Community Wishlist/Wishes/A proper audio player

A proper audio player Submitted

Description

The current audio player used in Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons is very outdated. It's very small (low width) so for longer audios you can't skip around well. It also misses functionality to jump to a timestamp or to skip back 10 seconds which is needed especially for spoken Wikipedia audios.

It may be okayish for short sounds of a few seconds, maybe even music tracks, but it's not suited for longer audios like spoken Wikipedia audios. It also looks outdated by decades and was added long ago. Not just sites dedicated to audio like Spotify or dedicated podcast apps like AntennaPod now have modern audioplayers with features like skip 5 sec back: it's become a de-facto standard on the Web and even the smallest audio sites and sites like this (uses this) have much better audio players. Neglecting the audio media type is a problem not just because it's inconsistent with the goal We will innovate in different content formats, develop new software functionalities for Wikimedia projects, […] and to deliver knowledge as a service for all.

Proposed audio player for spoken Wikipedia (desktop version). This one is for spoken Wikipedia audios one can listen to like podcasts; when jumping to a section of the article one could make the audio also jump to that part of the audio with a button.

The current audio player. Try jumping to section "#Cosmology" of the Wikipedia article spoken here (Heraclitus). You can also go to the Commons page and see if it's easier there.

This is how the current spoken Wikipedia player looks like Template:Spoken Wikipedia (try jumping around the audio file or jump back a few seconds with that)

Some applications

Spoken Wikipedia audio player
- Embedded in articles: see the screenshot (desktop view)
- Facilitating and enabling people to use Spoken Wikipedia to find and listen to Wikipedia articles like people listen to podcasts and audiobooks – this could up to double the Wikipedia audience (readership & how much is read)
- Related wish: Software for turning articles into spoken Wikipedia audios using T2S AI voice – it's already easily possible to create high-quality podcast-like audio files of Wikipedia articles and it may not take long until this can be done at scale.
- Related project: WikiLovesMuseums/Sawtpedia – scan QR code & listen to WP article "A generated QR code for a Wikipedia article (could be related to a monument, a museum collection etc..) that once scanned by a mobile device allows the user to listen to the Wikipedia page (if available) in the mobile phone's language."
- Commons app issue – currently the Commons app can't even play any audio files at all; for the audio player maybe the open source software AudioAnchor could be used.
- Spoken Wikipedia articles would have timestamps for every section so if you're only interested in one or a few specific section(s) of an article at some point you can easily jump to it like you can jump to a section in the text Wikipedia article or use this to skip a section.
Multiple-tracks template player with playlist / wikiradio features (e.g. so you can quickly go through relevant high-quality free media to find the file you need or embed many examples without cluttering a page with File templates)
- There are a lot of free culture / open content music audio files in c:Category:Audio files of music and this could be useful on Commons, for example to enable that in the c:Music genres gallery one can embed/play multiple audio files per genre (not just one) with a next and previous button
- It better enables having many examples without cluttering pages but this isn't only about Wikipedia – other projects or platforms could be enabled if there was a proper audio player (like maybe WikiVibes)

Sound logo campaign

Shikwasa audio player for podcasts, audiobooks, music examples, and more

There was a large effort to generate a sound logo audio. A modern audio-player is arguably more important than having a sound logo. It's kind of embarrassing that such a large site (one of the world's top websites) with so much funds still has such an outdated audio-player.

Rough outline of how it could look like in the Commons app and the Wikipedia app. The currently playing section is in bold. When tapping on a section header, the audio jumps to it.

I think using an existing open source software can and probably should be used instead of developing something new to minimize the resources required for this and to have the software well maintained. The Javascript web audio player Shikwasa may be the best option. I have used a screenshot of it in the image on the right. I recommend not developing from scratch with much more effort but simply integrate (& maybe slightly adjust) what already exists. Further audio player options include Audiobookshelf.

Assigned focus area

Unassigned.

Type of wish

Feature request

Related projects

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons

Affected users

Wikipedia readers / listeners

Other details

Created: 18:51, 25 October 2024 (UTC)
Last updated: 18:17, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
Author: Prototyperspective (talk)