New Player Update #2

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Inspired by Songza & Aza Raskin, we’ve made more improvements in how the in-page Flash player works.

It now appears at the bottom of each page along with information about the currently playing song and stays there as your scroll, making exploring music blogs that much better.

Enjoy and let us know what you think!

Comments

41 responses to “New Player Update #2”

  1. Meg Avatar
    Meg

    I really dislike it. It makes the page load slower, it’s very distracting. Is there any way to shut it off? It’s completely turning me off to the site, and I love to spend time here reading the blogs.

  2. Anthony Avatar

    I think we just fixed the extra slowness… but let us know how it works.

  3. Paul Avatar

    Nah, I like it. Much neater that the last version.

  4. Alex Avatar
    Alex

    I like the way it looks, but it did take significantly longer to load the page (10:50am CST). Also, you can’t scroll through the player anymore, was kind of getting used to it. I will admit, I use this more as a radio function, and when something catches me by the ear, I will look for more info about it.

  5. Joe Lazarus Avatar

    I like it. It’s a lot easier to use than scrolling back and forth as you play tracks and try to read the posts. I might like it even more at the top of the page instead of the bottom.

  6. Alex Avatar
    Alex

    Also noticing that there is no scroll bar on the side of this (Machine Shop Blog, blog.hypem.com)page w/ IE 6. Have to click on the >> to get to the comments. Not sure if that’s related or another issue.

  7. TonySF Avatar
    TonySF

    I like the new look and it is easier to browse the music blogs. However, the song information does not load. It only displays the first song on the list. It does take a little longer to load but I don’t really have a problem with that. I am using Opera as my browser and I was wondering if anyone else is having this issue.

  8. encey Avatar
    encey

    I’m using Firefox 2.0.0.9, and found the following issues with the player:

    1. It doesn’t automatically move to the next song on the list when the one I’ve been listening to is over.

    2. I can only adjust the seek bar, volume, etc. by putting the cursor way toward the top of the buttons. If I mouse over the very center of the buttons, my cursor remains an arrow rather than a hand.

    3. The volume and seek don’t change until I have let go of the mouse button, rather than changing as I drag the slider back and forth, which is okay, but sometimes it takes me a few tries to get the volume that I want, which is made slightly more tedious by the cursor issue above (2).

    Thanks though for the work on this!
    e

  9. junior Avatar

    I like the new player a whole lot. For a while, I didn’t know you updated the player so when I clicked “Play” next to a song and wanted to turn down the volume, I had no idea what to do or where the song was playing from. Keeping the player at the bottom makes sure you see it!

    I still don’t like that you can’t see more posts per page (is there a way to shrink the size each post takes on the page?) but the whole site experience is getting better at least.

  10. im Avatar
    im

    i think its really good everyone else is just unnecesesarily pedantic

    keep up the good work best site on the net for sure

  11. dm Avatar

    Fixed the key flaw with the site, the fact I couldn’t see the player when I was scrolling to find the next track.

    Keep it up.

  12. tony b Avatar
    tony b

    Definately a big improvement. Cheers guys.

  13. Mark Avatar

    Great improvement, having it at the bottom works really well. Keep up the good work, this has become one of my favorite sites.

  14. bosh Avatar
    bosh

    Enjoy the actual postioning of the bar, the fact you can scroll down the page and still able to skip tracks etc is a good improvement.
    although since its been placed i found many of the song wont load, or takes ages to load and repeat the first 1st or so second of the song for some time. not sure if this is just my computer happened on my friends laptop as well.

    love the site!.

  15. i h8 ewwwwwwww Avatar
    i h8 ewwwwwwww

    y did u do that!!!!!!!!! i ws just getting used to iut!!!! and now im nt gonna recomand yoy to my friends ot anyone and your businzze is going to just go down the drain U SUX Y DID U IT AWAY!! THE PLAYER!

  16. Colin Avatar
    Colin

    On second thought, keep it where it is, I love it. I still have that problem where if safari’s window is minimized it doesn’t automatically progress tracks but I never minimize anyways.

  17. Matt Avatar
    Matt

    it would be awesome if you could go to the next page and the player stayed in the bottom without closing like docked

  18. ido Avatar
    ido

    I didn’t see it at all.

    I came in, searched for it, searched my firefox settings to see if i’m blocking it or something, went to this blog entry, searched for it again, reread the blog entry and finally found it.

    make it more dominant in the page!

  19. Trolly McTrollstein Avatar
    Trolly McTrollstein

    Nice work, folks. The new site is sick sick sick.

    thanks for bringing back the new and improved player.

    bravo, encore, cheers

  20. galen Avatar
    galen

    “new and improved”?
    I suppose there are small increments of improvement within the new player but it’s still not as simple, elegant, and useful as the original. Bring back the scrolling list where we can skip to the song we want.

  21. galen Avatar
    galen

    please

  22. yEAH!!!! Avatar
    yEAH!!!!

    im still not recamanding you to ppl n im not eveb coming here nemore cuz u wont bring it back even tho i asked plz!!!!!!!!

  23. Galen Avatar
    Galen

    Dude, whoever you are…you rock! Your intentional spelling errors which mock the intelligence of other users is a stroke of genius! Literally made me shoot milk out of my nose when you used “nemore” instead of “no more”!
    That’ll teach them to make suggestions! Oh, and earlier when you wrote, “businzze” instead of “business”…kudos! Even if I tried to misspell the word it wouldn’t occur to me to use 2 “z”s in succession. If I could have one wish this Christmas, it’s that you continue your witty retorts. They are the only thing keeping me on this site.

  24. Aza Avatar

    Thanks for the call-out. I’m glad to see (and help) a great service get even better.

  25. Tonio Avatar
    Tonio

    Has Google already offered you a gazillion deal ? 🙂
    Keep up the good work Hypem Team !!!

  26. Paul Avatar

    Galen,

    I’ve had a pretty shit couple of months and I can safely say that post really made my day. You should be writing comedy mate. Your talents are wasted here. Thanks

    Paul

  27. B Avatar
    B

    not to be a bummer and the new players are great but is there any way to bring back the windows media player or is that out of the question?

  28. KELLIE Avatar

    It takes too long to load and is distracting.

  29. Alex Avatar
    Alex

    Well, seeing as though you’ve polarized readers a bit, perhaps there could be an option to change between players? If this is too difficult, don’t worry about it. It was just a suggestion.

    I for one, like the look of this new player, but haven’t tried using it yet. It doesn’t seem to slow the page down, even though I have a rather slowish computer and internet speed.

    Cheers,
    Alex

  30. Anthony Avatar

    Polarizing readers is part of the job. 🙂

  31. chris Avatar

    I love it. Don’t listen to anybody else. It’s great.

  32. Galen Avatar
    Galen

    Cheers Paul

    I appreciate it

  33. hoobastank4life Avatar
    hoobastank4life

    i think that there should not be the box around the buttons, and that the text/buttons should span across the whole page instead of just the thickness of the blogs. also in my browser (safari) it looks like there is some cut-off of something that i cannot read down at the very bottom of the player.

  34. youngasaurus Avatar

    i can haz biggur buttons plz?

    kthx

  35. L4rgo Avatar
    L4rgo

    the tracks don’t load 🙁

  36. encey Avatar
    encey

    I want to update on my previous post — now the player switches to the next track in the list when the song is over and the controls respond better.

    I am really happy with how it works and have been using hypem a lot more lately. Thanks for the work on this!

  37. Leo Avatar
    Leo

    There used to be a shuffle songs feature in the old player – is it still around? (Maybe I’m just looking in the wrong spot.)

    It was kinda nice to have the player just jump from song to song. Else you frequently get the same song several times in a row.

  38. Jason Avatar

    Like the new player, but it seems to load the music extremely slowly, and it’s really short, meaning that you can’t really advance through the track without having ninja-likee control on your mouse.

    Best player yet though. I’m sure it’s going to improve again. Thanks!

  39. HisFriend Avatar
    HisFriend

    can anything be done about the very slow loading?

  40. hapy Avatar

    It would be awesome if there was a “skip this blog” button for when some blog posts 12 Christmas songs and you don’t want to hear any of them (COMPLETELY THEORETICAL EXAMPLE OF COURSE)

    Love the pop-up player, and I’d say it works because I do actually click the “Read full post” button and read the actual blog if it grabs me with it’s first couple lines.