Rob Ousbey

Audio in sNews 1.6

This is the method I have used to add an audio player to sNews powered sites. It uses the 1pixelout.net MP3 player.

Update: Since writing this article, I have migrated my homepage to the sNews CMS, and you can see the modification working on pages such as Latitude Festival 2007.

Note 1: It currently only works for files stored within your sNews site, not external MP3s. I could add that to the code if anyone wants it.

Note 2: The code below is lacking comments and tabs, which both would make the code easier to read. However, it seemed to make it more complicated for copy-and-pasting so it's been removed. Feel free to recomment the code in your sNews.php file, or ask me where things don't make sense.

1. First, download the following files. (Right click and select 'Save As..')
   • player.swf
   • audio-player.js
   These files were created by the talented Martin Laine and released under the GNU GPL.
2. Upload these two files into the folder: http://yoursite.com/audio-player/
3. Add or amend the following lines of your snews.php file, where line number refer to the original sNews 1.6 file.
   Change Line 244 to:
   $l['allowed_files'] = 'php,htm,html,txt,inc,css,js,swf,mp3';
   After Line 246, add these lines:
   $l['audio_include_extensions'] = 'mp3'; $l['audio_player_location'] = 'audio-player';
4. Now, run down to Line 1849 or search for FILE INCLUSION. You will replace the file_include function with the following two functions:
   //FILE INCLUSION - now with added Audio by ousbey.com function file_include($text, $shorten) { $fulltext = substr($text, 0, $shorten); $inc = strpos($fulltext, ''); if ($inc > 0) { $text = str_replace('', '|&|', $fulltext); $text = str_replace('', '|&|', $text); $text = explode('|&|', $text); $num = count($text); $extension = explode(',', l('file_include_extensions')); $audio_extension = explode(',', l('audio_include_extensions')); for ($i = 0; ; $i++) { if ($i == $num) {break;} if (in_array(substr(strrchr($text[$i], '.'), 1), $extension)) { //echo substr($text[$i], 0); if (preg_match("/^[a-z0-9_-./]+$/i", $text[$i])) { $filename = $text[$i]; file_exists($filename) ? include($filename) : print l('error_file_exists'); } else {echo l('error_file_name');} } elseif (in_array(substr(strrchr($text[$i], '.'), 1), $audio_extension)) { //echo substr($text[$i], 0); if (preg_match("/^[a-z0-9_-./]+$/i", $text[$i])) { $filename = $text[$i]; if (file_exists($filename)){ echo audio_player($filename); //include ($filename); } else { print l('error_file_exists'); } } else {echo l('error_file_name');} } else { echo substr($text[$i], 0); //if (preg_match("/^[a-z0-9_-./]+$/i", $text[$i])) { //$filename = $text[$i]; //file_exists($filename) ? include($filename) : print l('error_file_exists'); //} else {echo l('error_file_name');} } } } else {echo $fulltext;} } // Audio Player function audio_player($file_location) { static $pn = 1; $player_code = ""; $player_code .= '<script language="JavaScript" src="' . db('website') . l('audio_player_location') . '/audio-player.js"></script>'; $player_code .= '<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="' . db('website') . l('audio_player_location') . '/player.swf" id="audioplayer'. $pn .'" height="24" width="290">'; $player_code .= '<param name="movie" value="' . db('website') . l('audio_player_location') . '/player.swf">'; $player_code .= '<param name="FlashVars" value="playerID='. $pn .'&soundFile=' . db('website') . $file_location . '">'; $player_code .= '<param name="quality" value="high">'; $player_code .= '<param name="menu" value="false">'; $player_code .= '<param name="wmode" value="transparent">'; $player_code .= '</object>'; $pn++; return $player_code; }
5. That should be it. Now upload an MP3 to your site using the sNews Upload feature, and you can use the Include function to create a link to the file, such as: [include]files/music.mp3[/include]
6. This will create a player for each included mp3 file. That's it - send me some feedback, let me know if it works for you!

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To get in touch, send an email to: rob@ousbey.com