We are happy to announce version 3.0.0 of our SoundCloud JavaScript SDK.
The new SDK improves stream security and content uploading functionality, and modernizes the technology stack.
Version 3 of the SoundCloud JavaScript SDK is a major update and is not backwards compatible. That said, the changes that you need to make your web app work with the new SDK are easy to implement. Please refer to Migrating to JavaScript SDK 3.0.0 to upgrade.
The original version of the SDK was written in CoffeeScript, which is no longer a core technology at SoundCloud. This update provided us the opportunity to migrate our source code from CoffeeScript to ECMAScript 2015.
The new SDK is now using the Babel compiler for ES2015 support, and webpack as our bundler. This has the additional benefit of making the SoundCloud JavaScript SDK 3.0.0 compliant with CommonJS.
Because of this, we can now take advantage of the variety of packages that are available via npm, and users can install the SDK via npm as well. Please refer to the npm page for details.
Promises have become a core part of JavaScript with the new ES2015 specification, and they allow for better composability and a easier control flow. Internally, we work with Promises a lot and wanted to give external developers the ability to benefit from an easier API.
The previous SDK neither provided a way to record sounds from Web Audio applications nor a way to upload Web Audio recordings. It shipped with a Flash component that handled recording and uploading of recordings. There was no way to specify an external file for uploading.
The new SDK ships with a recorder component that uses Web Audio and getUserMedia instead of Flash, and the component allows you to pass in arbitrary AudioNodes that will be recorded. This makes it much easier to integrate the SoundCloud JavaScript SDK 3.0.0 into creator applications that rely on Web Audio. The SDK provides a dedicated method to publish recordings directly from your web app.
The new SDK now includes a new player component. This component improves security for creator content and provides the improved playback stability.
We also took the time to all of rewrite our documentation and code examples so that you can start with the new SDK immediately.