Adding Behaviors and Rich Media - New Perspectives on Adobe Dreamweaver CS5, Comprehensive - page 423

preconfi gured with a player that will play MP3 fi les, avoiding the need to download
additional software. MP3 fi les are a good choice when you want to link to a sound
fi le instead of embedding the fi le in a page because the sound will very likely play as
expected even though many different players might handle MP3 on a user's computer.
Using a link, instead of embedding, ensures that whatever player handles MP3 does not
display its own sound control interface in the Web page, potentially interfering with the
page's design.
Gage wants to provide users with a choice of sound formats. You already added sound
to the page by embedding a Flash movie. Now you will create a link to an MP3 fi le that
contains the same sound content as the Flash fi le. When the user clicks the link, the
sound fi le will begin to download and will be played back by whatever player is confi g-
ured to handle MP3s on the user's computer.

To link to an MP3 sound file to the lineup.html page:

◗

1. In the Document window, click to the right of text below the Flash placeholder
image, and then press the Shift+Enter keys. The insertion point moves to the
next line.

◗

2. Type have you seen her (mp3) , and then select the text.
◗

3. In the Property inspector, next to the Link box, click the Browse for File button
. The Select File dialog box opens.

◗

4. Double-click the seen_her.mp3 file located in the Tutorial.07\Tutorial folder
included with your Data Files, click the Yes button, and then save a copy of the
seen_her.mp3 file in the media folder in the local root folder. A link is created
from the new text to the seen_her.mp3 file.

◗

5. Save the page, and then preview the page in a browser.
◗

6. Click the have you seen her (mp3) link. Sound plays and, depending on which
player is playing the sound, a number of things could happen: A player could
appear in the browser, a player could appear outside the browser, or the sound
might simply begin to play without any player opening. Figure 7-28 shows the
seen_her.mp3 file playing in the Windows Media Player.
Trouble? If a File Download dialog box opens, click Open and continue with the
next step.

Figure 7-28 Windows Media Player

indicates the
sound is playing

click to pause the sound