Scott Schiller
schillmania.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Scott Schiller is a front-end developer who builds JavaScript projects like SoundManager 2, a snow effect, and HTML5 remakes of retro games.
What HN saysHN commenters recommend SoundManager 2 as the best Flash-to-JavaScript audio library, which picks HTML5 or Flash automatically, and point to his snow script.
50HN people shared it
33linked it in comments
22stories submitted
176story points
1 year agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1SoundManager 2 is Audio for Javascript28 people · 30 points · first shared 2008 · 4 comments on HN
- 2JavaScript Snow Effect5 people · 2 points · first shared 2008 · 1 comments on HN
- 3The Wheels Of Steel: An Ode To Turntables (in HTML)3 people · 14 points · first shared 2011 · 2 comments on HN
- 4Commodore 64 game "Survivor" remade with HTML5/CSS/JS2 people · 6 points · first shared 2012 · 1 comments on HN
- 5Survivor: Remaking A Commodore 64 Game In HTML2 people · 4 points · first shared 2012 · 2 comments on HN
- 6Arduino.js1 people · 87 points · first shared 2011 · 13 comments on HN
- 7Cassette Tape UI1 people · 22 points · first shared 2013 · 23 comments on HN
- 8Javascript Malware Analysis: A Case Study1 people · 4 points · first shared 2009 · discussion on HN
- 9Very unique audio player visualization using canvas1 people · 3 points · first shared 2010 · 1 comments on HN
- 10Remake of Level Editor for Survivor, a 1982 Commodore64 game1 people · 2 points · first shared 2012 · discussion on HN
- 11Armor Alley: A browser-based interpretation of the classic 1990 game1 people · 1 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 12SoundManager 2: A JavaScript Sound API supporting MP3, MPEG4 and HTML5 Audio.1 people · 1 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 13Flashblock1 people · first shared 2012
- 14Defer script loading1 people · first shared 2010
- 15Arkanoid1 people · first shared 2009
What HN people wrote when they linked it
ChrisNorstrom · 2013-09-21
I noticed it requires flash.
If not already, you should use Sound Manager 2 http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/ and its api. It's amazing. It auto selects HTML5 or Flash on both pc and smartphones. It even checks if people have flashblock enabled and tells them to "click here to enable flash".
I've used it on 2 projects before http://timeforzen.com and http://residentevilradio.com (it can also stream from shoutcast servers.) I've got HTML5 disabled on those 2 projects because it was still beta and glitchy at the time the feature was introduced.
coda_ · 2012-05-11
Great work! Good use of soundmanager2 (http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/) would love to see if it works on an iPad/iPhone and takes advantage of HTML5 audio capabilities. Please post of you've tried it with either.
muppetman · 2011-12-17
There's a great open source snow JavaScript available here: http://www.schillmania.com/projects/snowstorm/
richtaur · 2009-01-03
There is currently no "A-grade" way of providing audio using only JavaScript. The best fallback is flash, unfortunately.
And probably the best flash->JS library: http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
alex_c · 2008-10-09
My favorite part from the .nfo:
"Internet Explorer? Hahahahahaha."
I was curious how they did the sound, since I wasn't aware you can do sound strictly with JavaScript ("WebKit-based browsers (Safari or Google Chrome) should hopefully use native HTML / Javascript audio"). Looks like they're using this:
http://schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
Which looks like a JavaScript wrapper around a Flash-based player. Pretty interesting.
livre · 2020-06-18
I stopped considering NoScript something I can trust when this happened[1]. Many years have passed, the Tor project trusts it but I'm still cautious.
[1] http://www.schillmania.com/content/entries/2009/adblock-vs-noscript/
guessmyname · 2019-02-17
It was a surprise because I’ve been using the same effect in my personal website [1] for several years (since 2003), as an Easter Egg during Christmas season. I got the script from this website (in case anyone is interested) [2]. I also have an Easter Egg for Valentine’s Day [2] which I’m always proud to show to my partner.
[1] https://cixtor.com/?christmas
[2] http://schillmania.com/projects/snowstorm/
[3] https://cixtor.com/?valentine
gingerlime · 2013-09-21
So true. We're trying to build a web-based online anatomy trainer[1], which plays success/failure sounds when you click right/wrong, but also add a voiceover with the anatomy term being spoken out.
We experience very sketchy behaviour across platforms and browsers (especially mobile). We're relying on SoundManager[2] which seems solid, but doesn't solve all problems. I wonder if anybody else has any suggestions / experience to make things easier somehow?
[1]https://www.kenhub.com
[2]http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
WiseWeasel · 2012-09-02
I use SoundManager 2 for music playback on my site. It's flexible, it works well, and it has good cross-browser compatibility.
http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
sophacles · 2012-03-19
How does this compare to SoundManager2 ( http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/ )? SM2 seems more actively developed, and looks to play nice in JQuery pages as well. Any reason to prefer one over the other?
sxates · 2012-03-01
There's even a level editor - really impressive!
http://www.schillmania.com/survivor/editor.html
psychotik · 2012-02-27
HTML5 when available, Flash otherwise. It depends on the source audio format, and the browser you're using. http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/ drives our playback on the website for most cases.
hyperturtle · 2012-02-17
Maybe you can try to library for sound. SoundManager 2 does html5 sound and falls back to flash. http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
Apparantly there are issues with looping (http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/demo/api/) but it points to (http://www.flickr.com/photos/schill/4499319436/) as a way to fix sound loops.
Regarding other technical problems: I've had that issue too with Chrome beta, using csstransforms caused my textboxes to be unclickable(but still tab-able). My solution was to downgrade to the normal Chrome version and hoped it'll be fixed by the time it hit stable.
ekn · 2011-12-18
This might help you - http://www.schillmania.com/projects/snowstorm/
jaredsohn · 2011-10-11
Consider SoundManager2 (http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/). It allows controlling sounds via HTML5 or Flash via a JavaScript API without any UI overhead.
kordless · 2011-08-06
I wrote a basic sound driven visualization about a year ago using SoundManager, which can be had at http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/. The demo is here: http://www.getevilgenius.com/. It should work in any browser.
It'd be fairly straightforward to get three.js responding to SM2's level API calls.
rsbrown · 2011-07-07
Yep, the full stack is all javascript running on node.js and websockets. We used SoundManager 2 for the audio: http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2
matthewcieplak · 2011-06-21
SoundManager2 does this as well.
http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
matthijs · 2011-06-15
In depth article from Scott Schiller that explains how he developed it: http://www.schillmania.com/content/entries/2011/wheels-of-steel/
hmahncke · 2011-06-07
Any word on adequate html5/javascript sound support; e.g., does the demo at
http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/demo/christmas-light…
work better than iOS4 (where the lag is huge)?
long · 2011-05-24
That's kind of this guy's shtick - he's the mind behind the esteemed soundManager2 library (http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/) that makes managing audio in the browser easier with js+flash.
asuth · 2011-03-09
We've been using SoundManager 2 on quizlet.com for playing audio clips. We're not just playing long music clips in the background, so it's essential to have all the precise APIs for preloading, playing, and firing callbacks when sound is done playing. It handles all the browser deficiencies very elegantly, either with HTML5 or flash. Also, it's just 10k of js (gzipped) so it's pretty lightweight.
link: http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
philfreo · 2010-12-13
SoundManager2 is also a very nice tool for this...
http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
https://github.com/scottschiller/SoundManager2
zmitri · 2010-12-04
Its probably something similar to SoundManager2, which you can learn more about here:
http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
I've used it in a project of mine which allows you to upload and control your music library like iTunes using an html/js interface.
bittersweet · 2010-04-26
Soundmanager2 [1] is widely used, and I've used it myself in a couple of projects.
It may be a bit to full-featured for the small thing you are trying to accomplish but you can customize it quite a bit.
You can just listen for mp3 links in the chatroom and queue it up in soundmanager.
[1] http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
mikeryan · 2009-09-10
This is old but this version of arakanoid was always pretty impressive.
http://www.schillmania.com/arkanoid/
Note it does cheat and use flash for SFX
iamcalledrob · 2009-05-10
This player is nothing special.
You can find the original Flash<->JS interface, by Scott Schiller, here: http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
It's an awesome piece of work, and has been around for years.
cturner · 2009-03-20
Here's the soundmanager js plugin: http://schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/
pxlpshr · 2008-12-20
Smells like spam. Tastes like spam. It is spam!
Your logic is self-serving, don't you think? You have no history of contributing to HN discussion besides posting your company link twice. A post title has little to do with the quality of content on the other side. I think people ignored it for a reason. Not to mention, how is this that much different from Schill's random hack back in 2006?
http://www.schillmania.com/random/humour/web20awareness/