After wasting a lot of time adding Playlist to my home page, I discovered the MP3 Widget which seemed much better and easier to use. Everything was fine until I actually embedded my play list on my home page. First, the music player keeps disappearing making it impossible to use the controls. The music keeps playing but the player widget disappears. Then if you select continuous play, everytime you go to a new page on the site, it reverts back to the first song on the play list. What are we doing wrong?

Thanks,
Bob

Hi Bob,

There are several possibilities here, but the fundamental consistency is that when your site visitors load the main page, whether or not they have been there previously in the same browsing session, they are presented with the dialog asking if they want to listen to the music on the site. If they agree, the player starts a new song, and if they don't the player ignores the response and keeps doing whatever it was doing before (if they have been to the main page in the current session), or just doesn't open (if they haven't).

Users may have popup windows blocked, which could force the player to load into a tab on the current window. If a user has a lot of tabs open, they may not notice the new one, and won't see the player controls.

If the popup comes up in front of another window, the user may click the window behind it, hiding the player and its controls.

Different browsers give users a range of different option for handling pop-up windows, so there will be some inconsistency in user experiences. The best you can do is find a widget/player that best meets your needs, determine the settings that make it work best for you, and then let your site users know which settings on their browsers will give them the best experience with the player you've chosen.

I am having a case of... User Error. It may be that my brain has reached max input and is unable to absorb further information. Whatever the cause may be, I am failing at loading an MP3 on TAP into an announcement (Setting the Scene).

I have the MP3 in the file vault. The announcement is ready for it to be inserted. Yet as many times as I tried yesterday, I can not figure out why the MP3 does not play. The times it did show, there was no content. (Ah, the reason why it did not play. User not thinking can be added to possible problems.)

I tried switching browsers yesterday. Maybe I should try again today. Maybe I should not. LOL Any tips or hints? All suggestions are welcome.

Thanks all!

I added your welcome track to one of your playlist widgets, and then embedded that widget into the announcement. You may want to visit the Widgets link and adjust the settings for that player.

To do this, I opened the Announcement editor, then clicked the Link icon and then opened the file vault to find your uploaded mp3 files. I clicked on the welcome mp3, then clicked the Preview button for it. I copied the URL of the file from the preview window, pasted it into the playlist in the Widget manager, then copied the embed code from the playlist and pasted it into the announcement editor.

Thanks for the reply, Eric!

I went into the Widget manager, adjusted the setting by removing the check to auto play and completed the steps in your reply. Now the player shows 0.00 to play. This has to be user error (mine) but what am I missing?

I have to conquer this!

Strangely, it works as it is now, but you have to click on the name of the track to play it.

Another Widget question: Since we can't control the size or location of the widget player pop-out window, could CC make it fit the size of the player based on our content? Right now, it clips off the right and bottom part of the player which includes the volume slider.

Here's a look at ours: http://screencast.com/t/6nwpnNIh4

Thanks,

That problem only occurred in Chrome when I tested it. I'm not sure why Chrome sizes either the window or the content differently. However, it is a simple matter for the user to resize the window to fit the content.