react-use-audio-player

Custom React hooks for controlling audio in the browser powered by the amazing howler.js library. The intention of this package is to provide an idiomatic way to use Howler in React while providing a simpler API via custom React hooks. The currently available hooks allow you to set up an environment in which you can distribute the responsibility of managing a single audio source between different components in your React application.

Install

yarn 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 any of the hooks to function. The Provider encapsulates a reference to a single audio source and all the state. Besides the initial setup, you will never need to interact with the Provider directly. The useAudioPlayer and useAudioPosition hooks give you an interface to do that. The benefit of having a single, shared audio source is that it allows you 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.

import React from "react"
import { AudioPlayerProvider } from "react-use-audio-player"

const App = () => {
    return (
        <AudioPlayerProvider>
            <AudioPlayer file="meow.mp3" />
        </AudioPlayerProvider>
    )
}

useAudioPlayer

This is the main hook for controlling your audio instance.

Example:

import React from "react"
import { useAudioPlayer } from "react-use-audio-player"

const AudioPlayer = ({ file }) => {
    const { togglePlayPause, ready, loading, playing } = useAudioPlayer({
        src: file,
        format: "mp3",
        autoplay: false,
        onend: () => console.log("sound has ended!")
    })

    if (!ready && !loading) return <div>No audio to play</div>
    if (loading) return <div>Loading audio</div>

    return (
        <div>
            <button onClick={togglePlayPause}>{playing ? "Pause" : "Play"}</button>
        </div>
    )
}

API

Arguments

useAudioPlayer optionally accepts some configuration as its only argument. The options interface is identical to the howler options.

Return Value

useAudioPlayer returns a single object containing the following members:

• player: Howl
  an escape hatch to access the underlying Howl object in case you need to use a howler feature which is not supported by this library's simplified API

• load: (config: HowlOptions) => void
  method to lazily load audio. It accepts the same configuration object as useAudioPlayer.
  once a sound has already been loaded, calling this method will not do anything unless the src property is different from the previously loaded sound

• 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

• 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

• fade: (start: number, end: number, duration: number) => Howl
  fades the sound from volume start to volume end over duration ms

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 which renders a play/pause button may use useAudioPlayer but does not need to rerender every time the position of the playing audio changes.

import React from "react"
import { useAudioPosition } from "react-use-audio-player"

const PlayBar = () => {
    const { percentComplete, duration, seek } = useAudioPosition({ highRefreshRate: true })
    
    const goToPosition = React.useCallback((percentage) => {
        seek(duration * percentage)
    }, [duration, seek])

    return <ProgressBar percentComplete={percentComplete} onBarPositionClick={goToPosition} />
}

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

• percentComplete: number
  the percentage of the duration the current position represents

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

Gotchas & Quick Gudies

Guide: Switching sounds

Switching from one sound the next is a common use-case (i.e. a playlist queue). This can be done in a couple of different ways:

1) calling #load in response to a user interaction

const { load } = useAudioPlayer({
    src: songA,
    autoplay: true
})

const nextTrack = () => {
    load({
        src: songB,
        autoplay: true
    })
}

return <button onClick={nextTrack}>Start next track</button>

2) updating the src property in the options object

const songs = [songA, songB]
const [songIndex, setSongIndex] = useState(0)

const audioApi = useAudioPlayer({
    src: songs[songIndex],
    autoplay: true,
    onend: () => setSongIndex(songIndex + 1)
})

Gotcha: Using event listeners

Unfortunately, due to the current implementation there are some not-so-clear restraints applied to the use of event listeners.

Currently, the options for useAudioPlayer matches the options for a Howl object one-to-one, including all of Howler's event listeners. However, setting the event listeners in the hook's options has some negative consequences when trying to invoke any of the hook's own methods which manipulate the audio (togglePlayPause, volume, fade, etc.).

Internally, those methods are memoized React callbacks with a dependency on the howler audio player object that is created when your sound loads. Initially, this player object is null. Therefore, when trying to use one of the hook's own methods inside the option's event listeners, a stale reference to the player object will be captured (for more on this problem check out this article)

For a recommended workaround, see the code snippet below:

    const { fade } = useAudioPlayer({
        src: mySong,
        autoplay: true,
        volume: 0, //set to 0 expecting to fade in below
        onplay: () => {
            // BAD! Internally fade maintains a reference to player which is initially null
            // this will introduce a stale reference
            fade(0, 1, 5000)
        },
    });

    // BETTER! Guarantees that the latest reference to fade is used
    useEffect(() => {
        fade(0,1,5000)
    }, [fade])

Gotcha: Streaming audio

In order for streamed audio content to work, make sure to force the audio source to use html5 and specify the format of the audio as shown below:

More information in this Howler thread

const { pause } = useAudioPlayer({
    autoplay: true,
    src: "https://stream.toohotradio.net/128",
    html5: true,
    format: ["mp3"]
})

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