photo credit: …Tim

Create your own free flash based podcast / mp3 player

I like the flashbased XSPF mp3 player. I had planned to rewrite the actionscript so that it could read rss with enclosures instead, but I liked the possibility to have unique pictures on each track, and I wanted to check out the XSPF format.

So I wrote a PHP script that uses DOMXML and xpath to convert an existing rss to xspf, it even have a search function of sorts.

I’m going to use it on a project I’m working on after a little more tweaking but I wanted to share it with other people who has a podcast and want a quick open source way to present their podcasts on their website.

photo credit: Chregu

<?php

$path = “http://podkast.nrk.no/program/radioresepsjonen.rss”;

$showfile = file_get_contents($path);

if(!$doc = domxml_open_mem($showfile)) {

echo “Error while parsing the document…”;

exit;

}

$xpath = xpath_new_context($doc);

$root = $doc->document_element();

//debugging

//echo domxml_version();

//var_dump(xpath_eval_expression($xpath, ‘/rss/channel/item’)); //http://no.php.net/manual/sv/function.xpath-eval-expression.php

//debugging – memory dump

//echo $doc->dump_mem( true, ‘UTF-8′ ) ; //http://no.php.net/manual/sv/function.domdocument-dump-mem.php

//print ” Path: <a href=\”$path\”>$path</a><br>\n”;

//print ” Showfile: <a href=\”$showfile\”>$showfile</a><br>\n”;

//print ” domDoc: <a href=\”$domDoc\”>$domDoc</a><br>\n”;

//print ” root: <a href=\”$root\”>$root</a><br>\n”;

// playlist plus search function

$playlist = $xpath->xpath_eval(“/rss/channel/item[contains(translate(title,'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzæøåö', 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZÆØÅÖ'), '".strtoupper($_REQUEST["search"]).”‘)]”);

//debug

//print “playlist found: “.count($playlist->nodeset).”\n”;

print “<?xml version=\”1.0\” encoding=\”UTF-8\” ?>\n”;

print “<playlist version=\”0\” xmlns=\”http://xspf.org/ns/0/\”>\n”;

print ” <title>Put clever title here, or get it from the rss</title>\n”;

print ” <annotation>Description of some sort</annotation>\n”;

print ” <creator>Who made this</creator>\n”;

print ” <info>http://link to more info</info>\n”;

print ” <location>http://yourdomain.com/doesnreallymatter/rss2xspf.php</location>\n”;

print ” <license></license>\n”;

print “<trackList>\n”;

foreach ($playlist->nodeset as $tracklist) {

$description = “”;

$title = “”;

$enclosureurl = “”;

//$enclosureurl = $tracklist->get_attribute(“length”);

//$spor = $tracklist->get_attribute(“spor”);

//$sangid = “$arkivnr-$spor”;

foreach ($tracklist->child_nodes() as $child) {

if ($child->node_name() == “title”) $title = $child->get_content();

if ($child->node_name() == “description”) $description = $child->get_content();

if ($child->node_name() == “enclosure”) $enclosureurl = $child->get_attribute(“url”);

}

print “<track>\n”;

print ” <location>$enclosureurl</location>\n”;

print ” <image>hassan/bilder/else150.jpg</image>\n”;

print ” <annotation>$title</annotation>\n”;

print ” <info></info>\n”;

print ” <info_text>$description</info_text>\n”;

print ” </track>\n”;

}

print “</trackList>\n”;

print “</playlist>\n”;

?>

Copypaste the above code into a new file and save it as rss2xspf.php and upload it to your server to test if you have domxml support. (If you don’t it will say something like Call to undefined function: domxml_open_mem. In that case, tough luck, find a new host.)

Download the exellent XSPF flash based mp3 player here: XSPF Web Music Player (Flash) – Plays MP3 on your website

Read more about XSPF over at http://www.xspf.org/

And please drop a comment if you use it and like or have problems.

You can also send me an email at morten.skogly _at_ gmail dot com.

There’s a lot of room for improvement, like using the rss image in place of a staticly defined image, or inserting a random image, or doing som web2.0 stuff like snarfing the images from amazon or whatever, please let me know if you make something superclever with it :)

Idea for your site: You can use del.icio.us to make your own mp3 podcast, visit bands you like bookmark the mp3s you like with del.icio.us, go there to get the rss, and your set to go, you have the same music on your site as on your ipod :) (You might have to use feedburner.com as a gobetween to create the enclosures and make it itunes-compatible.)

Updated: 06.04.2008: Unless you really really digg the XSPF player linked up above, I suggest you use the superb Jeroen Media Player instead. It is open source and supports both XSPF and RSS directly. It takes up more space, but it has video support and a very cool javascript api.