Armadillo Blogpost

_data/authors.yml

@@ -152,6 +152,12 @@ antoniam:
   about: |
     Antonia is a data scientist on the Applied Research team building machine learning models to understand and connect our content.
 
+nathans:
+  name: Nathan Sass
+  github: NathanSass
+  about: |
+   Nathan is a software engineer on the Android platform team.
+
 rafaelp:
   name: Rafael Lacerda
   github: lacerda

_posts/2021-09-29-android-audio-player-tutorial-with-armadillo.md

@@ -0,0 +1,92 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Armadillo makes audio players in Android easy"
+tags:
+- android
+- kotlin
+- armadillo
+- featured
+author: nathans
+team: Android
+---
+
+Armadillo is the fully featured audio player library Scribd uses to play and
+download all of its audiobooks and podcasts, which is [now open
+source](https://github.com/scribd/armadillo). It specializes in playing HLS
+or MP3 content that is broken down into chapters or tracks. It leverages
+[Google’s Exoplayer](https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/) library for its audio engine. Exoplayer wraps a variety of
+low level audio and video apis but has few opinions of its own for actually
+using audio in an Android app.
+
+![Armadillo Image](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/scribd/armadillo/main/armadillo.webp)
+
+The leap required from Exoplayer to audio player
+is enormous both in terms of the amount of code needed as well as the amount of
+domain knowledge required about complex audio related subjects. Armadillo
+provides a turn-key solution for powering an audio player and providing the
+information to update a UI.
+
+- **Easy-to-use** because it outputs state updates with everything needed for a UI or analytics. Works in the background state.
+- **Effective** because it uses Google’s Exoplayer as the playback engine.
+- **Ready-to-go** out of the box usage for a developer looking to use an audio player.
+- **Robust** because it contains numerous configuration options for supporting most any requirement and includes a number of other android apis
+required for a high quality audio player.
+
+## What does it include?
+
+- Support for HLS and MP3 audio
+- Exoplayer for downloading and playback
+- [MediaBrowserService](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/service/media/MediaBrowserService) so the app can be played in the background, browsed by other apps, and integrated with Android Auto.
+- [MediaSession](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/media/session/MediaSession) to support commands from media controllers, ex. a bluetooth headset.
+
+## Getting Started:
+
+The library is hosted with Github packages so you will need to add the Github registry with authentication to your build.gradle file. See the official docs on authenticating [here](https://docs.github.com/en/packages/working-with-a-github-packages-registry/working-with-the-gradle-registry#authenticating-to-github-packages). But you will need to:
+
+1. Generate a [personal access token](https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/creating-a-personal-access-token) from your Github account.
+1. Add the Github package registry with authentication to your `build.gradle` file.
+
+```kotlin
+maven {
+   name = "GitHubPackages"
+   url = uri("https://maven.pkg.github.com/scribd/armadillo-and")
+   credentials {
+       username = "github_username"
+       password = "github_access_token"
+   }
+}
+```
+
+It is as easy as adding this code snippet to your Activity / Fragment to play your first piece of content.
+
+```kotlin
+// construct your media
+val media = AudioPlayable(
+    id = 0,
+    title = "Google Hosted Mp3",
+    request = AudioPlayable.MediaRequest.createHttpUri("https://storage.googleapis.com/exoplayer-test-media-0/play.mp3"),
+    chapters = emptyList()
+)
+
+// initialize the player
+val armadilloPlayer = ArmadilloPlayerFactory.init()
+
+// begin playback
+armadilloPlayer.beginPlayback(media)
+
+// listen for state updates
+armadilloPlayer.armadilloStateObservable.subscribe {
+
+    // update your UI here
+
+}
+```
+
+That’s all you need to get started!
+
+## Next Steps:
+
+For a more complex example, please see the [TestApp](https://github.com/scribd/armadillo/tree/main/TestApp) included in the library. If
+you have any problems, don’t be afraid to open up an issue [on
+GitHub](https://github.com/scribd/armadillo).
+