The Underscore Music Player
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
kottke.orgTechstory
calmpositive
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Music PlayerMinimalismWeb Development
Key topics
Music Player
Minimalism
Web Development
The Underscore Music Player is a simple web-based music player that has garnered interest for its minimalist design, sparking discussion about its features and potential improvements.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
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Light discussionFirst comment
7d
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168-180h
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1
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- 01Story posted
Oct 11, 2025 at 1:36 AM EDT
3 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Oct 18, 2025 at 10:17 AM EDT
7d after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
1 comments in 168-180h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Oct 18, 2025 at 7:16 PM EDT
3 months ago
Step 04
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Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45546862Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 3:41:08 PM
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Here's the backstory -- I was trying to find a decent MP3 player for the iPhone and Android because the stock media players were horrible. I downloaded a bunch of apps but couldn't find a good one that just did what a normal MP3 player would do. I even ordered the top 15 MP3 players from Amazon and all of them had some type of annoying quirks. I said well ... I just have to create one myself! I decided to go the browser route as that meant I would not have to deal with the headaches of the Play Store or the Apple Store and I could still use my phone as the media player or run it on any device.
Here are some of the features my media player allows you to do:
- Create all-in-one playlists from content on YouTube, Spotify, Twitch, Instagram, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Rumble, WSHH, Facebook and X/Twitter (in other words you can jump directly between content from different platforms without reloading the page)
- Auto-sync your playlists to our server or locally in the browser
- Download your playlists as .json or .txt files
- Shareable playlist URL's
- Focus button to automatically dim the rest of the page
- Multiple playlists
- Auto-shuffle tracks, repeat track & repeat playlist
- Organize your playlists however you like
- Complete support for mobile browsers
- Play the next item and previous item without having to reload the page
- Access to the media player is free
- Search in real-time for content using lyrics or titles (think of it like an updated version of YTInstant by Feross Aboukhadijeh of Stanford University)
The site is called https://plasas.com
For performance and security reasons I did not use any platforms such as Next.js, Node.js, Vue.js, WordPress, React, etc. (although I am looking into using Erlang / OTP / BEAM for future editions) Everything is written only using HTML, CSS, jQuery/JavaScript, Linux, NGINX, MariaDB & PHP. Let me know your thoughts!
“I am not a regular reader or participant of Hacker News – I find the general VC/Silicon Valley/libertarian vibe over there to be pretty off-putting – but there's some good stuff there if you take the time to look.”
https://kottke.org/about/ama/