Flash MX Audio Player
An in depth look at building a reusable streaming audio preloader for Flash MX that includes media controls.
01 Introduction
02 What should the media player do? / How should the player be structured? / Useful reading
03 Part 1: Start with some easy audio
04 Putting the sound on the stage / Adding a sample graphic
05 Animating the waveform
06 Part 2: Planning our controls / Getting the sound to play, pause and rewind
07 Adding a load indicator
08 Adding a thumb dragger to the slider
09 Dragger states
10 Limiting the dragger / Setting the sound's playhead position
11 Making the media controls ready for sharing
12 Part 3: Using the media player
13 Anything else? / Conclusion / About the authors / Copyright
Previous << Part 3: Using the media player
Anything else?
No. Don't be greedy. But if you are interested in other tutorials that we have written go check out "Yet Another Flash MX Loader", "Object VR In Flash MX", and "Flash MX Skip Intro" elsewhere on this site. You'll be glad you did!
Conclusion
In the online exhibition, we really wanted to deliver something that most people just couldn't get from going down to the Western Australian Museum in Perth, Western Australia, and checking out the "Western Australia: Land and People" exhibition in Hackett Hall. It was just fantastic that the curators of the physical exhibition could share their thoughts for the online version. Once all of the commentary was recorded by Darren Mok, we needed a quick and simple procedure for publishing all of the files in the online exhibition. This is it. Well, it's sort of what we used.
In our final implementation of this audio player in the "Western Australia: Land and People" site, we did the usual trick of loading all window, caption, and text elements as early as we could, then when we hit the sound, we used our loader to indicate progress. Because we can put the loader anywhere we like, we can make the best use of the streaming capabilities of Flash MX and just when things start to stall (when it hits the audio) we whack in a loader so that the site visitor still sees something happening. And when the audio is playing we have another progress bar to let them know how far through the sample they are.
The audio player we developed here is more like the video player we developed for the Western Australian Museum. It's a bit more complicated, a lot more flexible, and better for reuse.
Hmm. Video player. I think that will be the next tutorial off the ranks!
See you soon.
About the authors
The Glasson Murray Group, Pty. Ltd. creates and presents high quality and engaging content for delivery across a range of media. They designed and developed the virtual exhibition in conjunction with the Western Australian Museum, producing a truly compelling and unparalleled presentation.
Copyright
Materials are copyrighted and are protected by worldwide copyright laws and treaty provisions. Copyright law in Australia is contained in the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) and in decisions of courts, with further amendments in the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000. They may not be copied, reproduced, modified, published, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way, without GMG's prior written permission. Except as expressly provided herein, GMG and its suppliers do not grant any express or implied right to you under any patents, copyrights, trademarks, or trade secret information. Other rights may be granted to you by GMG in writing or incorporated elsewhere in the Materials.
01 Introduction
02 What should the media player do? / How should the player be structured? / Useful reading
03 Part 1: Start with some easy audio
04 Putting the sound on the stage / Adding a sample graphic
05 Animating the waveform
06 Part 2: Planning our controls / Getting the sound to play, pause and rewind
07 Adding a load indicator
08 Adding a thumb dragger to the slider
09 Dragger states
10 Limiting the dragger / Setting the sound's playhead position
11 Making the media controls ready for sharing
12 Part 3: Using the media player
13 Anything else? / Conclusion / About the authors / Copyright
© 2003 Glasson Murray Group Pty Ltd (ACN 098 651 542), Western Australia. All rights reserved.