How to play audio in an extension?

Question

AudioObj = new Audio;

will return "Audio is not definied"

I also tried the classic fix:

var audio = require("audio");

but with no luck. I could add audio playback in some other part of the extension than in main.js, like some content script where it works, but maybe there is a simpler and elegant solution.

What happens when you console.log( new Audio ); or console.dir( Audio ) — Larry Battle, May 19 '12 at 04:04
console logs just returns that audio is not defined. I had a look at jPlayer and it seems more of a way to create a player in html and controlling and styling it... also I am not really sure how would I use it in main.js, short of pasting it all in.. — DoTheEvo, May 19 '12 at 10:54

Wladimir Palant · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-12T21:03:22.523

new Audio creates a new <audio> HTML element - this only works in a context that is bound to a document. SDK modules execute in a context however that has no document, consequently no DOM methods will work including this one. A work-around would be loading about:blank via page-worker module and injecting a content script there. You could then send messages to that content script and let it play audio for you whenever you need it.

The alternative would be using nsISound.play(), something along these lines:

var {Cc, Ci} = require("chrome");
var sound = Cc["@mozilla.org/sound;1"].createInstance(Ci.nsISound);
var uri = Cc["@mozilla.org/network/io-service;1"]
            .getService(Ci.nsIIOService)
            .newURI(self.data.url(...), null, null);

sound.play(uri);

Note that nsISound is likely to be deprecated soon. It is an old API that is inferior to HTML5 audio.

Thank you. Page-worker system works well, though I am using it on an empty html in my [data] directory than on about:blank. I also put timer on constructor to kill the page-worker 30 sec after being called, when the alert-sound is done... — DoTheEvo, May 22 '12 at 21:27

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 26 '14 at 05:25

4

var window = require("sdk/window/utils").getMostRecentBrowserWindow();
AudioObj = new window.Audio;

answered Jun 26 '14 at 05:25

jmjm

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Is there documentation on the audio object? How do I use it to play a sound? – timgeb Apr 16 '15 at 11:51

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered May 21 '12 at 01:52

main.js does not have access to the DOM apis that typically exist in web content. If you want to use DOM apis, you need to use content scripts. For more on how the SDK module system works, please see the docs:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/docs/sdk/1.7/dev-guide/guides/commonjs.html

How to play audio in an extension?

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