New Tiny Players in the Vocabulary Sections

John
March 27, 2008, 10:08 AM posted in General Discussion

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! 

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danjo
March 27, 2008, 12:07 PM

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.

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ElijahW
June 21, 2008, 07:34 AM

I don't mean to sound like a whiner, but... no data no data no data. :(

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lunetta
March 27, 2008, 02:25 PM

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! :-)

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henning
March 27, 2008, 06:00 PM

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?

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bazza
March 27, 2008, 06:52 PM

If it's not too difficult to do, I think a pause option would be nice for sentences.

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calkins
March 27, 2008, 06:59 PM

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.

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jwosmun
March 27, 2008, 07:04 PM

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.

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RJ
March 27, 2008, 08:49 PM

Bazza said it well. I would give plenty for a pause and restart feature.

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phil
March 27, 2008, 09:32 PM

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.

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chenggwo
March 28, 2008, 12:00 AM

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.

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billglover
March 27, 2008, 12:54 PM

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 :)

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calkins
March 28, 2008, 03:18 AM

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.

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chenggwo
March 31, 2008, 09:33 PM

(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.

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buschstadium310
March 31, 2008, 11:04 PM

whats up with having to pay?? i read about you guys in a magazine and it said you were 100% free!! i might as well buy Rosetta Stone @ the price you guys are charging!!

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tommyb
May 31, 2008, 11:23 AM

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

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sandman
June 10, 2008, 01:25 PM

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.

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John
June 12, 2008, 05:40 AM

tommyb and sandman,

The "No Data" problem is a big one, and we are working hard on a comprehensive solution.

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maite061005
June 21, 2008, 01:23 AM

I'm still getting the "No Data" error for the older lessons.. is this still an issue ? or maybe something with my setup?

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andrew_c
June 21, 2008, 01:43 AM

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.

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John
March 28, 2008, 03:04 AM

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??)