Topic: Simple question... (Page 1 of 1)

Is there a way to that when people go to my website an external small window can open so it can play bg music without interupting the browsing of my site? I'm thinking the only bad part is that if people have popup blockers they wont hear it.

btw.. Happy New Year all!!!

you could also use a frameset or an iframe where you'll play a music within a Flash movie.

Most people won't *want* to hear it, and will probably be annoyed at a popup window no matter what the reason. What's your motivation?


 

Actually Slime is right. Most people will be annoyed by a music or some noise too. Many already listen to their own music ( CD/MP3/online radio/... ) or simply haven't turn on their speakers.

However if you plan to sonorize a site, you'd better go easy ( use some subtle sounds and loops ) and provide a convenient way to turn it off/on.

I'm assuming (given the business that he's in) that Rob is talking about playing actual songs.

That aside, I have to agree that most people will not want anything automatically playing, and more and more people are also making use of po-up blockers in one way or another.

I would suggest using frames if you want to have something continuously playing, and simply give people the option - a noticable "play track" button with a play icon, etc in a small frame at the bottom of the window.

But, the simple answer to your question is "yes".

On the Gurusnetwork you can find info about an Flash mp3 player,
http://www.gurusnetwork.com/tutorial/fmx_mp3/
and part two:
http://www.gurusnetwork.com/tutorial/fmx_mp3_2/
This could be very complicated stuff if you not used to either flash or php.

Another aproach is to start your own webradio with the music from your company, people who are interested could listen to when serving on you site or on something else.
Here is an nice article about creating your own radio station:
http://radio.about.com/library/weekly/aa013003c.htm
There are several ways to create an audio webcast:

[url=http://www.live365.com/broadcast/index.live]Live365 broadcast [/ur] --> Easy but you have to pay for it
Shoutcast --> Free with a good support and a large community, could be hard to set up.
Icecast --> Open source answer to shoutcast from Nullsoft.
Pirate Radio --> Easy to set up, uses properiatery player, or java applet (which opens new window) to play music.

The first two work with most known players as winamp, media player and so on. The latest works with an properiatery player or an java applet which opens an new window. The built in pop-up blocker from firefox does not block the new player window. Maybe other pop-up blockers do i don't know about this.
A lot of info about shoutcast can be found here: SHOUTcast: Everything that you need to know!

Another aproach is putting playlists on your site, which can be opened in normal media players, this is very simple to implement, but puts all the strain on your webserver/site.
Here is an easy and fast tutorial:
1) Make MP3 files from your music
2) upload MP3 files to your webserver
3) Copy the web adress from the mp3 files (eg www.yourserver.com/music/song1.mp3) to an text file.
4) When done with the text file save as .pls or .m3u. You can create an playlist for every song and/or for any group of songs (eg all songs from artist A or all punk song or al new since last month).
5) Upload the created playlist file to your webserver.
6) Create a link pointing towards the playlist file on your web pages:

<a href="www.yourserver.com/playlists/playlist1.pls">Play this song</a>

When people click on the link an stream is started to play in their own player. The stream will start playing pretty soon since it does not need to download the whole mp3 file before it can start.

You could put title, artist and other info in the .pls file if you want to see
The Unofficial m3u and pls specification

All these solutions provide an listen while you surf solution and the customers have control over the music thet want to listen to. I think most customers of your site do have an music player installed so an steam should not be a problem for them. If you think they have not you could always use the pirate-radio software which provides a java applet.

Make sure thet the used mp3 files are not to big otherwise you might have bandwith problems with your site.
If you want people to pre listen files they could buy i suggest a bit rate from no more as 96Kbps, combined with a little text as: better quality? buy this album here (link to shop). If you do want them to listen as music a bit rate from 124Kbps would be better.


Good luck

------------------------------
Support Justice for Pat Richard

(Edited by Rinswind 2th on 01-09-2005 12:38)