wingo@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Is there a way to prevent YMP from playing all the linked mp3s in
sequence,
> > when you click on one of them?
> >
> > Example: http://mblog.lib.umich.edu/~britainw/
> >
> > I would like the quotes to play one at a time, when clicked on.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Britain.
> >
>

http://yahoomediaplayer.wikia.com/wiki/Site-specific_Tips#Tips

It's great to get a wordpress plugin at last.  Now we just need a widget.

--- In yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com, Ian Rogers <iancr@...> wrote:
>
> Great work, Max.
>
> Be sure to also link from the Wiki.
>
> ian
>
>
> On 2/11/08 11:17 PM, "the8bitkid" <max@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Greetings all,
> >
> > I spent some time tonight hacking together this Wordpress Plugin
to make it
> > easier for people to get Goose up and running.  I'm not sure if
someone has
> > written one already...
> >
> > http://www.8bitkid.com/files/2008/02/goose_plugin.zip
> >
> > I know it is somewhat ridiculous to have a plugin that contains
more lines of
> > code than it would take to just embed it in the header/footer, but
I thought
> > some people might not want to modify any files in their theme, and
so this is
> > for them.  Plus, it was an excuse to make my first plugin :-)
> >
> > I have it running on my site already, and nothing has broken yet.  Its
> > official title on the plugin page is: "Yahoo Media Player".
> >
> > I'd love to get any feedback/bugs/etc. you may have, and please
pass along the
> > link to anyone interested.
> >
> > Cheers, Max
> >
> >
>

#1 thing to see in a widget is the total convenience of installation
for anybody who already has the widgets plugin installed.  Once you
install that plugin it makes the pain of download/ unzip/ configure/
upload/ activate go away.

I'm thinking of this plugin: http://automattic.com/code/widgets/


--- In yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com, max engel <max@...> wrote:
>
> what would you like to see in a widget?  i'm in need of a project for
> this weekend; might as well learn more WP/php :-)
>
> _max
>
> On Feb 12, 2008, at 2:56 PM, lucas_gonze wrote:
>
> > http://yahoomediaplayer.wikia.com/wiki/Site-specific_Tips#Tips
> >
> > It's great to get a wordpress plugin at last. Now we just need a
> > widget.
> >
> > --- In yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com, Ian Rogers <iancr@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Great work, Max.
> > >
> > > Be sure to also link from the Wiki.
> > >
> > > ian
> > >
> > >
> > > On 2/11/08 11:17 PM, "the8bitkid" <max@> wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Greetings all,
> > > >
> > > > I spent some time tonight hacking together this Wordpress Plugin
> > to make it
> > > > easier for people to get Goose up and running. I'm not sure if
> > someone has
> > > > written one already...
> > > >
> > > > http://www.8bitkid.com/files/2008/02/goose_plugin.zip
> > > >
> > > > I know it is somewhat ridiculous to have a plugin that contains
> > more lines of
> > > > code than it would take to just embed it in the header/footer, but
> > I thought
> > > > some people might not want to modify any files in their theme, and
> > so this is
> > > > for them. Plus, it was an excuse to make my first plugin :-)
> > > >
> > > > I have it running on my site already, and nothing has broken
> > yet. Its
> > > > official title on the plugin page is: "Yahoo Media Player".
> > > >
> > > > I'd love to get any feedback/bugs/etc. you may have, and please
> > pass along the
> > > > link to anyone interested.
> > > >
> > > > Cheers, Max
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
>

YMP does a nice job of notifying the user of an error when the mp3
404's, but the behavior is weird.

Immediately the user gets a little orange ! icon and it says, "Unknown
error has happened". After some time that message will say "Unable to
play this media".

I think the error msg could be a bit friendlier: "Sorry! That file
isn't available right now."

But then there's a weird bug where the popup that houses that message
doesn't track while I scroll the page down. The popup layer will stay
in the same position while the player moves down the page...

screenshot here:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2060/2276086010_8e08ce91c0_o.png

Don't know if this is a YUI or YMP bug, but now you know.. :)

Well, I'm also wondering if the message can be specific to the http
error code: 404, 401, etc.

Here is the URL of the screenshot above:
http://aurgasm.us/2006/08/hanne-hukkelberg-2/

Error messages need some loving overall.  Once you start reporting bugs with them it's hard to know where to stop.

We have a current work item to look again at the whole deal.


----- Original Message -----
From: yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com <yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com>
To: yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com <yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon Feb 18 17:26:32 2008
Subject: [yhoomediaplayer] Re: request/bug - odd behavior on mp3s that 404

Well, I'm also wondering if the message can be specific to the http
error code: 404, 401, etc.

Here is the URL of the screenshot above:
http://aurgasm.us/2006/08/hanne-hukkelberg-2/ <http://aurgasm.us/2006/08/hanne-hukkelberg-2/>

Hey everybody,

I'm one of the founders of Grabb.it, an in-browser music player and search
engine.

I've been a lurker on this list since its inception, but I just wanted to
quickly pop my head
up to let you know that we recently added Yahoo Media Player integration to
Grabb.it's
user pages. These pages aggregate each user's comments and favorite tracks into
a
lightweight blog format. For example, here's mine:

http://grabb.it/users/greg

In addition to designing our markup on those pages to communicate with the Yahoo
Media
Player, we also made it follow the emerging hAudio microformat standard
(http://microformats.org/wiki/haudio), which allows for the semantic
presentation of
additional information that doesn't fit within YMP's very clean markup
requirements. It was
nice to discover that the two formats are compatible.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for putting this project together and making
it freely
available. It's fun!

yours,

Greg Borenstein
---
http://grabb.it/users/greg
http://urbanhonking.com/ideasfordozens
http://atduskmusic.com

--- In yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com, Bruce Walker <bmw@...> wrote:
>
> I'm trying to use the YMP along with some simple public-domain
> Javascript tools in the same page.  But I'm getting this error and the
> player fails to launch ...
>
> Error: data has no properties
> Source File:
> http://l.yimg.com/us.js.yimg.com/lib/mus/js/ymwp/webplayer-min-1.5.7.js
> Line: 12
>
> The tools I'm including are the chunks of code from here ...
>
> http://www.hunlock.com/blogs/Ten_Javascript_Tools_Everyone_Should_Have
>
> A few of these extend the Object, String and Array objects using the
> Javascript "prototype" syntax.  Eg:
>
> Array.prototype.sortNum = function() {
>    return this.sort( function (a,b) { return a-b; } );
> }
>
> and I suspect that the code in webplayer-min-1.5.7.js isn't testing for
> the possibility of additional properties.
>
> I have also tested this with both the /js and /latest versions of the
> player.
>
> Anyone else run into Javascript conflicts with YMP?
>
> -bmw
>

Bruce,
Can you offer a public URL where your code is?

--- In yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com, "Walter Punsapy" <wally@...> wrote:
>
> the player renders a bit awkwardly on my page. any ideas? in the HEAD,
> i am including YUI lib version 2.4.1. has anyone else seen something
> similar?
>
> link: http://yahooza.com/play/good_songs

That sure is weird!  Congrats on achieving such a beautifully mangled player.
:-)

BTW: are you aware of a couple of JS errors when your page loads?  I get these
in Safari 3.1 ...

Not allowed to load local resource: file:///{Album.Release.Image.defaultUrl}
Not allowed to load local resource: file:///{Album.Release.Image.url}

Way cool, Greg.  Thanks for emailing about it.

I'm interested to see you adopting hAudio already.  How was the experience?  Was
it practical to use the spec in the real world?  The rel-enclosure support in
YMP is there for compatibility with existing idioms, very much including
microformats, so the compatibility is not accidental.  It's good to get some
real-world mileage out of it.

A tip WRT http://grabb.it/users/greg -- the reason the DHTML player has a weird
layering issue with the 1-pixel out player there is that the 1-pixel out player
needs wmode transparent.  More info:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_15523

...hope the player is working out well for you, and please don't hesitate to
post bugs.


-Lucas

________________________________________
From: yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com [mailto:yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com]
On Behalf Of greg.borenstein
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 2:55 PM
To: yhoomediaplayer@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [yhoomediaplayer] YMP on Grabb.it user pages

Hey everybody,

I'm one of the founders of Grabb.it, an in-browser music player and search
engine.

I've been a lurker on this list since its inception, but I just wanted to
quickly pop my head
up to let you know that we recently added Yahoo Media Player integration to
Grabb.it's
user pages. These pages aggregate each user's comments and favorite tracks into
a
lightweight blog format. For example, here's mine:

http://grabb.it/users/greg

In addition to designing our markup on those pages to communicate with the Yahoo
Media
Player, we also made it follow the emerging hAudio microformat standard
(http://microformats.org/wiki/haudio), which allows for the semantic
presentation of
additional information that doesn't fit within YMP's very clean markup
requirements. It was
nice to discover that the two formats are compatible.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for putting this project together and making
it freely
available. It's fun!

yours,

Greg Borenstein
---
http://grabb.it/users/greg
http://urbanhonking.com/ideasfordozens
http://atduskmusic.com