This section of SimplytheBest Sounds will try to help you on your way in the world of sounds and other audio related subjects.

• Playing sounds using Javascript
• Changing your event sounds
• How to download sound files
• The many different sound formats
• DHTML music (player) scripts
• Sound utilities
• MP3 utilities
• Music glossary
• Music player scripts
• Other sound resources

 
Playing sound using Javascript

There are different ways to play sound using Javascript. A couple of examples.

Example 1

Here's the simplest cross-browser script for playing a sound file:

<a onclick="self.location='your_sound_file'; return false" href="#">Click here to play</a>

Example: Click here to play.

The browser will open a separate sound control window. The user will have to close this window manually. Note that the script in Example 1 is not user-friendly: every time the user clicks to run this script, the browser will open a new sound control window, even if there might be a couple of other audio windows already playing the same file.

Example 2

Here's an  example in which you won't see a separate sound control window.

For example, you can use the IE BGSOUND tag:

<bgsound id="bgsound_id" loop=1 volume="-600" src="images/jsilence.mid">

To start playing: document.all['BGSOUND_ID'].src='my_sound.mid'

To stop playing: document.all['BGSOUND_ID'].src='images/jsilence.mid'

Here my_sound.mid stands for the name of the sound file that you actually want to play. The images/jsilence.mid file does not play any sound at all, but can be used to stop the playback of other sound files.

The source code of Example 2 is shown below:

<BGSOUND id=BGSOUND_ID src="">
<bgsound id="bgsound_id" loop=1 src="images/jsilence.mid">
<embed name="guitar" src="malaguena.mid" loop=false autostart=false hidden=true mastersound>

<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
ver=parseInt(navigator.appVersion)
ie4=(ver>3  && navigator.appName!="Netscape")?1:0
ns4=(ver>3  && navigator.appName=="Netscape")?1:0
ns3=(ver==3 && navigator.appName=="Netscape")?1:0

function playSound() {
 if (ie4) document.all['BGSOUND_ID'].src='malaguena.mid';
 if ((ns4||ns3)
  && navigator.javaEnabled()
  && navigator.mimeTypes['audio/x-midi']
  && self.document.guitar.IsReady()
 )
 {
  self.document.guitar.play()
 }
}

function stopSound() {
 if (ie4) document.all['BGSOUND_ID'].src='images/jsilence.mid';
 if ((ns4||ns3)
  && navigator.javaEnabled()
  && navigator.mimeTypes['audio/x-midi']
 )
 {
  self.document.guitar.stop()
 }
}
//-->
</script>

<form name=myform>
<input type=button value="Play Sound" onClick="playSound()">
<input type=button value="Stop Sound" onClick="stopSound()">
</form>

In Netscape Navigator, you'll have to use the LiveAudio plugin. To do so, you'll need to put an EMBED tag in your page. For example, if you want to play the file my_sound.mid and hide the LiveAudio window, use the following EMBED tag:

<embed name="my_sound" src="my_sound.mid" loop=false autostart=false hidden=true mastersound>

To start playing: document.mySound.play()

To stop playing: document.mySound.stop()

See also Music player scripts Using HTML to display sound plugins with Netscape

Changing your event sounds

To change your event sounds on a PC:

From the 'Control Panel' (Start Menu >  Settings) select 'Sounds' (or 'Sounds and Audio Devices' depending on the Windows version). You are now in the 'Sounds Properties' box, and those are your currently selected event sounds. From the 'Events' list choose an event e.g. Start Windows, New Mail Notification etc. then in the 'Sound' list use the 'Browse' to locate the sound you downloaded. Then click OK. Your sound should now be triggered by the event. If you have a folder called 'sounds', it will always be easy to find your Wav files, or you can copy the new Wav files in the Media folder in your Windows directory.

Not all e-mail programs have an e-mail sound notification. The only ones I am sure of that have one are AOL ("You've got mail" in your sound properties) and Microsoft Outlook Express ("New mail notification" in your sound properties). If you can't figure out your e-mail sound or are unsure if your e-mail client even has one, try looking in the Help of your e-mail client.

To change your event sounds on a Mac:

For Mac users it's a little more difficult. The only event sound that can be re-assigned is the Alert Beep. To assign sounds to e-mail, start up, shut down, etc., you will need additional event sound software on your machine. You'll have to search the web.

To use a sound as your Alert Beep, it must be placed in your 'Sound folder.' This file is located in your System Folder. To install a sound first quit all applications. Download the WAV by holding down the Control key and clicking on the link. Choose the option 'Download link to disk' and save the file to the desktop. Then drag the sound file from the desktop to your Sound folder and select it from the selection of WAV files there as your alert beep. For more details go to the section in Help called 'Changing the alert sound'.