VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Billy James]

Any Mac-based Rapidweaver users here?

I'm looking for a way to embed demo audio clips in a RW site without resorting to a Flash-based player or having to create a Quicktime movie just to play an audio file. There are quite a few audio plug-ins that work with RW, but they all seem to require Flash for proper operation -- which leaves iPhone/iPad users out in the cold.

DB, if you're reading this, I really like the idea of the pop-up demo player on your site -- the one that has the "download" link right under the play button. Know of anything a non-guru can use with Rapidweaver to get a similar effect?

[Deirdre]

That pop up uses a couple of techniques— one is Lightview which pops the fancy box— doesn't work on mobile devices. I pinched the idea off Anthony Mendez, but I'm going to abandon it in the next iteration of DBCooperVO.com.

That instant download is a script I also got from Anthony.
It's a little php script, but you have to know the absolute path of your site. You need an easy-to-use control panel with your web host to find that.

You need SOME kind of player if you aren't going to just link an MP3. Something on the page needs to instruct the file to play.

I use the Long Tail player for all my Flash player stuff. It's super easy to use and has great support. A lot of the site is video focused, but the audio player is right in there, too.

Take a look here—
http://www.thatpatrickoconnor.com/

When you click on a demo link, you get a pop-up thru setting a behavior.
It pops up a small "page" I've set the size for. There's the long tail player and also a hot text link that people can right-click to download the file.

I use Dreamweaver which, like ProTools, is way more bang than I need for my buck, but it's what I learned on. I'm not sure how much the interface of your a will let you do. Some of the "easy coders" put out the kludgiest code I've ever seen, and every page is like a Constant Contact email.
Meh.
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DBCooperVO.com
IMDB

[jsgilbert]

Not sure how helpful this will be, but I bought a mobi/ combo template for $23 that is completely non-flash, has some elegant code and players for both audio and quicktime/ windows media.

I have one of my sites in progress at www.getavoiceactor.com I still have all the developer info, although I have already done some modding.


It opens super fast on both a Verizon Droid and an iPhone 3.

I fthis doesn't work, the site I got the template from also has a bunch of specific players and widgets and such.
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j.s. gilbert

js@jsgilbert.com
www.jsgilbert.com

"today is the first day of the rest of the week"

[Billy James]

JS:

Thanks for the info.

DB:

The Patrick O'Connor site is very much like what I have in mind. Love the graphic header and download link in the popup window.

I've also considered posting demos in a QT movie format -- basically a movie file that plays the audio while displaying a single poster-frame graphic. Being template-based, Rapidweaver makes this sort of page pretty simple to do. (I'm a visual designer, and not very code-savvy.)

Thanks for the insights.

best,
Billy

[Jeff Hirschberg]

Probably not much good to you at this point, but eventually, you'll be able to use the HTML 5 audio tag. You can find info on it here: http://www.w3schools.com/html5/tag_audio.asp. Unfortunately, it only seems to currently work with Firefox and Opera. The player loads in Safari, but pressing play doesn't do anything, at least for me.

Jeff

[Jeff Hirschberg]

You can find a better list of support for HTML 5 here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison%5Fof%5Flayout%5Fengines%5F%28HTML%5F5%29

Apparently, the file formats supported vary from browser to browser.

Jeff