I need a robust and browser independent way of playing short sounds
(2-4 seconds) on a website. Something like answers.com,
http://www.answers.com/topic/a-cappella for instance. Nothing fancy is
required, just click a button and play a sound, no volume control,
stop, or pause buttons required.
What are the issues related to doing this? And what is the best solution? |
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
18 Feb 2006 10:10 PST
david...
I'm not sure what you mean by browser independent, at least
with respect to the answers.com example, which is a typical
.wav file, and plays according to how the browser is set up.
In most cases, the browser is set to play it via the default
.wav file application, e.g. MS Sound Recorder or Media Player.
Since the vast majority of computers are configured to handle
.wav files automatically in this way, I'm not sure I understand
the problem. Please elaborate.
sublime1-ga
|
Clarification of Question by
davidww-ga
on
01 Mar 2006 05:19 PST
Hi - just to clarify the question, some sites Merriam-Webster online
(www.m-w.com) for instance do something a bit more fancy involving a
cgi script and I'm unclear why they do that if making a .wav file a
link target will work just as well. Also I'm unclear what determines
whether the plugin launches itself as a separate application or just
plays the sound without launching.
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Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
10 Mar 2006 14:10 PST
david...
The Merriam-Webster site uses that cgi script for the sake
of providing some degree of elegance, in that the default
player doesn't become visible during playback, but is still
used. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work. For example,
if I click on the speaker icon in IE, it works fine, but in
Mozilla, it doesn't, so I'm forced to use the additional
link that they were forced to provide, which is a standard
link to a .wav file labelled "Click here to listen with your
default audio player."
There are other 'elegant' solutions that involve using a
hidden Flash player, but they're more complicated to set up
just for the sake of not having a player pop up, as can be
seen in the source code from this page from freeloops.net
code
<OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"
codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,0,0"
WIDTH="35" HEIGHT="20" id="51">
<PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="http://free.loops.net/play.swf?theFile=http://free.loops.net/a/1141945045/drm_120_036.wav.mp3">
<PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high><PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#FF9900>
<EMBED src="http://free.loops.net/play.swf?theFile=http://free.loops.net/a/1141945045/drm_120_036.wav.mp3"
quality=high bgcolor=#FF9900 WIDTH="35" HEIGHT="20" NAME="51"
TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash"
PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer">
</EMBED></OBJECT>
/code
http://free.loops.net
This actually involves identifying the loop as a 'movie' with
no video, and having the flashplayer play it. It's commonly
used for playing back loops, and, since the flashplayer is
rather ubiquitous, it works with most browsers.
Let me know if this satisfies your interests in asking your
question, and I'll post a formal answer.
sublime1-ga
|
Request for Question Clarification by
sublime1-ga
on
19 Mar 2006 13:41 PST
david...
This question is about to expire. I wondered if you felt you received
any benefit from my work on your behalf. If so, please post a
clarification telling me, and I'll post a formal answer and collect
the fee. If you feel the work was worth less than the current price
of $20, you can lower the price of the question to match the value
you feel you've received.
A user's guide on this topic is on skermit-ga's site, here:
http://www.christopherwu.net/google_answers/answer_guide.html#changing_price
sublime1-ga
|
