Very Simple PHP Audio Player (With Playlist)

Last Updated: November 14, 2023

Welcome to a tutorial on how to create a simple PHP audio player. Want to create your own podcast or playlist? Once upon a time, we have to fight with digital dragons and use all sorts of plugins to do that. But today, it is nearly as simple as using an <audio> tag. Read on for the example!

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

DOWNLOAD & NOTES

Here is the download link to the example code, so you don’t have to copy-paste everything.

 

EXAMPLE CODE DOWNLOAD

Source code on GitHub Gist

Just click on “download zip” or do a git clone. I have released it under the MIT license, so feel free to build on top of it or use it in your own project.

 

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PHP AUDIO PLAYER

All right, let us now get into how to create a PHP audio player with a playlist.

 

 

 

STEP 1) THE PHP & HTML

audio.php
<div id="demo">
  <!-- (A) AUDIO TAG -->
  <audio id="demoAudio" controls></audio>
 
  <!-- (B) PLAYLIST -->
  <div id="demoList"><?php
    // (B1) GET ALL SONGS
    $songs = glob("audio/*.{mp3,webm,ogg,wav}", GLOB_BRACE);
 
    // (B2) OUTPUT SONGS IN <DIV>
    if (is_array($songs)) { foreach ($songs as $k=>$s) {
      $name = basename($s);
      printf("<div data-src='%s' class='song'>%s</div>", rawurlencode($name), $name);
    }} else { echo "No songs found!"; }
  ?></div>
</div>

Yep, there are only 2 components for this simple example.

  1. The audio player, good old <audio> tag.
  2. The playlist.
    • We will use $songs = glob("audio/*.{mp3,webm,ogg,wav}", GLOB_BRACE) to get the list of songs from the audio folder. Take note, glob will not recursively read into sub-folders.
    • Then, loop through $songs and generate the playlist. Take note of the custom data-src here.

 

 

STEP 2) JAVASCRIPT PLAYLIST INIT

audio.js
var aud = {
  // (A) INITIALIZE PLAYER
  player : null,   // html <audio> element
  playlist : null, // html playlist
  now : 0,         // current song
  init : () => {
    // (A1) GET HTML ELEMENTS
    aud.player = document.getElementById("demoAudio");
    aud.playlist = document.querySelectorAll("#demoList .song");
 
    // (A2) LOOP THROUGH ALL THE SONGS, CLICK TO PLAY
    for (let i=0; i<aud.playlist.length; i++) {
      aud.playlist[i].onclick = () => aud.play(i);
    }
 
    // (A3) AUTO PLAY WHEN SUFFICIENTLY LOADED
    aud.player.oncanplay = aud.player.play;
 
    // (A4) AUTOPLAY NEXT SONG IN PLAYLIST WHEN CURRENT SONG ENDS
    aud.player.onended = () => {
      aud.now++;
      if (aud.now>=aud.playlist.length) { aud.now = 0; }
      aud.play(aud.now);
    };
  }
};
window.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", aud.init);

Unfortunately, <audio> does not support playlists at the time of writing. So we will need to build our own, var aud contains the mechanics of our custom playlist player.

  • (A1) Get the HTML elements.
    • aud.player refers to <audio id="demoAudio">.
    • aud.playlist is an HTMLCollection of songs contained in <div id="demoList">.
    • The idea is to use aud.now to track the current song playing in aud.playlist. For example, aud.now = 0 will indicate the first song, aud.now = 1 indicates the second, and so on.
  • (A2) Loop through all the songs, attach “click to play” onclick = aud.play.
  • (A3) Just a bit of precaution here, we wait until the song is sufficiently buffered before playing.
  • (A4) When the current song ends, we do a aud.now++ and play the next song automatically.

 

 

STEP 3) PLAY SONG

audio.js
// (B) START PLAYING
aud.play : id => {
  // (B1) UPDATE CURRENT & PLAY
  aud.now = id;
  aud.player.src = "audio/" + aud.playlist[id].dataset.src;
 
  // (B2) A LITTLE BIT OF COSMETIC
  for (let i=0; i<aud.playlist.length; i++) {
    if (i==id) { aud.playlist[i].classList.add("now"); }
    else { aud.playlist[i].classList.remove("now"); }
  }
};

Lastly, we have a function that plays the song itself. Very simply, we set aud.play.src to the selected data-src. The end. aud.player.oncanplay will automatically start playing once sufficiently buffered.

 

EXTRAS

That’s all for the tutorial, and here is a small section on some extras and links that may be useful to you.

 

CUSTOMIZING THE AUDIO PLAYER?

Take extra note that <audio> cannot be styled or customized (at the time of writing). But we can build one ourselves, check out the custom audio player link below.

 

 

COMPATIBILITY CHECKS

Works on all modern “Grade A” browsers.

 

LINKS & REFERENCES

 

THE END

Thank you for reading, and we have come to the end. I hope that it has helped you to better understand, and if you want to share anything with this guide, please feel free to comment below. Good luck and happy coding!

35 thoughts on “Very Simple PHP Audio Player (With Playlist)”

  1. Cesc

    Hello, I’m not sure if my post was deleted due to a non correct question, I asked if will it be possible have the name of the current played song between the player and the playlist, or in top of the playlist. Thank you very much for your work.

  2. Adriano

    É simplesmente espetacular! Parabéns e muito obrigado por compartilhar seu tempo e conhecimento, além de entregar o código completo. É realmente sensacional.

  3. Miroslav

    Hello.
    Thank you very much for this code.
    Can i ask you pls?

    1. how to stop playing in loop whole the playlist. I mean to stop playing after the last file and not start from the beginning again.

    2. when I run it in mobile….it is very small…..how can be the size of the player and songs name text changed? (increased)

    I wish you all the best friend.
    Regards
    Miroslav
    Slovakia, Europe

    1. W.S. Toh

      1) if (aud.now==aud.playlist.length) { aud.pause(); } else { aud.play(aud.now); }
      2) Playlist – Just set the font-size in CSS?
      3) Audio Player – See “CUSTOMIZING THE AUDIO PLAYER” above.

  5. Krzysztof

    Your project doesn’t work in IE-11, and doesn’t work on Android.
    Is there any room for improvement. does not load (src = “song_001.mp3”) the source of the file.

    1. W.S. Toh

      See “compatibility checks” above, audio and video will not always load on slow/mobile connections. If you want “improved reliability”, you will have to work out your own streaming, buffering, backward and cross-platform compatibility. Good luck with your project.

    2. Krzysztof

      I am not an IT specialist.
      I was counting on specific help, a fix in the audio.js code.
      // (B1) UPDATE AUDIO SRC
      aud.now = id;
      aud.player.src = aud.playlist [id] .dataset.src;

    3. W.S. Toh

      I consider “Is there any room for improvement” as a general request to upgrade this tutorial. Good luck with your personal project once again.

      P.S. Internet Exploder 11 will come to its end of life in Jun 2022, there is no point in adding backward support for it. If you want “improvements” and “specific help” – I will highly recommend you actually pay for professional consultation. You should already know that web development is not “plug and play”. 😉

      https://code-boxx.com/faq/#help “Requests for new features and tutorials may be considered, but will not be immediately answered”, “No rigorous follow-ups and free consultations”.
      https://code-boxx.com/websites-get-help-programming/

    5. W.S. Toh

      Get in line dumb@55. You are just another clueless self-entitled piece of sh17 desperate to get your project done for free. At least learn how to say “thank you” and ask nicely when you are the one begging for help.

      It’s fun to watch trolls pee and set themselves on fire while acting smug, but out of topic. Case closed, there are better things to do than wasting time on a snowflake. 😆

      https://code-boxx.com/faq/#badatti
      https://code-boxx.com/faq/#help “Irrelevant”

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