MP3 Button is a small, streaming Flash MP3 file player. It provides only two buttons, play and stop, and is capable of playing a single mp3 file. Parameters are available to allow you to specify the mp3 file, whether the music should auto-play, and to set the volume. The mp3 is streamed, so the music is available when the page loads although dial-up visitors will see a delay until enough music is buffered to begin playing.

After downloading and unzipping the mp3buttons.swf file, you will need to include it on your work page. Use the Import Foreign Object Tool to open the Foreign Object Editor. In the editor, select a Format type of Flash from the drop-down menu. Then using the Filepath button, locate the mp3buttons.swf file you extracted earlier.

Note: With this player, the Auto Start and Continuous Play options have no effect.

Multiple instances of the player on your work page are possible with each player using a different mp3 file. But it would be a good idea not to autostart more than one.

Looking at the Foreign Object/Media dialog example above, you can see that 2 parameters can be used with the player: flashvars and wmode.

The flashvars Parameter

The flashvars parameter specifies variables used by the player. The variables and their associated values are formatted as a GET query string. The various parameters that can be passed via the flashvars parameter are:

Examples

• This specifies the audio.mp3 file is in the root folder on the mysite.com web site; the music will auto-play with a volume level of 50.

mp3=http://mysite.com/audio.mp3&autostart=1&vol=50

• This specifies the my_music.mp3 file is in the media folder at the mysite.com web site and the music will not auto-play. The default volume level is 10

mp3=http://mysite.com/media/my_music.mp3&autostart=0

• This specifies the some_music.mp3 file is in the same folder as the HTML page. Because the other variables are omitted, the music will not auto-play and when manually started, will play at a volume level of 10.

mp3=some_music.mp3

• This specifies that the some_more_music.mp3 file is in the media folder. If the HTML page is in the root folder, then the media folder must be under the root. The music will not auto-play and when manually started, it will play with a volume level of 80.

mp3=/media/some_more_music.mp3&vol=80

The wmode Parameter

This parameter is optional. The mp3buttons player is designed with a charcoal gray background. As shown in the example Foreign Object/Media editor, you can specify a parameter name of “wmode” with a value of “transparent”. This will turn the player’s background transparent allowing your page background to become visible. You can also use the SiteSpinner shading tool to give the player a background color of your choosing.

Publishing Tips

When SiteSpinner publishes a project with the “Gather Files” option, flash files specified as foreign objects are automatically placed in a media folder on your site. If you plan to have your mp3 file in the same folder as the player, you can use the SiteSpinner FTP client using the steps outlined below.

Begin by using another foreign object, but this time use the Publish File type. Again, use the Filepath button to include the file into your project. When you publish your project, you will need to tell the publisher where to put the mp3 file, so on the Publisher?Pages tab, click the Select Folders button in the Path Options section. This will open the Publisher Sub-Directories window.

This window is used to specify where the various types of files should be placed when your project is published. It only handles file types that SiteSpinner is aware of, and unfortunately, SiteSpinner does not know about mp3 files. If published normally, the audio file would end up in the root folder of your site

However, any file SiteSpinner does not know how to handle is considered an external file, so using the External Files data field, you can enter “media” and the audio file will go to the proper folder when you publish your project.