media-chrome

What is media-chrome?

The media-chrome npm package provides a set of customizable web components for building media player controls. It allows developers to create custom media player interfaces with ease, leveraging the power of Web Components.

What are media-chrome's main functionalities?

Custom Play Button

This feature allows you to add a custom play button to your media player. The <media-play-button> component can be styled and customized to fit the design of your media player.

<media-play-button></media-play-button>

Custom Volume Control

This feature provides a custom volume control slider. The <media-volume-range> component can be used to adjust the volume of the media player and can be styled to match your player’s design.

<media-volume-range></media-volume-range>

Custom Seek Bar

This feature allows you to add a custom seek bar to your media player. The <media-seek-bar> component enables users to navigate through the media content and can be customized to fit the player’s design.

<media-seek-bar></media-seek-bar>

Custom Fullscreen Button

This feature provides a custom fullscreen button. The <media-fullscreen-button> component can be used to toggle fullscreen mode for the media player and can be styled to match the player’s design.

<media-fullscreen-button></media-fullscreen-button>

Other packages similar to media-chrome

video.js

Video.js is a popular open-source HTML5 video player that provides a wide range of features and plugins for customizing the video player interface. It offers a robust API and supports various media formats and streaming protocols. Compared to media-chrome, Video.js is more feature-rich and has a larger community, but it may be more complex to customize.

plyr

Plyr is a simple, lightweight, and accessible HTML5 media player. It supports video, audio, and YouTube/Vimeo embeds. Plyr provides a clean and modern interface with easy customization options. Compared to media-chrome, Plyr is more lightweight and easier to set up, but it may not offer as much flexibility in terms of custom components.

mediaelement

MediaElement.js is a JavaScript library that provides a consistent HTML5 media player interface across all browsers. It supports both audio and video playback and offers a range of plugins for additional functionality. Compared to media-chrome, MediaElement.js focuses on cross-browser compatibility and provides a more traditional approach to media player customization.

README

<media-chrome>

Your media player's dancing suit. :man_dancing:

Fully customizable media player controls using web components (native custom elements).

• Compatible with any javascript framework (React, Angular, Svelte, etc.)
• Compatible with the <video> and <audio> elements and a lot of players (YouTube, HLS.js, and more)
• Simple HTML to add/remove controls
• Simple CSS to style the controls

From Mux and the creator of Video.js.

Video Example

<script type="module" src="https://unpkg.com/media-chrome@0.2"></script>

<media-controller>
  <video
    slot="media"
    src="https://stream.mux.com/DS00Spx1CV902MCtPj5WknGlR102V5HFkDe/high.mp4"
    crossorigin
  >
    <track label="thumbnails" default kind="metadata" src="https://image.mux.com/DS00Spx1CV902MCtPj5WknGlR102V5HFkDe/storyboard.vtt">
  </video>
  <media-control-bar>
    <media-play-button></media-play-button>
    <media-mute-button></media-mute-button>
    <media-volume-range></media-volume-range>
    <media-time-range></media-time-range>
    <media-pip-button></media-pip-button>
    <media-fullscreen-button></media-fullscreen-button>
  </media-control-bar>
</media-controller>

Results (Try the CodePen example)

Audio Example

<script type="module" src="https://unpkg.com/media-chrome@0.2"></script>

<media-controller audio>
  <audio
    slot="media"
    src="https://file-examples-com.github.io/uploads/2017/11/file_example_MP3_700KB.mp3"
  ></audio>
  <media-control-bar>
    <media-play-button></media-play-button>
    <media-time-display show-duration></media-time-display>
    <media-time-range></media-time-range>
    <media-playback-rate-button></media-playback-rate-button>
    <media-mute-button></media-mute-button>
    <media-volume-range></media-volume-range>
  </media-control-bar>
</media-controller>

Results (Try the CodePen example)

Advanced Usage

For a more in depth discussion of working with <media-controller/>, including more complex controls layouts, check out the docs.

Quick Demo

Adding controls to a video element

Just HTML. No javascripting required.

Using/installing

<media-chrome> is only packaged as a javascript module (es6), which is supported by all evergreen browsers and Node v12+. The package includes all of the existing media controls.

Option 1: Hosted

Load the module in the <head> of your HTML page. Note the type="module", that's important.

Modules are always loaded asynchronously by the browser, so it's ok to load them in the head :thumbsup:, and best for registering web components quickly.

<script type="module" src="https://unpkg.com/media-chrome@0.2"></script>

Option 2: Bundled via npm

npm install media-chrome --save

Include in your app javascript (e.g. src/App.js)

import 'media-chrome';

This will register the custom elements with the browser so they can be used as HTML.

Using in your HTML

The <media-controller> is the star of the show. It handles the communication between control elements and the media. Start by wrapping your media element with a <media-controller>, and adding slot="media" to your video or audio tag, or other compatible player.

<media-controller>
  <video slot="media" src="https://stream.mux.com/DS00Spx1CV902MCtPj5WknGlR102V5HFkDe/high.mp4"></video>
</media-controller>

After that, each control element can be used independently. When using outside of a <media-controller> element, a control needs to be told which media controller it's associated with via the media-controller attribute or property.

<media-controller id="myController">
  <video slot="media" src="https://stream.mux.com/DS00Spx1CV902MCtPj5WknGlR102V5HFkDe/high.mp4"></video>
  <media-play-button></media-play-button>
</media-controller>

<media-play-button media-controller="myController"></media-play-button>

Customizing the controls

Use HTML to add or remove any of the controls. Then you can use CSS to style the controls as you would other HTML elements.

<media-controller>
  <video
    slot="media"
    src="https://stream.mux.com/DS00Spx1CV902MCtPj5WknGlR102V5HFkDe/high.mp4"
  ></video>
  <media-control-bar>
    <media-play-button></media-play-button>
    <media-mute-button></media-mute-button>
    <media-volume-range></media-volume-range>
    <media-time-range></media-time-range>
    <media-pip-button></media-pip-button>
    <media-fullscreen-button></media-fullscreen-button>
  </media-control-bar>
</media-controller>

Included elements

Element	Description
<media-controller>	Wraps controls and the media element, and handles communication between them. (docs)
<media-control-bar>	Optional controls container to help align the controls in the standard fashion.
<media-play-button>	Toggle media playback
<media-mute-button>	Toggle the sound. The icon responds to volume changes and acts as part of the typical volume control.
<media-volume-range>	Change the volume of the sound.
<media-time-range>	See how far the playhead is through the media duration, and seek to new times.
<media-time-display>	Show the time of the playhead. Options: <media-time-display remaining> Show as remaining time <media-time-display show-duration> Also show the duration after a slash. Ex: 1:00 / 2:00
<media-duration-display>	Show the duration of the media
<media-fullscreen-button>	Toggle fullscreen viewing
<media-pip-button>	Toggle picture-in-picture mode of the video
<media-playback-rate-button>	Change the speed of playback
<media-seek-backward-button>	Jump back 30 seconds in the media
<media-seek-forward-button>	Jump ahead 30 seconds in the media
<media-captions-button>	Show/disable captions (if no captions are available, will fallback to subtitles by default unless no-subtitles-fallback attribute is set)
More to come	Requests and contributions welcome

Extras

Extras are not shipped with the core library, but can be imported as-needed by importing the element from the dist direcotry, for example:

import 'media-chrome/dist/extras/media-clip-selector'

<script type="module" src="https://unpkg.com/media-chrome@0.2/dist/extras/media-clip-selector"></script>

Element	Description
<media-clip-selector>	Create selector handles that allow a user to select a sub-section of the media element.

Compatible players

Media Chrome will work with any HTML element that exposes the same API as HTML Media Elements (<video> and <audio>).

Some "players" add on to existing video and audio elements, so nothing more is needed to work with Media Chrome. Other players need an additional custom element to translate the player's API to match the HTMLMediaElement's API.

"player"	Notes
HLS.js	Nothing else needed. Can also use the <hls-video> element.
dash.js	Nothing else needed.
Shaka Player	Nothing else needed.
YouTube	Requires the <youtube-video> element.

Be sure to include the slot="media" attribute in the player's tag.

<media-controller>
  <youtube-video
    slot="media"
    src="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rubNgGj3pYo"
  >
  </youtube-video>
</media-controller>

Why?

More often than not web designers and developers just use the default media player controls, even when creating a beautiful custom design theme. It's hard not to.

• Web browsers have built-in media controls that can't easily be customized and look different in every browser.
• Social sites like Youtube, Vimeo, and SoundCloud only let you customize small details of the player, like primary button color.
• Media controls are complex and hard to build from scratch. Open source players like Video.js and JW Player help, but require you to learn proprietary JS APIs, and can be difficult to use with popular Javascript frameworks.

It should be easier... <media-chrome> is an attempt at solving that.

Why now?

Web components. @heff spoke about the potential of web components for video at Demuxed 2015, and again in 2020. They allow us to extend the browser's base HTML functionality, meaning we can now build media player controls as simple HTML tags that:

• Can be used like any native HTML tag in HTML, Javascript, and CSS (unleash your designer)
• Are compatible by default with Javascript frameworks (React, Angular, Svelte)
• Can be used across players when using multiple in the same site, e.g Youtube & <video>. (Could even be used by players as their own built-in controls)

Other demos

Use media-clip-selector to select segments of a video

media-clip-selector is a built-in component that can build a UI for selecting portions of your media.

Listen for the update event on the element to get the selected start and end timestamps. Full example in examples/clip-selector.html.