Hi, I'm Helen. You've already become acquainted with me if you've read my reviews of Calendar Wizard and Flash Slider. Olga has invited me to be a joint author of her blog, and I've gladly accepted her invitation 'cause I have much to tell you. For example, today I want to tell you about software which can help you to make a Flash sound player for your website. Read my review and, if you are interested in this software, get free trial version or buy it at
http://funsoundplayer.com
How to make Flash sound player in a flash
I've never started my reviews with the main impression of software, but now I'll break this rule. I'm desperately willing to say - to make Flash sound player and publish it to a website using
Fun Sound player is extremely easy! Make 3 steps to get neat sound player without mastering Flash technologies.
Well, the first step is to choose template for your player. There is templates list in Templates tab, and one can also download other templates from
Player Templates page (don't forget to add downloaded templates to lib subfolder in Fun Sound Player folder). What should you consider choosing a template? At first, what sound you want to be available to your site visitors. If you want them to listen to only one sound track, you'd better to choose templates with Only embedded sound, which doesn't support multi sound tracks. Such players look like only one button to turn music onoff. If you want to add some tracks to your player, choose Only external or External or audio stream sound. These players support multi sound tracks and have play, pause, next and previous buttons to operate a playback. Some of these players have volume adjustment, some have elapsed track time, some can show track title. So, if these functions are important for you, mind them while choosing player template. You can see templates thumbnails in Templates tab, but if it's difficult for you to make out player functions looking at its picture, you can test all the functions in Settings tab. And, the last, players using External or audio stream sound must be chosen if you want your site visitors to listen online radio.
Settings tab in the second step. Here you can customize your player's appearance: its size and color. It's very helpful option, which enables you to make your player match the style of your web-site.
Then one can change sound location (if the player you've chosen supports some sound locations - for example, embedded or external). Then choose file(s) to play. Don't forget to name Web site sound folder for external files - it is the folder on your server, which contains files you want to play. To play online radio, after choosing MPEG audio stream as sound location, add URL of your radio resource in Sound file(s) list. You can add you voice record to playlist. Press Record voice button, record and save whatever you want and add result mp3 file to playlist. You also have Browse button to open file(s), Remove button to remove the last line of your playlist (if you want to remove a track which is not the last in your list, right-click and delete it), and up-down arrows to change track position in a list (left-click a track and adjust its position pressing these arrows).
The third step is your player's publishing. You have three choices: player can be saved as SWF only, saved as SWF and template HTML-page, and saved as SWF with copying of template html code to clipboard. The latter is very handy if you want to add player to your web-site immediately. You simply open the html-page on which the player will be placed with any html code editor and paste the player's html code from clipboard. You should also upload some files to your website - saved SWF file, playlist file (playlist.xml) and all sound files you added to your playlist. Having completed player making, the program will give you a list of files you have to upload. Upload them and enjoy cool Flash player on your website!
And a final tip: if you want to change your player design without changing its playlist, you shouldn't waste your time to create a playlist again. Just make new design, create SWF file and overwrite SWF in your web folder, where all files needed for player are. Don't overwrite playlist - and you will get different-looking player with the same playlist. Make new SWF file with the same name as previous SWF file has, and you won't even have to change html-code. So, that's all. Let's draw conclusions: the only disadvantage I see is an absence of help-file, but all options of the program are so easy-to-adjust that this file is not necessary (especially after my tips ;)). I also think tool tips for buttons in Settings tab would be rather handy. The most attractive features of
Fun Sound player:
- a lot of
templates are available, there is a possibility to
change player's size and color scheme - be sure that you'll be able to make a
player which will match your web-site design perfectly.
-
different player types enables you to
choose using sound - one embedded track, multiple tracks or online radio.
- possibility to
record voice comment and use it as sound file in playlist.
-
different ways of file publishing extend possibilities of player use.
- you need no special knowledge to make a full-functional Flash player with Fun Sound Player and publish it to your web-site in a couple of minutes.
