2 que's - Play Mid files and Drive detect

[BaZZa400]

Im back into it again and again Im stuck.
----- First -----
I would like to create a CD Rom that will play a .mid sound file when initialize. I would like this file to be embeded and to keep playing while the project is open - looping is not really neccessary. The best I can get is for the .mid file to only play on the first page. 'New Media Player Object'. Although when you go back to that page the .mid file starts from the beganing again?
---- Second ----
Im am tring to initalize "Navigate This CD Rom" by calling '%WinDir%\Explorer.exe' . I don't think that this is quite correct. It does work although I would like it to open (start) in the CD Rom drive that the project is being run from. I have tried "%ScrDrv% and %ScrDir% to no avail.

Any thoughts would be greatly apperiated
BaZZa400

[Corey]

Re: 2 que's - Play Mid files and Drive detect

Hi.

1. Objects only function on the page which they appear obviously. Use page inheritance to span objects across multiple pages.

2. Use a dialog > folder browse action on %SrcDrv%.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[BaZZa400]

Re: 2 que's - Play Mid files and Drive detect

Thank you Corey for your quick responce.
I got the Folder thing to work. I had to change the default save temp stuff to point to another drive also to confirm that it works. Thanks for that.
With the page inheritance thing I don't know where to find the settings for this. I have looked through it all again and Sorry to say I can not find any thing that has the word 'inheritance' in it. I am using version 4.0.0.3. Could you please give me some more info'

Many Thanks
BaZZa400

[Corey]

Re: 2 que's - Play Mid files and Drive detect

Sure. Page inheritance means you can set certain pages to "inherit" traits from a master page. You can have as many different master or inherited pages as you like in a project.

So let's take a hypothetical example like a company logo which you would like to appear on every single page in your project. That's no problem, you just create a single master page which contains the logo, then set all your pages to inherit from that master page, and voila.

So in that scenario if you decide to change the logo or you find that it needs to be moved over a few pixels, all you have to do is change your master page and the changes will automatically be reflected on every page in your project. Very powerful stuff, I use inheritance in everything I make.

OK so now the "how to". This is the best part, it's soooooo easy. OK so:

1. Create a master page. This is any page you like. Just make a page, any page, but for now don't make it your first page, make sure you have one other page before it. For the purpose of this example just create a page, name it master and then plop an image down on it so you can track it visually.

2. Go to any other page, such as your project's first page, and then go to PAGE > PROPERTIES then in the "Background Type" area choose "Inherit from parent page" from the "Type" pull down menu and then choose your master page's name from the "Parent Page" pull down menu. Check, "show the parent page at design time" checkbox so that you'll be able to see the changes.

3. Have a coffee, you're done. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Any pages you set to inherit from that master will show your image but will also show it's own objects too.

4. Experiement and try out a few different things. In 15 minutes of fooling around you'll become an expert on page inheritance.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[BaZZa400]

Re: 2 que's - Play Mid files and Drive detect

Arrrr Corey Just to cool.
I never knew about it before and I will look into it with exsitement. I offen set up my pages with a small index system across the bottom of EACH page and they all do the same thing. So I might be able able to change a bit of my programing structure.

Thank you very much
BaZZa400

[Corey]

Re: 2 que's - Play Mid files and Drive detect

Cheers. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[BaZZa400]

Re: 2 que's - Play Mid files and Drive detect

Ok I still have a problem which I feel may be out side of the Programs scope to handle

It is to do with the Mid file. I have tried the inheritance thing and that does save a lot of time, although it still causes the same problem as if I had placed that run Mid file on every page. The mid file restarts on every page initalization. And I still get the Windows Media player poping up its ugly head.

Now I did try the same thing with a MP3 file and got the effect that I was after. Just contunious music (short time)with no ugly programs out side of APMS.

So will I have to convert my Mid files to MP3s ?

Again Many Thanks Corey
BaZZa400

[Corey]

Re: 2 que's - Play Mid files and Drive detect

Having spent thousands of hours working with it I can assure you MIDI is a funny beast. Musical Instrument Digital Interface is not a good way to deploy music, it is an excellent working format though.

The thing is that all MIDI does is trigger sound events which your user's comp will then have to synthesize, from scratch, based upon whatever hardware they have. Not good. The MIDI on most sound cards is terrible, and no 2 sound cards sound the same.

So that being said it would be much better to convert them to MP3s for sure. You have a couple options here. If you have a killer high end MIDI system set up with a bunch of great sampled instruments and drum kits like I do then you'll want to physically record the output of your audio card into the input of your audio card, or at least mine works that way.

If you just have an average MIDI setup you might find that you can get satisfying results right out of the box from the Roland VSC-88 virtual (purely software based) sound canvas. I believe 3.0 is current version and it's only like $29 or something, very worth it. Then all you have to do is load up your MIDI and VSC-88 will generate a .wav file from it based upon it's internal sound set. Then just convert that to an MP3.

Other than the VSC-88 you can also do this in a very high end way using Cubase if you have it and the built in virtual instruments but that's beyond the scope of this post. Try the VCS-88 if you can, it's very, very handy for these tasks and the end product is far better than most soundcard's MIDI.

Here's a nifty little comparison page you should check out:

http://www.pgmusic.com/dare_to_compare.htm

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[BaZZa400]

Re: 2 que's - Play Mid files and Drive detect

Not a problem Corey
The .mid files are just what I had on hand. It is not really my perfered format.

Thanks for all your help
BaZZa400