john - New Tiny Players in the Vocabulary Sections
Premium users may have noticed that the familiar round Flash players for each lesson vocabulary word have been replaced with a simple boxy one. We have done this because so many Firefox users have run afoul of a Flash bug which causes all Flash players to cease functioning. We'd like to know: how do you like the new players? If there are no serious objections, we'd like to use them in the Dialogue and Expansion sections of all the lessons as well.
Thanks!
Posted by john March 27, 2008 .
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danjo says
March 27, 2008
I just went over a lesson and the new boxes worked fine. I use Firefox and I do have problems playing the sound files sometimes, especially in the vocabulary flashcards, which practically never play sound for me.
billgloveruk says
March 27, 2008
John, seems to work fine for me in Firefox and IE. I'll have a look in Safari later tonight. It looks as though the mp3's are still available as individual links which should mean that we are still able to download the audio. Thanks to you and the team for getting this to work :)
lunetta says
March 27, 2008
The new players seems to be working well. I've been having this annoying problem and now I don't have to switch browsers every time I want to work with the vocabulary. Hopefully you'll use the new player in the other sections as soon as possible. Thanks! :-)
henning says
March 27, 2008
I only had trouble for the last 3 days or so - after Flash updated itsself. With the new player everything works fine. But I have to admid, I liked the old sound-icon better. It looked more professional. Would it be possible to reuse that for the new player?
bazza says
March 27, 2008
If it's not too difficult to do, I think a pause option would be nice for sentences.
calkins says
March 27, 2008
I like them. They work fine and are nice looking. I also like Bazza's idea of having a pause function for the dialogue and expansion sentences.
jwosmun says
March 27, 2008
My problem with the Flash player also started after I authorized a routine update for the player. The Vocabulary tab now works fine - thanks. The Expansion section is still unusable, so I hope that you soon extend the change to the other tabs. I agree with henning about the icon - it is a bit garish. Meanwhile, I will continue using another computer that does not currently have the problem.
rjberki says
March 27, 2008
Bazza said it well. I would give plenty for a pause and restart feature.
phil says
March 27, 2008
The vocab buttons work fine but if I load a lesson page with more than 15 flash files and then return to the vocab page the flash player is stopped. I guess that is a good reason to use them for the dialogue and expansion, though I agree with Henning, the icons are a bit naff.
chenggwo says
March 27, 2008
The bug is that one cannot update flash from within FireFox, it must be downloaded manually and then Firefox must be closed while running the flash install program. But I have no trouble getting it installed and in fact I really, really love the little flash player. I hope you don't replace it. It seems to me that flash is so important that anyone using Firefox should take the time to install it or switch to another browser. Overall, Your website works very, very well with both IE and Firefox. I would not change a thing. I mean I meant to way before that I think it is one of the sharpest looking websites on the net.
john says
March 27, 2008
Thanks for the feedback everyone. Our highest priority is to get the little players properly playing audio for premium users. People are paying for this. We care about aesthetics, but step one is to just get it functional for all premium users. The next step can be to work on a more attractive design, more functionality, etc. The reason it's not super attractive right now is because it's not even an image. The play symbol is text from the Arial font set. (C'mon, some of you have to appreciate the minimalist, no-image aspect of it, right??)
calkins says
March 27, 2008
I actually like the clean, simple look of the new player, and the colors work well with the rest of the page. Sometimes change just takes a little while to get used to! But I definitely agree with you John, functionality is what's important. Thanks.
chenggwo says
March 31, 2008
(C'mon, some of you have to appreciate the minimalist, no-image aspect of it, right??) Yes, I do appreciate that. It sounds cool. But I have not had any problems with the flash player using FireFox. I even downloaded the player to listen to the pods offline. It's mp3Player.swf, Right? By the way, I want to add an avatar and insert my nationality, but I cannot find a way to update my profile.
tommyb says
May 31, 2008
I used to get through about 10 expansion sentences then I would lose sound. I didnt realize it was Mozilla related and it effected everyone. Very strange.
Its great that its fixed. However some of the older expansions and dialogue are returning a "No Data" window.
thanks
Tom
sandman says
June 10, 2008
I'm a Firefox user and I can't get any sound at all out of the players on the expansion, dialogue, and vocabulary sections of each lesson page.
john says
June 11, 2008
tommyb and sandman,
The "No Data" problem is a big one, and we are working hard on a comprehensive solution.
matt061005 says
June 20, 2008
I'm still getting the "No Data" error for the older lessons.. is this still an issue ? or maybe something with my setup?
andrew_c says
June 20, 2008
In addition to the No Data issue, can you guys please consider making it so that when you click the button it pauses instead of restarting the sentence?
For what it's worth, this would enable me to practice so much more efficiently.
ewilc773 says
June 21, 2008
I don't mean to sound like a whiner, but... no data no data no data. :(
matt061005 says
June 21, 2008
ok, so not just me! I am trying work around it... but its hard to go back to the "impacted" lessons.. which seems to be "a lot" and get the full use... I also realise its the weekend :) so will wait to see what news the CPOD team has soon.
rjberki says
June 21, 2008
acorrigan,
great suggestion but the NO DATA problem has persisted for 3 weeks + now. WTF? Do they not have any IT guys? I pointed this out the first day of the change. Still no resolution and very little communication to us about what is going on ( a particularly irritating CPOD trait).
RJ