WP Audio Player – my plugin for easily embedding audio in your WordPress posts (and the first plugin I’ve ever open sourced on GitHub) just received a major update.

WP Audio Player

Though can read all about the updates on the plugin homepage, I thought I’d share some of the updates that went into this particular release, specifically from a developer’s perspective.

Notes For WP Audio Player 1.4

The challenges that came with updating the plugin to its current version revolved largely around the audio element, browser inconsistencies, and adding some enhancements to the user’s experience in WordPress.

The audio Element

As it stands right now, the audio element isn’t supported across all of the major browsers. Furthermore, in some browsers, such as Firefox, the MP3 codec is not supported.

This presented the problem of needing to introduce a fallback.

WP Audio Player Fallback

The standard embed player when the audio element or MP3’s are not supported.

Since not not all browser yet support the audio element, the plugin does the best it can to determine if it should fall back to a normal `embed` element.

If so, it will display the `embed` element and will then display a message as to why the responsive player doesn’t display.

Furthermore, I’ve made no effort to support anything earlier than IE10. Because of the fallback aspects of the plugin and because I want to do what I can to move the web forward, I’ve decided that – at least for this plugin – nothing earlier than IE9 will be supported.

Updates To The Dashboard

In addition to improve the cases where a user attempts to embed a file that resides on another domain, I’ve also introduced the ability for users to select MP3’s that exist in their media library.

WP Audio Player

The updated dashboard listing MP3’s in the media player.

Simply click on the file in the available list and then save your post. Clear the text box if you opt to remove the player.

I definitely thing there’s room for improvement in the usability, but since this is a free plugin and I strive for iterative development, I figure that this is one step forward.

What’s Coming?

Because the project is available on GitHub, you can easily see the features that are planned and the issues that others are having.

If you’re a developer, feel free to commit; if you’re a user, feel free to try it out and file any issues that you may see.

At any rate, this update is relatively large in terms of what it offers to end users both site visitors and site administrators. Dig any and all feedback!