5

I have been working on a Ruby on Rails application recently. We were using Yahoo Web Player to play our audio and video files. It worked really nice, especially for tablets and smartphones which do not allow the use of Flash. However to my horror I noticed this morning that it no longer works. When I view the page source it says that the script is missing. When I check the old link for Yahoo Web Player it forwards to the home page. When I check the Yahoo web site they say nothing about it. It looks like they have gotten rid of it with no announcement. It was working this weekend but today it does not work.

I am looking for suggestions for a free HTML5 media player that will not take up too much space when it is launched. Basically I am looking for a player that does not display until a MP3 or YouTube link is clicked. If not I will settle for a hybrid HTML5/Flash media player.

Any help would be appreciated. I am continuing to search but so far have found nothing.

UPDATE 7/3/2013 8:00 pm CDT GMT-5: I took the suggestion of David and copied the script from his link and created player.js in my public folder. I tested this and it worked well. However I noticed that there was another link in the script with a Yahoo URL http://yui.yahooapis.com/3.5.1/build/yui/yui-min.js. Just to be safe I copied this script into a text file named yui-min.js and changed the link in player.js to point to my file instead. Yahoo Web Player still works nicely. Oh what a relief!!!!

Pamela Cook - LightBe Corp
  • 3,912
  • 5
  • 50
  • 86
  • 2
    FYI, [Yahoo web-player has been officially shutdown on 30June2013](http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/changes-few-yahoo-developer-network-ydn-offerings-175243915.html). – TheCodeArtist Jul 07 '13 at 14:35

8 Answers8

7

I don't know how long this link will work, but it is the source code of the Yahoo Web Player. I saved it into notepad and named it player.js. I changed my website code to access this new file, and I have everything working again! Awesome! Here's the link: http://webplayer.yahooapis.com/player-beta.js

David
  • 94
  • 1
  • OH I AM SO HAPPY TO HAVE THE PLAYER BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! – Pamela Cook - LightBe Corp Jul 04 '13 at 00:41
  • I tried using this on a client site and it would not properly play the audio. It would detect them all, but the player behavior is erratic, only loads some of them, and generally not the one that was selected. This problem did not exist when it was hosted on the yahoo cdn – mopsyd Jul 15 '13 at 14:50
3

You can get the old webplayer script here:

https://code.google.com/p/rahh/downloads/detail?name=player.js&can=2&q=

Jay
  • 173
  • 6
  • Great. I have saved the link just in case I hear of people who need it. Nice to have it available again. There are still a few places in the script that point to Yahoo links that are forbidden. I have copied two scripts to my library. Hopefully since they are concentrating on other things that they will leave the rest of the stuff alone. – Pamela Cook - LightBe Corp Jul 04 '13 at 14:36
  • Thank you! The accepted answer link no longer works; this was a life saver. – rcd Oct 13 '13 at 19:55
  • Note this player script seems to have been altered since it contains a URL relating to that googlecode account. But it does work. – contrebis Apr 27 '14 at 00:28
1

As Nathaniel Granor pointed out, they have disabled the player. Their beta build is still up for the time being at: http://webplayer.yahooapis.com/player-beta.js

However it may not work as intended. After reviewing the sourcecode of the player, it makes calls to the yahoo cdn in a few places that are also down, effectively breaking the player's performance. These three lines appear to be the problem:

YMPParams["assetsroot"]=YMPParams["assetsroot"]||"http://l.yimg.com/pb/webplayer"+"/"+"0.9.76";
YMPParams["wsroot"]=YMPParams["wsroot"]||"http://ws.webplayer.yahoo.com";
YMPParams["wwwroot"]=YMPParams["wwwroot"]||"http://webplayer.yahoo.com";

Unless anyone has archived the content from these links, you will most likely have to get another media player for your site.

mopsyd
  • 1,877
  • 3
  • 20
  • 30
1

I developing a working alternative which is currently up on http://pitchforkpal.com/bootiemashup . To use it, all you have to do is copy three lines of code into your HTML code.

Technical details:

It uses jquery to insert some code before every link to an mp3 file.

$.each($('a[href$="mp3"]'),function(index,element){ 
    $("<span><a href=\"" + $(element).attr('href') + "\" class=\"sm2_button\"></a></span>").insertBefore(this);
});

The jquery-generated code is then converted to a functional button with code from Soundmanager2's mp3 button player demo.

Sibo Lin
  • 339
  • 1
  • 5
  • 16
0

Yes, they have gotten rid of it. I was greeted with the same issue today. I found the announcement here: http://yahoo.tumblr.com/062813

I too am looking for alternatives. Best-looking alternative I've found so far is jplayer.org

Nathaniel Granor
  • 326
  • 1
  • 9
  • I had checked jplayer.org before selecting Yahoo Media Player. My hope is to find a player that will play both MP3 and YouTube in an unobtrusive manner link WMP did. I did not want a player displayed on the page because of how the page is designed. Each media page displays a list of items where each item can have links to multiple pieces of media. With a format like this having a player displayed all the time will not work at all. Oh well it was good while it lasted. Maybe someone has a copy of the script where I could just copy it in my application.html.erb file. – Pamela Cook - LightBe Corp Jul 02 '13 at 22:06
  • I've been playing around with wrapping JPlayer to reproduce Yahoo WebPlayer's behaviors. Positioning the JPlayer off-screen is simple by putting it in a container div and styling with `position:fixed; left: -420px; bottom: 18px;` The following jquery code will autodetect media links on the page that have the type="audio/mpeg" attribute and insert a sibling node that can act as a button (with proper CSS to style it): `$.each($("a[type=\"audio/mpeg\"]"),function(index,value){ $('').insertBefore(this); });` – Nathaniel Granor Jul 05 '13 at 16:19
0

I got blindsided with the same issue yesterday. I write a blog that has hundreds of mp3s and youtube video links. I have all the mp3s on my server. Yahoo WebPlayer would recognize the media files and create a playlist of all the media on the page and put a little play button in front of each one. Whichever post you opened, it would play all the music on that page with just one click. And all I had to do was copy one line of html code into the site. It was brilliant!

Here's a list of other options, but I have not found one that wouldn't require me to type in the path of each and every mp3 file. That would take days of work!

Top 25 Best Free Online Music Players For Your Websites Or Blogs http://savedelete.com/free-online-music-player-for-website-and-blogs.html

Tom
  • 1
  • Unfortunately it looks like just about all of these are Flash based which will not work for me because my website is written to be used on all devices, not just desktop computers. I also use a database where I have links from different media websites. I have almost 1000 records on that database. Each record can have a link to both an MP3 file and a YouTube video. It was nice to have Yahoo Media Player detect the links on my website and play them. Maybe someone will develop a replacement for Wahoo Media Player. I will NOT be coding 1000-2000 links just to have a player LOL – Pamela Cook - LightBe Corp Jul 02 '13 at 21:49
0

With regard to LightBe Corp's 7/3/2013 update, player.js has several more HTTP references back to Yahoo servers which continue to make it vulnerable to Yahoo cuts.

Dan
  • 53
  • 5
  • Yep I saw them after I posted my update. I think there are two references that I found where the access is forbidden. My hope is that since they are not maintaining it anymore that maybe they will not do anything else with it for the foreseeable future. At some point I will focus on other options. I am working on localizing the website these days. – Pamela Cook - LightBe Corp Jul 12 '13 at 18:42
0

Just to add that I found this player that the author wrote which uses quicktime or windows media player. It employs a pop-up though. Good for those who want to avoid flash.

http://oreilly.com/digitalmedia/2008/08/21/free-easy-web-audio-players.html

Look for batmosphere multiplayer. You just need to download and add the js link to your page.

Dan e Boi
  • 25
  • 2