MIDIs in Director 1

[h09]

Hey, I'm just curious, is it possible via a plug-in or some other method to use MIDIs in Director? The background music that I have, as a Midi, is approximately 50KB, while it's about 1 meg as an MP3, which is well over the size limit that I have specified for the program. I appreciate your time and help, thanks.

 

[kennethkawamoto]

You can play external MIDI file as QuickTime movie. Create #QuickTimeMedia member and assign fileName to the external MIDI file. Then you can control the playback as normal QuickTime movie.

 

[h09]

Thanks Kenneth, but I'm a little unclear on how to do that. Can you perhaps provide steps? I may understand how to do it, but perhaps the terminology is just a bit confusing for me = / I'm still very much a novice in the Director area.

Also, by externally linking, are you referring to me linking to the path of my midi in my website directory? For instance,

http://www.mydomain.com/mymidi.mid?

Are you able to import the mid and use it?

 

[kennethkawamoto]

So you want (1) download a MIDI file from the Internet, and then (2) play that MIDI in Director.

Why not?

The strategy would be:
1. Start downloading the MIDI file.
2. Wait for the download operation finishes.
3. If download error occurs, do something about it.
4. If download is successful, create new #quickTimeMedia member.
5. Assign downloaded MIDI file as the QuickTime member just created.
6. Put the MIDI-QuickTime onto the Stage and play the music.

Here are two frame scripts. The frame script 1 starts downloading the MIDI file. The frame script 2 does the rest. (I am creating member(23) as QuickTime/MIDI member and placing it in Sprite(1) in this example.)

--
-- Frame script 1
on enterFrame me
global gNetID
gNetID = preloadNetThing("

http://www.mydomain.com/mymidi.mid")

end

-- Frame script 2
global gNetID

on exitFrame me
if netDone(gNetID) then
tErrorCode = netError(gNetID)
if tErrorCode <> "OK" then
alert("Couldn't download the MIDI file. Error code:" && tErrorCode)
-- or do something upon netError.
else
new(#quickTimeMedia, member(23))
member(23).fileName = "

http://www.mydomain.com/mymidi.mid"

puppetSprite(1, 1)
sprite(1).member = member(23)
sprite(1).movieRate = 1
end if
else
go the frame
end if
end
--

I separated two scripts in order to demonstrate the concepts but they could be in one script/script object.

If you're using a local MIDI file, obviously you won't need to download the file - just assign the fileName to the local MIDI file.

 

[h09]

Cool Kenneth, thanks a lot man. You've been very helpful, you got my vote!

 

[h09]

Ah crap, one more thing Is there a way that I can loop the playback of that midi?

 

[kennethkawamoto]

member(23).loop = 1

(member(23) is the QuickTime MIDI member.)

 

[h09]

Doh, I even knew that = / I just wasn't sure how to create it since it was QT-related. Cool, thanks a bunch man, that's definitely something that I coulda found if I was really thinking by looking on my own in Director help. I'm sorry to waste your time there Kenneth but thanks again for the help!