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Embedded Multimedia

What's wrong with Flash? Trust me, you don't want to get into this if you're not already hooked. Forget about how much you can charge clients for Flash design. Apart from there being no way to make it standards compliant, the technology could soon be disabled in the major browsers (Internet Explorer, at least). You can read my little rant about it here.

Background music is another ongoing debate among designers. I would definitely not put it on every page. At least give your visitors the option to turn it OFF. Not everyone wants to hear Jingle Bells looping endlessly while they read. And just because it sounds great on your computer does not mean it will on someone else's. The computer's sound card is what makes the music—Midis are not recordings. Wav files are, but these are HUGE. Forget about embedding an mp3. Even Broadband users will get impatient and leave.

The best way to offer your visitors music is with a clickable link: Want to hear a midi? The target is the midi file itself. Doing it this way gives them two choices: They can download the file by right-clicking the link and choosing "Save Target As" (or "Save Link As") or play it in their browser by left-clicking the link as usual. A left-click will launch their default player. If the user does not have Quicktime, Windows Media Player, Winamp or some other device for playing sound files, nothing bad will happen.

Getting any embedded multimedia to work in different browsers can be a challenge too. The standards compliant method uses the object tag which only works in Mozilla-based browsers. Warning: The midi will start to play automatically. Unlike the old method that employs embed and bgsound, autostart cannot be disabled. Correct me if I'm wrong. Personally, I feel embedded music is tacky. It reminds me of the early days of the Web when *everyone* did it just because it was new... and seizure-inducing animated gifs could dance to it. Please don't. Just don't.

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