FluentPlayer 1.4.0: Muted Preview, Modal Playback, and Inline Chapters 🥳
1.4.0 just went live. This one has a bunch of things you asked for in this space.
Inline chapter strip. Chapters can now show as a horizontal scroll strip under the player, with titles and start times. Click one and it seeks. The active chapter follows playback. @Wendy Perkins Shoef this is your request from the Chapter View/Scroll thread. Set it in Chapters display > Inline scroll.
Muted Preview autoplay. The video auto-plays silently and in a loop, with a "Play with sound" overlay on top. Click, Enter, or Space converts it to normal playback with sound. Nothing is tracked until the viewer actually converts, so analytics, milestones, and Resume Playback stay off during the loop. Your view counts stay honest. Pro adds captions during the loop, a preview range, overlays, and continue-from-preview-position.
Modal playback (Pro). Open any media in a lightbox from text, a button, an image, a thumbnail, or an icon.
[fluentplayer_modal id="123"]Watch now[/fluentplayer_modal]Good for hero sections, course previews, product demos and media cards where a full inline player is too heavy.
Better Vimeo. Quality and speed menus, chapters in the editor, caption import in Pro, and privacy-enhanced mode on by default.
Single Playback. When one player starts, the others pause. On by default. Nicolai, if you want two ambient players running at once, turn off "Pause other players when one starts" in General settings.
Fixes you reported. Grid playlists are responsive on narrow screens now ( Itachi Sensei , Peng Xie ). Resume Playback saves on pause, tab switch and navigation. Duplicate placements work as separate players. YouTube Shorts keep portrait framing. FluentCommunity gets the full player runtime back. Private Cloudflare Stream videos over an hour no longer cut off.
There is also a consent hook, fluent_player/defer_player, so YouTube and Vimeo stay uninitialized until your consent tool says go.
We also implemented signed updates for the pro plugin which is the most secure way to distribute premium plugins.
Full details here: https://fluentplayer.com/fluentplayer-1-4-0-muted-preview-modal-playback-inline-chapters/
More cooking 🙌
Thanks for the update. Let me test the "Muted Preview autoplay" immediately
Modal playback is a PHENOMENAL upgrade. I love to pepper my "how to" docs with tons of little 10 second demo videos but it can quickly become clutter or get distracting, this is the perfect solution to that.
I can create documents with video explanations on demand. The ultimate "learn more" popups that keep visitors on the page for longer.
The view count on the muted playbacks is really great to get proper feedback too. Love these new features.
Thank you so much, nice!
Thank you! The modal playback feature is fantastic.
Can all these features be accessible in fluent community. I don't think it's fully integrated
Bryan William This is what We also would like to...
"Muted Preview loops your video silently until a visitor clicks, then plays it with sound. Logo, captions and overlays mirror your settings here; layers, email capture and CTAs start after the click. Not applied inside playlists."
Shahjahan Jewel Do you plan to apply it inside the playlist? Because with hundreads of videos in a playlist, it would be awesome. Thanks!
Itachi Sensei Yes we will in the next
I set the number of grid columns to 2, but the final result in the playlist is always 3, even after clearing the cache...
Itachi Sensei We will check
Shahjahan Jewel would be awesome If we could set this up on one Wordpress site and then have an embed code to use on a secondary site that isn’t Wordpress. Good idea?
I know we’d use that a LOT for our agency
Chet Norman Good idea would be great if you can submit this to Roadmap so others can support it
Chet Norman Thanks
I've had a ticket open for a month about FluentPlayer not loading unlisted/domain-restricted videos through Vimeo, Ticket #174275. This update still does not address the issue.
Jonathan Weiler If Vimeo blocks a video when that video is restricted to a domain, how can we solve that problem? If you are the author of that video just add your domain to the allow-list.
Shahjahan Jewel Please check the ticket. That is not the issue. This is where the last correspondence ended:
"Your latest response makes the issue much clearer. We now understand that the same Vimeo video works with FluentCommunity’s default Vimeo/embed method, but fails whenever it is handled through FluentPlayer, including on regular WordPress pages and within FluentPlayer’s media/playlist area.
We have updated the development report with these additional findings and the Vimeo URL/domain you provided. We have also highlighted that the video works only after changing Vimeo to Public and Embed Anywhere.
This should help our development team focus specifically on FluentPlayer’s handling of Unlisted Vimeo videos with domain-restricted embedding.
Thank you again for helping us clarify the issue. We will update you once we have further findings."
Jonathan Weiler, please check your ticket
Lukman Nakib Thank you. I just responded to the ticket.
Shahjahan Jewel I have already requested this before...Please add Adilo integration for Fluent Player.
This is awesome...
[fluentplayer_modal id="123"]Watch now[/fluentplayer_modal]
...haven't tested yet - are shortcodes within the id="" expanded? Thinking CPTs...
Jonathan Gwyer Not sure what you meant by expanded?