Re: [Finale] OT: Websites with music (audio)
On Oct 18, 2004, at 5:52 AM, dhbailey wrote: If you are teaching how to integrate music and sound with websites, please teach them: 1) make the volume fairly quiet so it doesn't blast the neighbors awake at 1 in the morning; 2) have a clearly visible, easy to locate, clickable OFF butto for those of us who hate web-sites that force their music on us; 3) program any music inclusion so that visitors don't have to download any special plug-ins to hear the music -- nothing makes me leave a website faster than being told that I have to download something else to fully enjoy the web-site. Amen to all three of these. With regard to the third, less than a year ago I was using an ancient computer which could only handle a fairly old browser. On that computer, most sites which gave me the "you must download" window crashed my system. It was because of things like that that I was extremely careful exploring the Web on that computer, basically not going to any site unless I knew ahead of time what it was. The more general rule, of course, is that when designing any aspect of a website, don't assume that the user has the same system that you do. All the books preach that, but it still seems like most amateur and even some professional designers pay no heed. mdl ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: Websites with music (audio)
At 08:52 AM 10/18/04 -0400, dhbailey wrote:
>If you are teaching how to integrate music and sound with websites,
>please teach them:
>2) have a clearly visible, easy to locate, clickable OFF butto for those
>of us who hate web-sites that force their music on us;
>3) program any music inclusion so that visitors don't have to download
>any special plug-ins to hear the music -- nothing makes me leave a
>website faster than being told that I have to download something else to
>fully enjoy the web-site.
There is, of course, a huge course in proper, polite, and effective use of
web media. But David brings up some important points that I'd like to expand.
Regarding #2: *Never* autoplay media files or pop up windows with them.
This breaks accessibility badly, so anyone browsing with speech output will
be interrupted and (because of the new window) lost in navigation. And I'll
add here that one should use standard tags for media links; Javascript and
Flash tags are not cross-browser cross-operating system compatible, and
security risks besides (until recently, Flash was not accessible, either).
A metafile ('streaming') link and a download link for dialup users are
really important if you don't want to lost possible auditions of music from
dialup users as well as those using palmtops and slower networks.
Regarding #3: Plugins are tricky. It used to be that browsers and operating
systems didn't have any plugins shipped with them -- no Midi, no AVI, no
Quicktime, no MP3, etc. Now they do have lots of media players installed,
but the occasional plugin is still needed for specialized items. There's
Scorch for Sibelius, for example, and with the media wars, some don't ship
with RealAudio. Using standard file types will always help make a site useful.
The key for music sites especially is never to force content on the
visitor, and never to use supposedly clever methods (scripts, Flash, etc.)
where standard methods are the most accessible. If you can do something on
the server (vs. in the browser), that's the way to go. Make it easy and
fast for the site visitor.
Dennis
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RE: [Finale] OT: Websites with music (audio)
Hi Matthew- I'll leave it to you and your students as to whether mine is a good or bad implementation.. My homepage autoloads a midi file (www.harrockhall.com) and in the online store each piece of music's "Read more" page does the same Bandwidth costs are the primary reason my site is so elementary at this point. I'll soon be changing the format, and would like to hear back from you what you find to be the "best." Hoping this finds you well, as I am- Cecil Rigby [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) http://www.harrockhall.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: Websites with music (audio)
Matthew Hindson Fastmail Account wrote: Dear List Members, I'm currently teaching a Sound and Music for Multimedia course, and would like to show the students some examples of how music and sound has been integrated into websites. So if anyone has a website that they would like me to plug, please feel free to let me know! (Or if they know of any other sites that are particularly good or bad...) Thanks for any input received, Matthew If you are teaching how to integrate music and sound with websites, please teach them: 1) make the volume fairly quiet so it doesn't blast the neighbors awake at 1 in the morning; 2) have a clearly visible, easy to locate, clickable OFF butto for those of us who hate web-sites that force their music on us; 3) program any music inclusion so that visitors don't have to download any special plug-ins to hear the music -- nothing makes me leave a website faster than being told that I have to download something else to fully enjoy the web-site. Thanks. David -- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] OT: Websites with music (audio)
At 10:23 PM 10/18/04 +1000, Matthew Hindson Fastmail Account wrote: >I'm currently teaching a Sound and Music for Multimedia course, and would >like to show the students some examples of how music and sound has been >integrated into websites. So if anyone has a website that they would like >me to plug, please feel free to let me know! I will happily plug Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar (http://kalvos.org/), which has been online with audio since 1995 ... the days of RealAudio 1.0. We have interviewed 245 composers as of Saturday, and all those interviews are available on the site, along with composer pages, essays, music, video, photos, projects, etc. It's been streaming since the Audionet days, with its own server since 1997. The site is interesting not only for its content, but also for its maintenance of all the original material, including those RA 1.0 files. It is its own history, and when it closes in September 2005, it will have spanned the changes in new music and web media for the five years on each side of the millennium. Dennis ___ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
