Short: Boot sound player, sound and mpeg files Author: Mark Tierno Uploader: drstrange usa net Type: util/boot Version: 1.2 Requires: Play16, mpega Architecture: m68k-amigaos Well, as the title suggests, this is a little program to play sound files at boot time. It will play normal sound files (basically anything that Play16 supports) and mpeg files (using mpega). Oh, but wait, there's more. It will play a random file chosen from a prefs list in ENV:, and will automatically distinguish between mpeg files and others. What inspired this? Well, a few days ago someone uploaded a similar program that played random files, and it looked great but it lacked a few things. One, it didn't play mpeg files and my favorite boot file is mpeg (and have you ever tried to expand a 100K mpeg file to a normal iff? It ain't pretty). So, as part exercise and part need I wrote this program to upport mpegs as well. Then while I was at it, I decided to have the program read full paths of the sound files; this way you can have them scattered all over your hard drive without having to make extra copies to put into a single special directory. How does it recognize mpeg files? It just looks at the filename extention. If it begins with "mp" (as in .mp, .mp2, .mpeg), it treats it as an mpeg (not case sensitive). OPTIONS: Bootsound only has one option, and that concerns the mpega options. Rather than assume that everyone has AHI (like they should), I made the AHI support an option. Just enter into the command line the exact same option for AHI support as you would enter into mepga; ie, "-I[]". For example: "bootsound -I2000A". If the AHI option is there, it'll use it, if not no problem. INSTALLATION: First, make sure that Play16 and Mpega are both to be found somplace along your command path (mine's in C:, but it doesn't have to specifically be in that directory). Second, you need to edit a preferences file. Make a list of the sound and mpeg files you want bootsound to choose from, one entry per line, full paths. Then save that file to ENVARC:bootsound.prefs and ENV:bootsound.prefs. Then last, just add a line to your startup (mine's at the end of my user-startup so I can hear when it's finished), somethoing along the lines of "RUN >NIL: CBootsound -I2000A" works for me. That's it! How all you need is a big collection of files to play. Enjoy. THE PREFS PROGRAM: Included in the Bootsound archive is now a prefs program, BootSoundPrefs, written for me by Allan Versaevel. It allows you to configure the prefs file by a nice GUI without having to resort to editing it by hand. It's just a simple list window with a file gadget. Click on "Load" to bring up a multi-file requester and load up a file(s). Loaded files will belisted in the window. When finished gathering all the files together that you want, then just click on "Save" and it's all done; it creates "bootsound.prefs" for you in ENV: and ENVARC:. If you want to start over, then just hit "Clear". And again, the files can come from any number of scattered locations on your Hard Drive as you wish. COPYRITE/DISTRIBUTION: This program is copyrighted 1998 by Mark A. Tierno, all rights reserved, yadda, yadda, yadda. It is released as E-Ware: if you like it just email me any kudos and make me feel liked. No other charge (for a little utility like this? Yeah, right.). MAIL ME: drstrange@usa.net HISTORY: v1.0: Initial Aaminet release. v1.1: added an omission to the readme (like HOW it recognizes mpegs)- Oops! Forgot to have an error check for if the prefs file isn't found (not found = crash and burn; stupid mistake). v1.2: The program itself remains unchanged, but I've now included BootSoundPrefs in the archive, by Allan Versaevel. Thanks Drool!