Creating a Website: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition

Flash MP3 Players

As you already learned, Flash is a browser plug-in that lets you add videos, animation, and even whole miniature programs, like games, to a web page. Although it takes a fair amount of work (and some pricey software) to create a Flash program from scratch, it’s not nearly as difficult to add a Flash-based music player to your page. That’s because plenty of people have already done the work for you. In fact, the Web is awash in free Flash music players.

Search Google for “flash mp3 player” to find a few. Most of them are surprisingly polished, with support for song lists, playback buttons, and customizable colors and themes. In the following sections, you’ll see how to use two good choices.

The Premiumbeat Player: Playing a Song List

The www.premiumbeat.com website offers a handful of professional-looking Flash media players. They include:

• A mini player. It looks like a play button paired with a tiny bar graph icon (which animates while playback is underway). Use this player if space is at a premium.

• A thin player. It looks like the mini player, with the addition of a long slim strip that lets you see where you are in the current track. This is another choice for pages that don’t want to draw attention to their music.

• A basic player. This includes a full set of playback controls, including next/previous track buttons and a volume slider. Visually, it’s a small box that looks like the playback controls in Figure 17-3, but you can optionally show the song name and timestamp. ...