MIDI files playing in 7.1

When I try to play a midi file using the defaut Netscape audio plug-in, nothing happens. I see a page where the player would load and sit but no clip plays. The default Netscape audio plug-in was the last plug-in installed and it does play wave files but for some reason will not open midis. Do I need to add a MIME type perhaps or shouldn't that matter??

 

Hi Kenny,

I just read a rather interesting thread on the Netscape 7 NG which refers to playing midi files in Netscape 7.1:
snews://secnews.netscape.com:563/behu0d$ft210@ripley.netscape.com I'm surprised to hear that LiveAudio will play wav files. On my system, it will load the file, but will not play the file. Nor will it play midi files.

In the referenced NG thread, Holger Metzger suggests the Beatnik player, and gives a link, in addition to a test page:

Install Beatnik Player, it's small, it's fast, integrates seamlessly in Netscape 7.1.
http://www.holgermetzger.de/plugins/npbeatnk.zip
Three files in the zip:
beatnik.class and npbeatnk.dll go into your plugins folder
patches.hsb in your windows folder.

- Holger

You can also add the player of your choice to Application Helpers in Preferences.

Edit | Preferences | Navigator | Helper Applications
Mime type: audio/midi
Description: Midi Files
Extension: midi
Open it with: C:/Program Files/... your player of choice

Playing media files in Netscape 7 is, at best, a challenging experience. It's getting better though, and lots of good information at:
http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/windows.html

You might also try Crescendo 5.1 Free Basic for midi files. This is my midi player of choice, and it works quite well in Netscape 7.1.

HTH,

Ramona

 

A friend who installed Mozilla 1.3.1 told me that Netscape LiveAudio will no longer work for midi playback. She ended up getting the Crescendo plugin.

LiveAudio still works for me, in Mozilla 1.0.1 which is similar to Netscape 7.0x. Netscape 7.1 is based on Mozilla 1.4 so I'm not suprised that LiveAudio won't work in Netscape 7.1

Netscape LiveAudio plugin npaudio.dll will play both regular wav links and embedded wav in Mozilla 1.0.1 I don't know if my friend was able to use it for Mozilla 1.3.1 (she only mentioned the midi problem)

A helper application might work for links but might not for embedded wav or midi.

Test here for embedded midi:
http://home.att.net/~wymette/files/htmtest2.htm

Test here for embedded mpeg wav (assumes you are able to play mpeg wav):
http://home.att.net/~wymette/files/wavtest2.htm

Test here (friend's site) for embedded wav. It's a lot shorter load time than the mpeg wav ... a bit creepy though...!
http://www.geocities.com/janice240obe/portal.html

I tried Holger's Beatnik plugin from the zip download, and copied the files where I was supposed to copy them.

I had to disable npaudio.dll by renaming it Xnpaudio.dll before the beatnik player would play midi file links. (otherwise, Live Audio continued to play them). The Beatnik player sounded great but no right-click, save as option like in Netscape's Live Audio.

Even after renaming npaudio.dll, Beatnik would not work at all for wav file links. I got the box asking to open the file, and chose Windows Media Player as the helper. I didn't try beatnik for embedded wav (or midi) by the way, only for direct links. I've since RE-enabled the Netscape LiveAudio plugin.

about: plugins did not show the the standard wav mime types audio/wav and audio/x-wav under Beatnik. These mime types had been listed under LiveAudio, and once LiveAudio was disabled (renamed) they were nowhere to be found, which is why a helper application was used. In about: plugins. Beatnik showed only the following Mime Types enabled:
audio/midi MIDI (*.mid,*.midi)
audio/x-midi MIDI (*.mid,*.midi)
audio/rmf RMF (*.rmf,*.aif,*.aiff,*.au,*.wav)
audio/x-rmf RMF (*.rmf,*.aif,*.aiff,*.au,*.wav)

 

Ramona, I did download the Beatnik player from that link. I've used that player on older versions of Netscape and loved it. I was disappointed when it wouldn't work with certain releases of Netscape and am quite pleased to see it works with 7.1.

Anyway, when the Beatnik player does pop up, it's only like half size in the top left corner of the screen. Is there a way to adjust it's size possibly?

I also had to remove the npaudio.dll for Beatnik to work. It plays wav and midi without a hitch unlike what happened to Alice.

Any idea how to resize the Beatnik player???

Thanks....

 

Glad to hear that Beatnik plays wav files for you in Netscape 7.1.

What mime types do you show in Netscape Help, About Plugins, for the Beatnik player for .wav, Kenny? Do you see audio/wav and audio/x-wav ? I didn't see these mime types for Beatnik, which is probably why id didn' play wav files for me. I do see them for WAV with the Netscape LiveAudio plugin.

 

Hi Kenny,

The web author has used incorrect height and width in the code, thus you are only seeing half a player. I am seeing the same thing on some web sites, but on others, I see the full player console.

Unfortunately, there is no option to view a larger console, as in RealPlayer, or Windows MediaPlayer.

Ramona

 

Alice,

On my Help - Plug-Ins page, I see the Beatnik Player listed and mime types for .wav, mid enabled.
I also saw that for the default Netscape player also but of course it did not work.

I do believe that in order for a plug-in to work for say a .wav file, it has to be the last one installed. In other words, if you put the default player files back into the plug-in directory, Netscape will open the file using that player instead of Beatnik.

Ken

 

Ken,

Thanks for replying

I'll take it to mean that you see audio/wav and audio/x-wav listed under Beatnik for for Wav files. This is waht it says under Beatnik Player Plug-in For Netscape at http://wp.netscape.com/plugins/get_beatnik.html
============copy/paste=================
Plug-in Statistics
Company: Beatnik
Latest Version: 2.2
File Types Supported: audio/aiff, audio/basic, audio/midi, audio/mod, audio/rmf, audio/wav, audio/x-aiff, audio/x-midi, audio/x-mod, audio/x-rmf, audio/x-wav
===============end c/p==================

That's how it is supposed to work. However, even though Beatnik WAS the last plugin installed, the Netscape LiveAudio player continued to open midi files until I renamed npaudio.dll. After renaming to Xnpaudio.dll, and reopening Mozilla, Beatnik started playing midi files. After I renamed Xnpaudio.dll back to npaudio.dll, Live Audio started playing mid files again. At no time did Beatnik ever play wav files but that's because the wav mime types, audio/wav and audio/x-wav, never appeared under Beatnik for Wav files. Only the oddball mimetypes audio/rmf and audio/x-rmf RMF (*.rmf,*.aif,*.aiff,*.au,*.wav) mentioned *.wav at all under Suffixes.