Sound Loop

Looking for easy way to embed a WAV file to loop

[jgervais]

I have a client that insists on having a music loop from his recent album on his homepage when it loads. I'm sure that after the fifth loop it will drive everyone out, but that's what he wants and he's the boss:-)

In any case, I want to embed a 10 second WAV file to the homepage, but think there must be an easy way to get the clip to loop either through html, dhtml or javascript.

If not, I'm thinking to create a Flash embed but I'm kind of a newbie at it and not sure what problems can be encountered (for instance, for those without the Flash component)or exactly how to embed it into the page.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated:-)

[tedster]

As far as I know, you will get the best compatibility using the <EMBED> tag, but your page will need to do a browser sniff and serve different code to MSIE and Netscape. Also some versions of Netscape are different on Mac and PC. Lots of fun, right?

For all the nast details, check out this page [webreference.com] on webreference.com.

[Marcia]

This code is cross-browser compatible (don't know about Mac though):

<CENTER>
<EMBED SRC="images/filename.mid" controls="smallconsole"
AUTOSTART=TRUE LOOP=TRUE WIDTH=140 HEIGHT=15 VOLUME=7>
<NOEMBED>
<BGSOUND SRC="images/filename.mid">
</NOEMBED>
</CENTER>

This causes the unsightly little player to show on the page, but gives the surfer the option to turn the sound off. If the dimensions are not included it won't show, but there's then no way to turn the sound off.

It does play with a different volume on the two browsers and there are a couple of other variables possible in the code but I don't remember them.

[BoneHeadicus]

One of the best methods for using sound on a web page is to encase the .wav into a Flash (.swf)file. This in effect creates a mini mp3 file which is not only about 1/10 (yes 1/10) the file size but it also streams and you can make it invisible or make an on/off button.

[jgervais]

I appreciate all of your responses. It gave me the answers I needed for what I've needed done so far, which is to get something up to make the client happy at the moment.

Hey BoneHeadicus,

I've been thinking along your lines as the best way to do this. Wondering...would you say users without the Flash plug-in are an extreme minority at this point? It's the only concern I have about setting up a Flash file instead. Also, since I haven't tried it, once the file is made, how is it published and/or embedded within the homepage (or any existing page in the site)? I use Front Page for the site, can it be put in as a page include bot?

[BoneHeadicus]

It's been awhile since I've used FrontPage....don't know about the include part, but if you want the plug-in code I can email you some sample stuff. Please take some friendly advice from a past MondoSuck FrontPage user...Get Dreamweaver...you'll be so glad you did. It has built in plug-in code insertion capabilities and you won't have to reboot every 20 minutes. Let me know if you need more help:)

[jgervais]

Heck Yeah! Send it on - [e-mail]

I've got Dreamweaver on the machine here. Haven't even started it up yet with all the things I've had my fingers into lately, but think I need to do it here real soon.

Thanks for all the help. Hopefully I can return the favor sometime:-)

[tedster]

>would you say users without the Flash plug-in are an extreme minority at this point? It's the only concern I have about setting up a Flash file instead.

WebSnapshot [websnapshot.mycomputer.com] reports about 83% of users have the Flash plug-in. It's been included with both major browsers for well over a year.

I think I remember reading somewhere from MacroMedia a claim of 98% market penetration, but of course, they're a bit biased!