Smart Audio Playlists – WordPress Playlist Manager Plugin

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Smart Audio Playlists is a plugin made for WordPress 4.0 and newer (and it doesn’t work with older WordPress versions!) to create, edit and manage playlists containing audio files. Plugin implements an advanced playlist editor for adding local (uploaded) or remote audio tracks, playlist settings and information, terms for artist, genre or tags and additional title content to be displayed above the playlist. Plugin adds a custom post type for playlists and two more custom taxonomies (genre and artist).

On the front end, the plugin creates playlist archives with additional archives for individual terms, separate playlist pages where you can see full playlist information, cover image, description and most importantly: player. Playlist player uses HTML5 Audio support via MediaElement.js library (with fallback to Flash/Silverlight for older browsers). The plugin can display statistical information for tracks and playlists.

Plugin is fully responsive and tested with various mobile devices.

Different styles and skins for player control playlists

The plugin has 7 built-in playlist styles and can use one of two skins for player control. There are many more options to control the playlist, including several options to manage hiding the track list. You also have options to disable some parts of the player controls (volume, progress bar…).

Playlists player elements and controls

This image shows all the current controls that the player has. At the top, it shows the current track information. Actual player controls have buttons to load previous and next tracks, play/pause, show current play time and track length, have progress bar and volume control. Any element (except play/pause) can be turned off. Each track in the playlist can display statistics and has a button that can be used to download the track (both options can be turned off).

Create unlimited playlists with easy-to-use manager

Playlist management is based on normal WordPress post management. You can have an unlimited number of playlists and they can share audio tracks if needed. You can assign different terms to each playlist for later filtering.

Powerful playlist editor with track editing, settings and more

You can upload audio tracks directly with WordPress Media Manager, or you can add external tracks. If you upload files, WordPress can extract all information from them, including images (MP3 supports this). You can assign images to any track at any time.

Get playlist archives, term index and more up front

Plugin adds archive pages for playlists, with additional archives based on playlists and conditions. Also implements term index pages for easier navigation in cases where you have a large number of terms assigned to playlists.

Detailed play log with play time information for each list and track

Using AJAX, the plugin records how long each playlist and track is played. Each time the playlist player is displayed, all its activity is stored in the database. You can see a full log of all playlists with filters, information about songs played, and the time each song was played in each session.

Theme Templates and Customizations

The plugin needs 3 templates for the theme to display all content generated by playlists and archives. The plugin contains its own templates that override the loader. Most themes require you to add templates specific to those themes (WordPress limitation, each theme has its own layout and in most cases you cannot combine templates from different themes). Plugin has a full PDF guide and 2 videos showing the template creation process.

The process for creating templates is quite simple, but if you don’t feel comfortable doing that on your own, we’ll provide you with help in creating those templates. Just open a new topic in our support forums and we can help you create templates for your theme.†

The plugin includes multiple template parts for everything and is easy to customize. Such adjustments require knowledge of PHP and HTML. You can also extend plugin-style CSS files to fit closer to your theme.

If you are using a theme that does not have templates and uses template editors (Thesis, Headway…), we have information about that in PDF, but you should also refer to the theme documentation to generate the necessary templates.

Directly supported themes

Plugin has built-in support for many themes. For these themes you can use the plugin without any changes, for all other themes you can try plugins with generic themes, or create your own themes based on them.

Default WordPress Themes: TwentyTen, TwentyEleven, TwentyTwelve, TwentyThirteen, TwentyFourteen, TwentyFifteen, TwentySixteen
Genesis Frame: all themes based on this framework are supported
ThemeForest popular themes: Avada, Karma, U-Design, Enfold, Sahifa
WordPress.org free themes: MesoColumn, Spacious, OpenStrap

Widgets and Shortcode

Plugin has 2 widgets. One can display a list of playlists (last, random, with control over number of playlists and template). Second widget can embed playlist player for any playlist (or random) with choice of skin, layout and other options. Using shortcode you can embed the playlist player in any post/page. You have additional options for playlist size and alignment.

Supported audio file types

HTML5 Audio Tag supports different audio types and this support varies from browser to browser, it depends on the device and OS. MP3 is a file type that can now be played via audio tag on 99% of all devices and browsers. But if you’re using an audio file that isn’t widely supported, the plugin uses the MediaElement.js library with automatic fallback and can play almost any file on any device and browser.

Testimonials

I can only say the same as for all other Milan plugins: top job! I really like that this plugin comes fully equipped with options and such, compared to competitor plugins.

from user cover webfull response here†

Other plugin features included

Collect base statistical information about playlists and songs played.
Including PDF for theme customization, user and developer guide in the ‘docs’ folder of the plugin package.
Option to force post thumbnail theme support if your theme doesn’t register it.
Support for Multisite WordPress mode allows each website to set its own plugin.
Support for translation and contains POT file.

System and WordPress Requirements

PHP 5.6 or newer
WordPress 4.9 or newer

Important

If you’re having issues playing files, it could be due to a server issue: HTML5 audio tag requires files to be displayed with the correct MIME. If your server is not configured for this, you can find information about it in the PDF file of the user manual.
Before installing the plugin, make sure to read all PDF manuals (in the plugin ZIP package, directory ‘docs’) that the plugin has to make sure you understands how the plugin works and what you need to set up.

Documentation

The plugin includes PDF user guide, developer guide, theme customization guide in plugin package, in ‘docs’ folder. Check out these documents for information on plug-in options, usage, and more.