Well, as the title suggests, this is a little program to play sound files at
boot time. It will play normal sound files (basically anything that Play16
supports) and mpeg files (using mpega). Oh, but wait, there's more. It will
play a random file chosen from a prefs list in ENV:, and will automatically
distinguish between mpeg files and others.
What inspired this? Well, a few days ago someone uploaded a similar program
that played random files, and it looked great but it lacked a few things. One,
it didn't play mpeg files and my favorite boot file is mpeg (and have you ever
tried to expand a 100K mpeg file to a normal iff? It ain't pretty). So, as
part exercise and part need I wrote this program to upport mpegs as well. Then
while I was at it, I decided to have the program read full paths of the sound
files; this way you can have them scattered all over your hard drive without
having to make extra copies to put into a single special directory.
How does it recognize mpeg files? It just looks at the filename extention. If
it begins with "mp" (as in .mp, .mp2, .mpeg), it treats it as an mpeg (not case
sensitive).
OPTIONS:
Bootsound only has one option, and that concerns the mpega options. Rather than
assume that everyone has AHI (like they should), I made the AHI support an
option. Just enter into the command line the exact same option for AHI support
as you would enter into mepga; ie, "-I[<id>]". For example: "bootsound
-I2000A".
If the AHI option is there, it'll use it, if not no problem.
INSTALLATION:
First, make sure that Play16 and Mpega are both to be found somplace along your
command path (mine's in C:, but it doesn't have to specifically be in that
directory).
Second, you need to edit a preferences file. Make a list of the sound and mpeg
files you want bootsound to choose from, one entry per line, full paths. Then
save that file to ENVARC:bootsound.prefs and ENV:bootsound.prefs.
Then last, just add a line to your startup (mine's at the end of my user-startup
so I can hear when it's finished), somethoing along the lines of "RUN >NIL:
CBootsound -I2000A" works for me.
That's it! How all you need is a big collection of files to play. Enjoy.
THE PREFS PROGRAM:
Included in the Bootsound archive is now a prefs program, BootSoundPrefs,
written for me by Allan Versaevel. It allows you to configure the prefs file by
a nice GUI without having to resort to editing it by hand. It's just a simple
list window with a file gadget. Click on "Load" to bring up a multi-file requester and
load up a file(s). Loaded files will belisted in the window. When finished
gathering all the files together that you want, then just click on "Save" and
it's all done; it creates "bootsound.prefs" for you in ENV: and ENVARC:. If you
want to start over, then just hit "Clear".
And again, the files can come from any number of scattered locations on your
Hard Drive as you wish.
COPYRITE/DISTRIBUTION:
This program is copyrighted 1998 by Mark A. Tierno, all
rights reserved, yadda, yadda, yadda. It is released as E-Ware: if you like it
just email me any kudos and make me feel liked. No other charge (for a little
utility like this? Yeah, right.).
MAIL ME: drstrange@usa.net
HISTORY:
v1.0: Initial Aaminet release.
v1.1: added an omission to the readme (like HOW it recognizes mpegs)- Oops!
Forgot to have an error check for if the prefs file isn't found (not
found = crash and burn; stupid mistake).
v1.2: The program itself remains unchanged, but I've now included BootSoundPrefs
in the archive, by Allan Versaevel. Thanks Drool!
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aminet net>