Show HN: Beatbar - Media player that beats in the browser address bar | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Beatbar - Media player that beats in the browser address bar

jaipandya.github.com

147 pointsjaip43 comments

If this doesn't work for anyone else, note that beatbar relies on soundcloud, and thus flash. I had flash blocked so was getting a javacript error because beatbar was undefined, enabled flash and it worked.

It uses soundManager for cross browser audio handling. It first tries with flash and fallbacks to html5 if flash is not available. Firefox with flash disabled wouldn't support mp3, and thus won't be able to play it. I am using SoundCloud api only to fetch streams.

Hmm, that's odd, I'm using Chrome 19.01 and have no other plugins running asides FlashBlock. Once I disabled flash block everything ran fine. Does this version of Chrome not support the HTML5 fallback?

Here's the Js error:

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot call method 'init' of undefined /beatbar/:75 (anonymous function) /beatbar/:75 f.event.dispatch jquery.min.js:3 f.event.add.h.handle.i

I think soundManager requires some special handling for flashblock cases. I didn't test with flashblock on. Thanks for reporting the issue.

It doesn't seem to work in Safari with click2flash, either. Possibly because click2flash doesn't actually disable flash, it just requires a click -- but there's nothing to click on.

http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/demo/flash...

I'm using Chrome 20.0.1116.0 (canary) with the plugins blocked by default (play on click) and I'm getting the same error. Also the usual 'run all plugins on this page' option is not there.

HTML5 fallback seems to work fine on Safari iPad

This is using the Ajax-era hash hack to change URL, which is causing problems with history and makes the reload button and favicon flash.

I'd suggest using HTML5 history, specifically replaceState(). It works on all modern browsers. Works on IE10, but not IE9 and below. If you want to support IE, you could fall back to the current location.replace().

I started with replaceState only, but later I realized there was no specific gain that I was having (other than slightly good looking string without hash). This method also suffers from reload and favicon flashes. If it reliably doesn't log to history (unlike location.replace()), using it could be a good idea. But that also comes with a tradeoff of older browser support issues, which requires using external javascript APIs.

I see. Surprised to learn there were still issues as replaceState() (as with pushState) is purely a transformation in the URL path. There's no reload and no update of the favicon link tag. Makes me wonder if that's a browser bug you saw.

What about detecting replaceState support and falling back to location.replace if necessary?

every once in a while one bumps into something fairly useless(no disrespect) but insanely creative wow-&-smile-inducing piece of code here on HN. thanks for this. more power to you.

Very cool indeed, but the title should be more like "Media player that spams your browser's history DB"

Does it? I am doing a location.replace() which doesn't log the URL to history.

It filled up my history as well. I'm on Chrome on a macbook. I love the idea!

Weird! I am unable to reproduce the issue. I am wondering if the problem is with some specific version of browser.

If it helps you in debugging, I am running chrome 18 on Fedora Linux 64bit

Thanks. It appears that location.replace doesn't work in a similar fashion on every browser. I am looking into other methods of implementing, but they look uglier.

Since it took a minute to figure out how to clean that up, maybe this helps other Firefox users:

For me (vertical tabs) at least it was impossible to select multiple entries in the history (ctrl + h) with the mouse. The workaround to remove the entries was to search for beatbar, tab into the list of entries, ctrl + a and right-click -> delete.

History clean again.

I could get rid of it in Firefox by right-clicking one of the links and selecting "Forget About This Site"

Cool idea! but not cool that it has completely filled my web browsing history, thanks.

Is it? For changing the window location I am doing a location.replace which doesn't log to the browser history. What browser are you on?

I noticed it as well - I am using Chrome 20 (dev build) on Windows

Filled mine, too. Firefox 11.

Chrome dev/beta channel on osx. :)

Version 19.0.1084.36 beta

This is the biggest "wow" I've seen in a long time for something that was otherwise completely useless. The ultimate definition of a hack. Absolutely awesome.

You could use unicode for the controls. I modified the local code to use "‖" (and, due to a bug I guess, the chrome address bar became monospaced). If you need, check some reference on http://copypastecharacter.com/all-characters and http://graphemica.com/

I settled with the standard character sets as I wasn't sure if the fancy unicode character would be available cross platform or not. I'll look for this possibility again. Thanks.

Awesome work. Just do me one favour: Add "return false" to the function bound to "space", otherwise the page scrolls when I hit it to pause.

Thanks, fixed.

The reload button flashes like crazy.

On a slightly different note, I liked the choice of font for the main text. The font is Varela Round, from Google Webfonts. (http://www.google.com/webfonts/specimen/Varela+Round)

To my surprise, this worked perfectly on my iPhone...

Very cool! I think you're limited by the font - strangely enough. But this is very nice. Creative.

I'd argue you could boil ruby down from 'puts "hello world"' to just "hello world".

Nice work:)

You could add the name of the artist/melody...

If there is a feature to be added, this is the one. On track. Thanks :)

Great Job Jai!! Beatbar rocks!!

Awesome stuff Jai! Way to go!

Great Work! Thanks

thx for this. also, good use of comic sans.

Stupidity reachs new highs.

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