Cordova / PhoneGap 3.5+ extension for Native Audio playback, aimed at HTML5 gaming and audio applications which require minimum latency, polyphony and concurrency.
This Cordova / PhoneGap (3.5+) plugin enables concurrency (multi-channel playback), polyphony (multi-voice playback) and minimized latency (via caching) in audio-based applications, by leveraging native audio APIs. Designed for the use in HTML5-based cross-platform games and mobile/hybrid audio applications.
Community-driven, clean fork of the Low Latency Audio Plugin for Cordova / PhoneGap, initially published by Andrew Trice and then maintained by Raymond Xie and Sidney Bofah.
This project cleans up a lot of legacy code, and adds success, error and completion callbacks. It also features integration in AngularJS projects via ngCordova.
Following the Cordova philosophy, this is a shim for a web audio implementation (on mobile) which is as fast and feature-rich as native mobile APIs. Currently, neither HTML5 Audio or the more recent Web Audio API offer a cross-platform solution which 1) is fast, 2) supports polyphony, 3) concurrency and 4) maintains a low overhead.
It should be replaced by a standardised W3C solution as soon as such an implementation offers comparable performance across (mobile) devices, which is crucial for HTML5-based games.
This plugin is available as an AngularJS service module, facilitating the usage in AngularJS-based Cordova/PhoneGap projects.
It extends the ngCordova project, an effort by the great guys at Drifty, creators of the Ionic Framework. Download it at the ngCordova website or the repository.
- iOS (tested with 7.1.2, 8.1.3)
- Android (tested in API levels 14 - 21)
Via Cordova CLI:
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-nativeaudio
- Wait for
deviceReady
. - Preload an audio asset and assign an id - either optimized for single-shot style short clips (
preloadSimple()
) or looping, ambient background audio (preloadComplex()
) play()
the audio asset via its id.unload()
the audio asset via its id.
preloadSimple: function ( id, assetPath, successCallback, errorCallback)
Loads an audio file into memory. Optimized for short clips / single shots (up to five seconds). Cannot be stopped / looped.
Uses lower-level native APIs with small footprint (iOS: AudioToolbox/AudioServices). Fully concurrent and multichannel.
- params
- id - string unique ID for the audio file
- assetPath - the relative path or absolute URL (inluding http://) to the audio asset.
- successCallback - success callback function
- errorCallback - error callback function
preloadComplex: function ( id, assetPath, volume, voices, delay, successCallback, errorCallback)
Loads an audio file into memory. Optimized for background music / ambient sound. Uses highlevel native APIs with a larger footprint. (iOS: AVAudioPlayer). Can be stopped / looped and used with multiple voices. Can be faded in and out using the delay parameter.
The default volume is 1.0, a lower default can be set by using a numerical value from 0.1 to 1.0.
By default, there is 1 vice, that is: one instance that will be stopped & restarted on play(). If there are multiple voices (number greater than 0), it will cycle through voices to play overlapping audio.
Change the float-based delay parameter to increase the fade-in/fade-out timing.
- params
- id - string unique ID for the audio file
- assetPath - the relative path to the audio asset within the www directory
- volume - the volume of the preloaded sound (0.1 to 1.0)
- voices - the number of multichannel voices available
- successCallback - success callback function
- errorCallback - error callback function
play: function (id, successCallback, errorCallback, completeCallback)
Plays an audio asset.
- params:
- id - string unique ID for the audio file
- successCallback - success callback function
- errorCallback - error callback function
- completeCallback - error callback function
loop: function (id, successCallback, errorCallback)
Loops an audio asset infinitely - this only works for assets loaded via preloadComplex.
- params
- ID - string unique ID for the audio file
- successCallback - success callback function
- errorCallback - error callback function
stop: function (id, successCallback, errorCallback)
Stops an audio file. Only works for assets loaded via preloadComplex.
- params:
- ID - string unique ID for the audio file
- successCallback - success callback function
- errorCallback - error callback function
unload: function (id, successCallback, errorCallback)
Unloads an audio file from memory.
- params:
- ID - string unique ID for the audio file
- successCallback - success callback function
- errorCallback - error callback function
setVolumeForComplexAsset: function (id, volume, successCallback, errorCallback)
Changes the volume for preloaded complex assets.
- params:
- ID - string unique ID for the audio file
- volume - the volume of the audio asset (0.1 to 1.0)
- successCallback - success callback function
- errorCallback - error callback function
In this example, the resources reside in a relative path under the Cordova root folder "www/".
if( window.plugins && window.plugins.NativeAudio ) {
// Preload audio resources
window.plugins.NativeAudio.preloadComplex( 'music', 'audio/music.mp3', 1, 1, 0, function(msg){
}, function(msg){
console.log( 'error: ' + msg );
});
window.plugins.NativeAudio.preloadSimple( 'click', 'audio/click.mp3', function(msg){
}, function(msg){
console.log( 'error: ' + msg );
});
// Play
window.plugins.NativeAudio.play( 'click' );
window.plugins.NativeAudio.loop( 'music' );
// Stop multichannel clip after 60 seconds
window.setTimeout( function(){
window.plugins.NativeAudio.stop( 'music' );
window.plugins.NativeAudio.unload( 'music' );
window.plugins.NativeAudio.unload( 'click' );
}, 1000 * 60 );
}
The Drumpad in the examples directory is a first starting point.
[sudo] npm install plugin-verify -g
plugin-verify cordova-plugin-nativeaudio ios
plugin-verify cordova-plugin-nativeaudio android
Or, type the commands step by step:
cordova create drumpad com.example.nativeaudio drumpad
cd drumpad
cordova platform add ios
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-nativeaudio
rm -r www/*
cp -r plugins/cordova-plugin-nativeaudio/test/* www
cordova build ios
cordova emulate ios