Had you ever used sound-only Flash techniques before reading this article? How prevalent is the Flash Player in your organization? Do you use a different technology to deliver streaming or background sounds to your Web applications? Let us know in the web.design discussion group.
Learn to use Flash to add interactive sound to your Web pages.
by Hayden Porter
August 22, 2001
ave you ever wanted to add interactive sound and backing music to a Web site but were unable to use Flash because you didn't require any visual presentation? Now there's a new way to "sonify" Web sites—the FlashSound Javascript API. The FlashSound API allows you to add interactive sound to a Web site by using the nearly ubiquitous Flash player to play sound-only invisible movies. The benefit is that you can create a Web site using easy-to-maintain HTML/JavaScript and conventional Web graphic formats while simultaneously playing interactive sound via Macromedia's Flash Player. Because sound-only movies have no user interface, they don't change your layout and they don't rely upon Flash graphics to work.
Using the FlashSound API you add interactive sound to links, graphics, and buttons on your site and any user with the Flash 4 Player or better installed can hear them. Best of all, users who don't have the Flash Player installed can see and use the same pages, silently, without any problems. This means there's no need to create a separate non-Flash version of your Flash-enabled Web site; you merely have the option now to add interactive, invisible sound to an existing site.
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ave you ever wanted to add interactive sound and backing music to a Web site but were unable to use Flash because you didn't require any visual presentation? Now there's a new way to "sonify" Web sites—the FlashSound Javascript API. The FlashSound API allows you to add interactive sound to a Web site by using the nearly ubiquitous Flash player to play sound-only invisible movies. The benefit is that you can create a Web site using easy-to-maintain HTML/JavaScript and conventional Web graphic formats while simultaneously playing interactive sound via Macromedia's Flash Player. Because sound-only movies have no user interface, they don't change your layout and they don't rely upon Flash graphics to work.
