[Koha] sound cues

[Mason James]

On 2008/11/13, at 9:18 AM, Joe Atzberger wrote:

> I don't think I follow you at all, Mason.  The page you link  
> doesn't include any <embed> functionality so it doesn't demonstrate  
> browser compatibility for our purposes.  You would have to test it  
> inside <embed> on systems that do not have any extra codecs or  
> players installed, and certainly without any browser plug-ins.
>
> --Joe


correct, i was just showing that my 3 standard browsers all play the  
demo ogg files without a problem

but. having a further look...
my 3 browsers are playing the ogg files because i had previously  
installed the XiphQT plug-in for quicktime

so, my browsers are standard, but my quicktime is patched for oggs.

oops, bad example



> I suspect a (small!) .wav file will be the most reliable way to go.

i agree here

> Obviously a wav won't be smaller than a corresponding compressed  
> file, but we don't want to require or wait for a 3rd-party browser- 
> embedded player to load.

here is the catch, i suspect even a wav file needs a plug-in to play  
correctly

playing an audio file with plugins disabled cant be done, i think :(


> There would only need to be one file, as far as I can tell, since  
> on a real error we can use a javascript alert and get the usual ding.


so, we have 3 options...

swf file, used shockwave plugin
wav file, uses qt plugin  ( or other eg: WMP)
ogg file  uses qt + XiphQT plugin ( or the great FOSS win/linux/osx  
VLC player too)

or a standard jscript generated beep?


most browsers do play wav files by default (with plugins enabled).
so wav might indeed be the best choice for cross-browser compatibility


ogg + VLC is the best choice for FOSS correctness, and some wiki doco  
explaining how to install and config VLC for your browser

perhaps we go with the quick and dirty .wav fix for now, and add the  
ogg/swf format support in later, as sysprefs in koha-3.2 ?


Mason.





>
> On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 8:46 PM, Mason James  
> <mason.loves.sushi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2008/11/12, at 2:29 PM, Rick Welykochy wrote:
>
> > Mason James wrote:
> >> the embedded WAV tag is a simpler/cleaner/open-source solution
> >> over  the SWF method
> >
> > I do believe .WAV is a microsoft proprietary format, but let's not
> > split hairs :)
> > We could go for a .OGG file if you want to keep things strictly
> > open, but I doubt MS/InternetExplorer will be supporting that
> > anytime soon.
>
> yep, .ogg would be even better
>
> my safari, FF3 and opera all work fine playing an ogg file
>
> it looks like most modern browsers will play oggs
> test here -> http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/listen.html
>
> being uncompressed, wav could be a bad format for network performance,
> i assume/hope the wavs are cached locally by the broswer, ?!
>
> supported, compressed and FOSS makes ogg the perfect choice for me
>
> Mason.
>