Remember a few years ago placing sounds into
web pages was a really hot item? Have you accessed many pages which had sound
playing automatically lately? None? Or one in a thousand maybe? That's about
all we've seen as well. The problem may have been traced to the quirky
implimentation of sound files. No large website would want to leave its
intended sound out for 10%-30% or so of the potential viewers or to update
changes in the source elements and attributes. Sure, there are third party
plug-ins like Beatnik, Crescendo, etc., which will enable browsers to use
sounds effectively but, viewers can't be expected to download a plug in just
for that purpose.
So the best thing is to just put a catchy little midi file
in the page with no visible controller. 90%, especially those who use new cpus
and the two most common browsers, will be able to hear it and the rest won't
know that it was supposed to have played for them. The size of the average
catchy little midi is small, about 10-20k so that byte size considerations are
minimal. That said:
Sounds can be embedded into a web page and can
play automatically. You will hear a midi sound file playing as you view this
page. The Netscape console looks more high-tech but, it has a different default
size than the Microsoft MediaPlayer console. The latest leap-frog upgrade is
recommended for both browsers.
Common sound formats are MIDI and WAV.
Netscape uses the EMBED element for sound files. Internet Explorer will use
both the EMBED and the BGSOUND elements which is more versatile and easy to
impliment. If you use just EMBED or both EMBED and BGSOUND for the same file,
your background sound file should be played equally by both types of browsers,
theoretically... There are still differences. When you create a web page
with a sound file, there are several optional attributes which can be used. For
example, you can choose whether to make a controller visible or invisible. The
attribute would be HIDDEN="True" for the controller to be invisible. Another
attribute would be AUTOSTART="True" to start the sound as soon as the page is
loaded. The SRC attribute is indispensible. It tells the browser where the
sound file is located. LOOP="infinite" is another useful attribute.
For example:
<EMBED
SRC="wonderful.mid" HIDDEN="False" LOOP="infinite" AUTOSTART="true"
CONTROLS="SMALLCONSOLE" HEIGHT="20" WIDTH="144">
To place your
background sound into the page, the <EMBED> tag goes just after
the <BODY> tag and before anything else.
To place your
sound/avi/mov/rm sound or multimedia file in the page, the <EMBED>
tag is placed into the page elsewhere and there are a multitude of attributes
which can be used.
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We have found that the CoffeeCup html editor
has the easiest way to put a sound file into a web page since the tags for
configuring the options for the sound file in both browsers are added
simultaneously automatically.
Whichever html editor you are using will have
information on tags and attributes for putting sound files into web pages which
is more standardized and straightforward than was the case a few years ago...
HotMetal Pro from SoftQuad has a very complete set of instructions for sound
and multimedia embedding. Adobe has GoLive which is also good. Microsoft
FrontPage can be expected to work quite well for users of our favorite
browser.
Now there is version 6.0 of Netscape which is blazing fast?
Not exactly blazing.
Midi sound files are synthesized on your
computer and are small byte size. They were standardized many years ago and so
they are easy to put into use since both main browsers have standardized plug
ins for them. Some of them are chintzy but some are quite nice. You can place a
link in a web page to enable your viewers to click and hear a sound. Of course
the link can be text or a nifty little icon. Alternatively you could place the
sound in a specific location in your page and show the controller for it as
well.
Here are some midi files which came from
www.coffeecup.com
where you can get lots of sounds. |