ALC211K - Advanced Digital Portfolio

Home | General | Syllabus | References

Setting Up Flamplayer

Mysql Database Setup

• Flamplayer requires a MySQL database, which means you'll need to complete your DNS transfer and upload your content to your new host first.

• If you are hosting with Baserunner, you can set up a MySQL database from your control panel (Other hosts should also have control panel equivalent that allows database creation - note that it may be on a differing port than the 2082 used below):

• Open your browser to http://www.yoursite.com:2082 - the ":2082" part is what calls the control panel. You'll be prompted for a user name and password, which are the same as the user name and password I gave you when your baserunner account was created.

• Once you have logged into cpanel, look for a link that says "MySQL Databases", most likely in the middle of the 3rd row of icons. Follow that link.

• Where it says "New Database:", enter "flamplayer" (no quotes) and press the "Create Database" icon. The resulting database will actually be called username_flamplayer (Your username, followed by an underscore character will be automatically added).

• Next, enter a username and password below. I recommend "flamplayer" (again no quotes) for the username. Make sure you keep track of the password you choose.

• Now, down where it says "Add Users to Your Databases:", make sure you have selected "yourname_flamplayer" under User and "yourname_flamplayer" under Database (Yes, user name and database should be the same). Make sure "All" is checked under "Privileges" and click "Add User to Database".

• You'll need the user name, database name and password you've just created for setting up flamplayer.

Installing Flamplayer

• Download flamplayer here (the link is near the bottom) and save the .zip file to your desktop.

• Extract the .zip file to a folder on your desktop and enter that folder.

• Select all files and folders in the flamplayer folder and copy them, then browse to your site folder, create a new folder called whatever you like (I'm going to call it "flamplayer" here). Enter this folder and paste all the files you just copied.

• Inside the "settings" folder, open the file fp_settings_1.php in Dreamweaver make the following edits:
  
  $database_fp_mysql = "yourname_flamplayer";
  $username_fp_mysql = "yourname_flamplayer";
  $password_fp_mysql = "password";
  
  (these should match the ones your created above)
  
  Now, further down:
  
  $admin_user = "yourname_flamplayer";
  $admin_pass = "password";

• (I recommend the same user name and password you used above, but they technically can be different)

• Save and upload fp_settings_1.php

• Upload the entire flamplayer folder to the server

• Set the permissions on the server (see the simpleviewer setup tutorial if you don't recall how to do this):
  
  The folder "mp3" should be 777
  The folder "pages" should be 777
  The file "fp_settings_2.xml" within the settings folder should be 666

• Add an mp3 file (or many) to the mp3 folder in flamplayer. All mp3 files should have proper ID3 v1 tags, as this is the data that flamplayer will read. Upload these files to the server. All mp3 files must site directly in the folder, not in subfolders.

• Access the admin page for flamplayer: http://www.yourname.com/flamplayer/admin/fp_init.php

• Here you'll need to enter the $admin_user and $admin_pass from above.

• HTTP and ABSOLUTE PATH should already be correct, so press "next step"

• On the next page, you can set the default color and featues for the flamplayer, but it's not that important as you can do this again when you are creating an actual instance to add to a page

• Also, at the bottom of this page, if there are any permissions problems, flamplayer will tell you here (in red). Fix these - as above - and reflesh the page.

• Finally, click "Save Settings" and on the resulting page, click "Launch FLAM Player administration".

Adding Files and Playlists

• You should now see listed any mp3 files that you have uploaded but have not yet added to the flamplayer database. These can be added to the default playlist, to an existing playlist, or to a new play list you specify. I don't recommend just adding them to default, as this will make it harder to organize your music.

• Note here that you can also Edit Tracks, Manage Authors (basically edit the artist names for the tracks you have upload), and Manage Playlists. It's beyond the scope of this tutorial to review details here, but they should be pretty straight forward.

Integrating Flamplayer in to your site

• The most important link in the flamplayer control panel is "Integrate FLAM Player". Following this link, you can adjust several options, including the color, the playlist to use (Playlists filter) and how to sort the songs on the playlist - as well as several other parameters. Once you've made your selections, click "Update display". The result will be shown on the right.

• More importantly, the code to copy and paste into your site will be shown below. This can be copied into any exiting page on your site, wherever you'd like it to fit in your template.

• Finish by viewing this page in your browser to make sure you've got what you want.