HyperCard Tips and Tricks: Sounds and Music

OS requirements for sound

Posted: 5/24/98

The only documented HyperCard feature related to sound that requires
System 6.0.7 is the use of multiple sound channels, as in 'set the
soundChannel to x'. If you try to use multiple sound channels on
6.0.5, you get no error messages. HyperCard simply plays your sounds
sequentially using the single sound channel that's available instead of 
playing them simultaneously on multiple channels.

Kevin Calhoun
Apple Computer, Inc.

Continuous beeping problem

Posted: 11/24/97

System 7.5.3 includes Sound Manager 3.2, which, unlike all
previous versions of the Sound Manager, produces system beeps
asynchronously.  If you have a script that loops, and if it beeps
each time through the loop, with earlier versions of the Sound
Manager the script would pause while the beep sound was playing.
With Sound Manager 3.2, the script does not pause for beeps -- it
simply queues up beep after beep at a crazy mad pace until the exit
condition of the loop is met.  The Sound Manager then plays
each of the beeps that were queued up, until either A) you quit
HyperCard, B) you hit the restart button, C) you go mad, or D) the
queue is exhausted and the beeps stop.  They will eventually stop,
if you wait long enough.

You can alter your scripts so that they beep only every so often
within loops, or so that they play some other sound and wait until
the sound is done.

Kevin Calhoun
Apple Computer, Inc.

Use the control strip to set system volume to 0, then wait for the
beeps to flush out of the queue. The menubar will not flash as the
beeps happen. -- Rodney Tamblyn

Playing sounds from HC using AppleEvents

Posted: 11/24/97

Instead of putting your sounds into stacks as resources, try creating an
object (a button, e.g.) and setting its script language to AppleScript.
Then use the following script:

   on mouseUp
     tell application "Finder"
       open file "MyHD:MySoundFolder:MySound"
     end tell
   end mouseUp

You must specify the path name, and the file(s) MySound must be system 7
snd files.  This works very nicely, even plays 16-bit sound files.  Of
course, AppleScript stuff must be installed on the target system, etc.
This approach also makes it very simple to change the sound files, simply
by moving them in or out of the sound folder in the Finder.

Devin Asay

Up to top | HyperCard Tips and Tricks