The next release of Able Player is out today! This release continues the process of modernizing Able Player, but also includes some useful new key features. This release is synchronized with Able Player for WordPress 2.2.0, which incorporates the features of the updated player.

Design & Responsiveness Changes

The primary focuses in Able Player 4.7.0 were on updating the design and adding support for synchronizing sign language sources from YouTube.

The design updates are extensive; removing floats and replacing with grid and flex layouts, moving all colors into CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) variables, and making significant improvements to how Able Player lays out on mobile devices. Additionally, I updated the control sizing so that all controls meet accessibility standards by defaulting to a minimum of 24px by 24px.

The issue for improving Able Player on mobile is issue #27 – opened in May 2014. I didn’t close that issue out in this release, because I think there’s still another round to go, especially following up from any issues that show up in this release.

Synchronized Sign Language from YouTube

The update to add support for synchronizing sign language sources from YouTube was something that I personally needed. At WP Accessibility Day, we use Able Player to offer access to sessions after the event, and use synchronized sign language. In doing quality control, we found that it is very difficult to keep the two videos in sync if one is on YouTube and the other is local. Having them both in the same environment is a major improvement.

Accessibility

In addition to improving mobile support and increasing control sizes, I lengthened the lifespan of all visible alerts and made all visible alerts dismissible. I also addressed a long-standing issue with unreliable behavior in draggable containers when moving with a screen reader, and added audible feedback when those changes happen.

Internationalization

Able Player previously used .js files to store all translations. This was workable, but for linting purposes meant that thousands of errors were thrown because the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) data structures didn’t match the JavaScript linting rules. Rather than just ignore these errors, I moved all translation files to use actual JSON files. If you have custom JS files used for translations, all you need to do is rename the file to .json.

Or you could contribute your translations back to the project, which would be greatly appreciated. There are a few new strings in this release that still need translating.

You can view the full change log in the Able Player GitHub repository.

Can you help fund the future of Able Player? I could use your support!