floating/drag-able music player

[macdalor]

Hi,

I am in the process of improving my website (http://davidloran.com) and was wondering if someone had an idea to create a "floating" music player that could be dragged around on the site's pages and be always present even when going from one page to another, with the option to drag it out of the site (a bit like the google chat system).

A download option would also be nice but I guess that's not the biggest of the job ;-)

Any comments, advices, offers, links etc welcome

Thx

[larztheloser]

My idea would be to use frames. You have a music player on the main page, then insert an IFRAME and you could drag the player around even if the visitor followed a link out of the site (on the IFRAME, which is the size of the window). But it wouldn't work for if they changed the location in the title bar. Use flash for the music player and put it on a draggable layer - there's heaps of internet examples of how to do this.

[acoder]

I would avoid frames if possible. Try keeping in a container element. For the actual player, you could use Flash as suggested. Try something like SoundManager 2. If you need to keep the current file being played and its position, you can set these values in a cookie when the page is being unloaded.

[macdalor]

thx acoder, I'll give the SM2 a try. Although at first glance it looks a bit complicated for my level of knowledge but I'll come back if I need your help ;-)

[larztheloser]

The problem with a container element is that if somebody leaves your site and then leaves the site they leave, your player will disappear. Frames let you see the player longer. Of course they're annoying to users, but then so is a music player that is "always present even when going from one page to another" - especially when going to a page beyond your website.

[acoder]

I assumed "one page to another" was within the site.

I agree that a music player can be annoying, but if it's restricted to the site and users can switch it off/hide it, it'd be OK.

[macdalor]

lol thx laztheloser, good feedback! But as acoder said: "if it's restricted to the site and users can switch it off/hide it, it'd be OK".

From my point of view, if the users comes to my site and starts listening to some music, it surely assumes that the visitor is somewhat interested to what he's listening to and might want to carry on listening...