Support playing audio files (spoken Wikipedia etc)

[prototyperspective]

What is the user problem or growth opportunity you want to see solved?

Currently audio files can't be played within the app.

Audio files are an important major part of Commons. There are many files in Audio files of music and Audiobooks and so on. I think the main use would be for listening to spoken Wikipedia audios, similar to podcasts (just more interesting).

I think AudioAnchor could be used since it's also in Java but there's probably lots of audiobook/podcast/audio players that could be used for this (please add any other potential ones below).

Rough idea concept sketch (here partly Shikwasa):

Key functions:

• A button to jump back x seconds (5/10/20)
• A full-width audio progress bar so you jump around / go forward and backward like in basically any audio player app

Key functions that could be added later:

• Display list of sections (retrieved from the permalink in the file description or the file description)
• Display which of these sections is currently narrated (timestamps first need to be specified in the Commons file description)
• Allow the user to jump to the timestamps of the sections in the audio (also upstream)

How do you know that this problem exists today? Why is this important?

Where do I start...spoken Wikipedia audios alone are incredibly important and have lots of potential, e.g. they could up to double Wikipedia's readership. See the explanations above. Audio files are a major part of Wikimedia Commons and they shouldn't be left out in the app, this is a critical problem of the app. Also see the explanations in meta:Community Wishlist/Wishes/A proper audio player. It's not so important that you implement this an optimal way or that it has lots of features, getting audios to play with an audio player that has the two key functions (next to play & pause) would be enough – one can integrate an existing open source solution, you don't need to develop a new audio player for this, this could even be a good first issue.

Who will benefit from it?

• Wikipedia readers looking for a convenient way to find and play spoken WP audios
• The app's number of users could also drastically increase if you design this well and add info that the app can be used for that to the app description in playstore and/or if the app is somehow linked in the spoken Wikipedia template in Wikipedia mobile
• Commons contributors uploading audio files and Commons users to conveniently listen to free well-organized music, audiobooks, soundscapes, or other audio things on WMC

Anything else you would like to add?

See #5622 for videos and filetypes like STL files and #4208 for the ability to upload audio files.

See also this proposal to improve the audio player of Wikipedia & the Commons website