react-use-audio-player

A custom React hook for controlling browser audio powered by the amazing howler.js library. The intention of this package is to abstract away the details of howler's API using built-in React primitives to create an interface that is more React-friendly, allowing you to write React code that is free from audio-related side-effects.

Install

1yarn add react-use-audio-player

TypeScript

For convenience, the library's type definitions are included in the package under index.d.ts.

Usage

This library exports a context Provider and two hooks for controlling an audio source, giving you the tools you need to build you own audio player or visualization.

AudioPlayerProvider

This Provider is required for the hooks to function. The Provider contains a single audio source and exposes an interface for manipulating it via the useAudioPlayer hook. The benefit of having a single, shared audio source is that it allows the developer to compose together multiple components that share knowledge about the audio. For example, you may have separate components PlayPauseButton, SeekBar and VolumeControls all working together on the same audio source.

1import React from "react"
2import { AudioPlayerProvider } from "react-use-audio-player"
3
4const App = () => {
5    return (
6        <AudioPlayerProvider>
7            <AudioPlayer file="meow.mp3" />
8        </AudioPlayerProvider>
9    )
10}

useAudioPlayer

This is the main hook for controlling your audio instance.

Example:

1import React from "react"
2import { useAudioPlayer } from "react-use-audio-player"
3
4const AudioPlayer = ({ file }) => {
5    const { togglePlayPause, ready, loading, playing } = useAudioPlayer({
6        src: file,
7        format: "mp3",
8        autoplay: false
9    })
10
11    if (!ready && !loading) return <div>No audio to play</div>
12    if (loading) return <div>Loading audio</div>
13
14    return (
15        <div>
16            <button onClick={togglePlayPause}>{playing ? "Pause" : "Play"}</button>
17        </div>
18    )
19}

API

Arguments

useAudioPlayer optionally accepts some configuration as its only argument. The available options closely mirror howler's options but differ in some areas.

• src: string
  The path to an audio file

• format?: string
  The format of the audio file. The format is infered from the file extension by default.

• autoplay?: boolean
  Read more here

• html5?: boolean
  Read more here

• xhr?: Object
  Read more here

Return Value

useAudioPlayer returns a single object containing the following members:

• load: (config: object) => void
  method to lazily load audio. It accepts the same configuration object that useAudioPlayer does.

• loading: boolean
  true if audio is being fetched

• ready: boolean
  true if the audio has been loaded and can be played

• playing: boolean
  true is the audio is currently playing

• stopped: boolean
  true if the audio has been stopped

• ended: boolean
  is true once the currently loaded audio finishes playing. This will be unset if you begin playing again or load a new sound.

• error: Error
  set when audio has failed to load

• play: () => void
  plays the loaded audio

• pause: () => void
  pauses the audio

• togglePlayPause: () => void
  convenient equivalent to alternating calls to play and pause

• stop: () => void
  stops the audio, returning the position to 0

• seek: (position: number) => number | undefined
  sets the position of the audio to position (seconds)

• mute: () => void
  mutes the audio

• volume: (value: number) => number
  get/set the volume of the current sound. Volume values between 0.0 and 1.0

useAudioPosition

This hooks exposes the current position and duration of the audio instance as its playing in real time. This data may be useful when animating a visualization for your audio like a seek bar. A separate hook was created to manage this state in order to avoid many rerenders of components that don't need the live data feed. For example a component that renders a play/pause button may use useAudioPlayer but does not need to rerender every time the position of the playing audio changes.

1import React from "react"
2import { useAudioPosition } from "react-use-audio-player"
3
4const PlayBar = () => {
5    const { position, duration } = useAudioPosition({ highRefreshRate: true })
6    const [percent, setPercent] = React.useState(0)
7
8    React.useEffect(() => {
9        setPercent((position / duration) * 100 || 0)
10    }, [position, duration])
11
12    return <ProgressBar percentComplete={percent} />
13}

API

Arguments

• (optional) config: { highRefreshRate: boolean }
highRefreshRate will allow useAudioPosition to update state at a smooth 60fps rate via the browser's requestAnimationFrame API. This is ideal for when you want smoother animations.

Return Value

useAudioPosition returns an object containing the following members:

• position: number
  the current playback position of the audio in seconds

• duration: number
  the total length of the audio in seconds

• seek
  For convenience the seek method from useAudioPlayer is also returned from this hook

Examples

To run the example applications follow the following steps:

1. git clone the repository
2. cd useAudioPlayer/examples
3. yarn install
4. yarn start
5. follow the local README for further assistance

Release

The most basic npm release strategy is being followed for now. A good explanation can be found here.

Steps

1. commit work & tests
2. yarn/npm version (preversion script will ensure code is tested and built)
3. yarn/npm publish
4. git push & git push --tags