Podcast player for web radio site

Podcast player for web radio site

As a hobby, I’m the “software handyman” in a web radio (also a speaker to be honest). In my spare time, I try to find solutions and cool stuff for all the digital problems related to this activity. It could be something that needs to be automated or some cool stuff on the website. This time, despite the fact that I’m not a good UI/UX, I’ve tried to improve the podcast player on the website. The default web player of WordPress is not that bad, but experimenting is something that I like to do and, after all, none will be killed by a bad player experiment on a web radio site self-financed by its speaker. So I’ve seen some cool players with a waveform on it and I’ve spent time to figure out how these can be included.

 

default worpdress player

Default worpdress player

First Implementation of a new podcast player

After a first implementation, I found version 1 of this new player not-so-dynamic as I’m expecting. And more it also required some additional computation and files (a static file representing the waveform peak).

 

First Implementation podcast player

First Implementation podcast player

Second iteration of a podcast player

So I’ve found a new super dynamic player, in javascript. But it gave me some problems related to the “touch event” needed by the iPhone users to start the sound. After some months of figuring out how to solve it, I finally found a way of making it work.

 

Second implementation podcast player

Second implementation podcast player

It’s not perfect, still can be done better and maybe there are bugs around it but what I want to highlight is the fact that I’ve spent a lot of my free time finding a better solution (better means “better to me”) and solving issues, problems, edge cases, code limitations. See this recap video:

 

 

I’ve had the chance to do this because there is no money, neither human life involved and, basically, because this is a hobby. The possibility of experimenting in a safe environment made the difference and gave me also a vision of what are the other different skills and people involved in the development of a software solution: what could be the problem for a UX, what could push to add a new solution based also on time needed to do it.

My advice is to find space to explore and make mistakes in your workplace or outside your workplace. If you have time take a look at the player, at the website and, if you have a lot of time and you want to listen to an Italian web radio show about technology, space and similar stuff with a lot of music, my show it’s called “Katzenjammer” every Monday, starting at 20:00 Europe/Rome time zone.

There are podcasts as well 😀

https://www.radiocittaperta.it/podcast/utenti-in-pericolo-su-facebook-meta-e-il-pianeta-rosso-katzenjammer-del-20-dicembre/

Maybe I’ll share some tech details and code in a future post, anyway feel free to contact me for details or questions 

MiroAdmin