Kyle's dashboard

Sorry to hear about your issue, andrea. I'm a total newbie, so I just settled for the RSS feed solution instead of trying to figure out XSPF. I really know basically nothing about it! :)
Thanks for the comments on my players. It seems to be functioning fine on my end, but strangely sized. I'll take a look... I'm using Firefox 3.5.3, what about you? – Kyle, on September 16, 2009 06:53

Thank you so much! I was having such a hard time finding a code that didn't split its components into "head" and "body" elements.

Now you can see the code in action on my homepage.
http://www.kylegullings.com

What I really wanted was for the text to fade in, wait for 2-3 seconds, then fade out before the next one starts... but this slightly modified version does the trick, at least for someone who knows nothing about Javascript! :)

Thanks again.

Sounds good. And one last time, thank you so much for your time. Keep up the great work!

Alright, I'm back at home, and the widget seems to be working perfectly in Firefox, IE, and Safari. Too bad those public computers can't access it, but who knows if that's due to out-of-date updates or admin restrictions.

Two other questions about the widget when you get the chance, Matt:

1.) Is there a way to remove the arrow next to each track that links to the file itself? I'd like users not to be able to download the mp3s.

2.) Is there any way an image tag could be incorporated into this widget? Maybe that would require completely reworking the widget, in which case, never mind!

I don't expect there is an easy solution to these questions, in which case, don't worry about it.

Thank you again so much. You're so good at this!

Thankfully I've used FeedBurner before for my blog, so this step was easy. You can see the working widget in action at:
http://www.kylegullings.com/music.php

Strangely, this only seems to work in my Firefox browser and not in IE. Any thoughts on that issue? (I'm working from a school computer, so it's entirely likely that they haven't updated something.)

Hi Matt. Neither the "a" tags nor the opening ! and closing arrows are in my actual xml document. The "a" tags just showed up when I posted on this thread, and I thought I needed the arrows for the code to show correctly on here.

Here is a link to my feed, if you'd be so kind as to give it a look::
http://www.kylegullings.com/resources...

Oh sure! It's below. Is it a problem that I have both link and enclosure tags? AND, do I need guid tags? Haha, can you tell I'm new at this?
http://www.kylegullings.com/resources... – Kyle, on July 24, 2009 19:46

Thank you again, Matt. Incredibly helpful. Yes, Yola does allow XML.

And thanks for the tip about the enclosure tags. I hadn't included them originally.

Since I've moved away from the XSPF solution, I started a new thread about using RSS with your widget:
http://getsatisfaction.com/widgetbox/...

Any further thoughts? :)

Here is the full text to my rss.xml document, if anyone can help me troubleshoot it. I really love this widget and want to get it to work!

<!--

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>String Quartet No. 1: At Best It Sometimes Rhymes</title>
<link><a href="http://www.kylegullings.com/music.php">http://www.kylegullings.com/music.php</a></link>
<description>Audio from Kyle Gullings' String Quartet No. 1</description>
<copyright>(C) 2009</copyright>
<lastBuildDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:07:30 -0400</lastBuildDate>

<item>
<title>Mvt 2: Two Music Boxes (Tempo Libero)</title>
<link><a href="http://www.kylegullings.com/resources/Audio/SQ%201%20mvt%202%20Two%20Music%20Boxes%20">http://www.kylegullings.com/resources...</a>(Tempo%20Libero).mp3</link>
<enclosure url="http://www.kylegullings.com/resources/Audio/SQ%201%20mvt%202%20Two%20Music%20Boxes%20(Tempo%20Libero).mp3" length="2201635" type="audio/mpeg" />
<pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:02:10 -0400</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Mvt 3: Emanations</title>
<link><a href="http://www.kylegullings.com/resources/Audio/SQ%201%20mvt%203%20Emanations.mp3">http://www.kylegullings.com/resources...</a></link>
<enclosure url="http://www.kylegullings.com/resources/Audio/SQ%201%20mvt%203%20Emanations.mp3" length="2804014" type="audio/mpeg" />
<pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:02:10 -0400</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Mvt 4: Scherzo</title>
<link><a href="http://www.kylegullings.com/resources/Audio/SQ%201%20mvt%204%20Scherzo.mp3">http://www.kylegullings.com/resources...</a></link>
<enclosure url="http://www.kylegullings.com/resources/Audio/SQ%201%20mvt%204%20Scherzo.mp3" length="5328495" type="audio/mpeg" />
<pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:02:10 -0400</pubDate>
</item>

<item>
<title>Mvt 1: There Is a Child (Exposition Only)</title>
<link><a href="http://www.kylegullings.com/resources/Audio/SQ%201%20mvt%201%20There%20Is%20a%20Child%20">http://www.kylegullings.com/resources...</a>(Exposition%20only).mp3</link>
<enclosure url="http://www.kylegullings.com/resources/Audio/SQ%201%20mvt%201%20There%20Is%20a%20Child%20(Exposition%20only).mp3" length="2445478" type="audio/mpeg" />
<pubDate>Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:02:09 -0400</pubDate>
</item>

</channel>
</rss>

-->

If I'm understanding everything correctly, this particular widget (Flash MP3 Player) won't work using an XSPF playlist hosted through Yola. For more info, you can view my Widgetbox question thread here:
http://getsatisfaction.com/widgetbox/...

It seems that yola.com does not recognize the correct MIME type of XSPF files (application/xspf+xml rather than text/plain, audio/xspf, or text/xml). Because of this, an XSPF file hosted at Yola does not function properly, at least not with this widget.

***Is there any way Yola could be configured to universally recognize the application/xspf+xml MIME type? Again, I don't really know much about this, so maybe that's not possible.***

I also could not find any free file hosting alternative that allows manual configuration of MIME types. In short, no working XSPF file means no playlist generated in the widget.

The widget developer offered a great solution that involves uploading a small PHP file along with the XSPF file (see linked thread above). Unfortunately, Yola does not allow PHP uploads, so this won't work.

Whew! So... While I wait to hear about that XSPF MIME type configuration, I will try this instead:

1.) Create a new (hidden) webpage that includes my playlist's mp3s
2.) Create an RSS feed of that page, and
3.) Input that feed URL through the Flash MP3 Player widget.

If you're a user looking to do the same, I hope this helps!

My host, yola.com, doesn't allow upload of .php or .html files. So an XSPF solution seems hopeless for a web-design newbie like me!

I think I'll try the RSS route instead. My new plan is:

1.) Create a new (hidden) webpage that includes my playlist's mp3s
2.) Create an RSS feed of that page, and
3.) Input that feed URL through the Flash MP3 Player widget.

...Does that sound reasonable?

If that doesn't work, I'll let you know. Thank you both again for all your help!

Hi again, Dave. Do you happen to know of any free online file hosting sites that allow for manual configuration of MIME types? It seems like that's the issue with both hosts I've tried so far. (Simplicity + Free = Less flexibility.)

Additionally, do you happen to know - once I have the XSPF file hosted in a correctly configured location - will I have to host my mp3s in that same location? Or can I keep them on my Yola site's File Manager?

Thanks again for your help so far.

- - -

Perhaps there's an easier way besides XSPF to use the Flash Mp3 Player Widget? It also reads RSS feeds, but I don't know an efficient way of creating an RSS feed containing just mp3 files from my hard drive.

One thing I did get to work was creating a new blog just for this playlist, and using its RSS feed as the link in the Widget. But creating a new blog for each playlist seems like a wasteful and cumbersome solution!

Not sure how to check that, but I'll play around with it later today. Thanks again!

Thanks so much for your help.

I've updated my site with a new attempt, this time with a different host for the XSPF file (www.sigmirror.com). Perhaps I need to host ALL my files there, including the MP3's? You can see the new XSPF files at the bottom of this page:
http://www.kylegullings.com/playlist.php – Kyle, on July 23, 2009 18:41

Thanks for your quick reply!

I didn't realize Widgetbox had its own Get Satisfaction forum. If that route proves useful, I'll post a link here to that thread.

Thanks a lit, littleus. My first time posting on Yola's help forum, so here's hoping! (I realize I may need to settle for some other player.) – Kyle, on July 23, 2009 16:48