Media Player

A small player that lives at the top of every page and keeps playing while you move around the app. It plays four things: the Quran, a link (a YouTube video or a direct link to an audio or video file), Apple Podcasts, and a file from your computer.

It hides as a thin green line at the top of the screen. Rest the pointer near that line for a moment and the player slides down; move away and it slides back. The gear in the player (or Settings) can hide that line - the player still comes down when you go there - and turn off the floating bubble, so playback is controlled from the player at the top only. Settings → Media player turns the whole thing off. On a link or a file, the round arrows next to the title jump 10 seconds back or forward.

Pick a source with the icons (Quran, Online, Apple Podcasts, file), then press the big Play button.

• Online: paste a YouTube, SoundCloud or Vimeo link (played through each platform's own player; some are not allowed to play outside it, and the player says so), an internet radio stream or its playlist (.pls, .m3u, .m3u8), or a direct link to an audio or video file. Pages of other services (Loom, for instance) are not media and cannot be played.
• Apple Podcasts: search by name, or paste an Apple Podcasts link (a link to one episode plays it straight away). You can also browse Apple's top charts by category, for your region or another country. Open a show to see its latest episodes and click one to play it. Follow keeps a show under "Your podcasts" for next time. No Apple account is needed, and none can be connected: Apple does not let other apps see your own subscriptions, so the shows you follow are kept in Karea. Episodes play from the podcast's own servers and pick up where you stopped.
• File: choose one, or simply drag an audio file anywhere onto the page and drop it on the player. The file is played inside your browser and is never uploaded. Your last file is kept in this browser's own storage so it is still there next time on this device. On another device the player shows its name and where you were: drop the same file and it carries on from there, while a different one starts from the beginning.

While something plays and the player is tucked away, a small glowing bubble floats on screen, showing whether it is playing and how far along it is. Rest the pointer on it for half a second (or click it) to open the mini player with the name, progress and play/pause, and use the expand button to open the full player. Drag the bubble anywhere; it sticks to the nearest edge and stays there.

The keyboard's media keys and your computer's media controls work too, even when Karea is not the tab in front. Play and pause fade the sound in and out briefly instead of cutting it.

Clear stops playback and forgets the current item of that source (its place, selection, link or file) on every device. The other sources keep theirs.

The name at the top is the surah picker: click it to choose a surah. Tick the box next to several surahs to play a selection, in the order you ticked them; the list shows how many are selected, and Replay selection plays it again from the start when it ends. The reciter is chosen next to the source icons, and the slider picks the ayah to start from: drag it, scroll over it, or type the number.

While a surah plays, the slider follows the ayah being recited. Moving it then queues that ayah for right after the current one. The small arrow icon opens the current ayah on quran.com in a new tab.

Pausing never cuts an ayah in half. Press pause once and the player stops at the end of the ayah being recited (“Pausing after this verse”). If you need to stop right now, press pause a second time. The same goes for the keyboard's media keys and headset buttons.

Where the recitations come from: Karea does not host any Quran audio. The recitations are streamed verse by verse from everyayah.com, and the list of surahs comes from the public alquran.cloud API. Links to an ayah open on quran.com.