We have just released version 2.0 of the Podlove Web Player and we think it's great news as it brings quite a few new features on the table.

First of all, the player has been recoded at the core to be completely independent from PHP and WordPress so you can integrate it into any CMS you want. The API is now JavaScript-only but still provides the WordPress-Integration many are using right now (and probably will continue to do so).

We have also brushed up the look and feel of the player and we think it looks much better right now. The default appearance is with all extra panes collapsed in a rounded rectangle style. The chapter list can be expanded on demand as the summary and a new chapter/time navigation pane that also features a simple sharing feature to get a link to the current playback position and to bring up Twitters post interface.

Here is an example on how it looks and works:

[podloveaudio poster="http://meta.metaebene.me/media/mm/mobilemacs-logo-600x600.jpg" title="MM104 Möglichst nah an der Null" subtitle="Schon wieder die längste Sendung - ja sind wir hier denn bei den Vogonen?" duration="05:04:31" permalink="http://mobilemacs.de/2013/02/mm104.html" mp3="http://meta.metaebene.me/media/mm/mm104-moeglichst-nah-an-der-null.mp3" mp4="http://meta.metaebene.me/media/mm/mm104-moeglichst-nah-an-der-null.m4a" ogg="http://meta.metaebene.me/media/mm/mm104-moeglichst-nah-an-der-null.oga" opus="http://meta.metaebene.me/media/mm/mm104-moeglichst-nah-an-der-null.opus" chapters="http://meta.metaebene.me/media/mm/mm104-moeglichst-nah-an-der-null.chapters.txt" summary="Eine weitere überlange Sendung erwartet Euch und protzt mit ausreichend Kurzweil. Wir reden über verschlüsselte iCloud Backups, iOS 6.1 und seinen Jailbreak, Abmahnung von Podcastern, clang und LLVM, komische OSX-Bugs, den iPhone Field Test Modus, Dell und Microsoft, den aktuellen und kommenden Mac Pro, Status-Anzeigen und Netzüberwachung, Ports-Systeme, Alternativen zu iTunes, Audio-Interfaces und Kopfhörer, Auphonic, Dokumentenscanner, Plaste-DSL-Router und ihre Fehler, Apps und die Sinnlosigkeit von Captive Portals. Ist also für jeden was dabei."]

New controls allow users to expand and collapse all additional views in the player. This technique keeps the general player interface clean and easy to understand while the power users get what they want too. Parameters allow to set the default state for these views.

There is even more in this release apart from these most visible features and updates to the player engine should result in more robustness and browser compatibility overall. Check out the Changelog for the details.

Many thanks to Gerrit van Aaken and Simon Waldherr who were behind this release and also thanks to everybody who contributed with ideas and bug reports.

We are going to include the new player in the Podlove Publisher soon so if you are using that plugin, just wait for the next release and you will get the benefits of an already integrated player.