Play System 7 Sound from Indigo?

How do I play a system 7 sound from Indigo? My preference is to use Applescript to do this, but iTunes could also be used if that's the only other way...

Thanks,

Scot

[matt (support)]

Hello Scot,

Take a look at this tiny, yet very handy, scriptable application:

http://microcosmsoftware.com/playsound/

I think it will do exactly what you need. Good luck!

regards,
matt bendiksen

How do I play a system 7 sound from Indigo? My preference is to use Applescript to do this, but iTunes could also be used if that's the only other way...

Thanks,

Scot

Yes, this would appear to work, but I'd prefer to keep the number of applications running on the server to a minimum. If every little task Indigo performs requires a separate app, the numbers, and the stability of the server, quickly get out of hand. Under OS9 there was a scripting addition called PlaySound, and it was a simple matter to execute an applescript like PlaySound("doorbell") to get a sound to play. I'm new to MacOS X Applescript, and would appreciate any pointers for doing this.

Thanks in advance,

Scot


[quote="support"]Hello Scot,

Take a look at this tiny, yet very handy, scriptable application:

http://microcosmsoftware.com/playsound/

I think it will do exactly what you need. Good luck!

regards,
matt bendiksen

[quote="sjmarbu"]How do I play a system 7 sound from Indigo? My preference is to use Applescript to do this, but iTunes could also be used if that's the only other way...

Thanks,

Scot[/quote][/quote]

[matt (support)]

Adding the ability to play sounds directly in Indigo is a good feature request. We'll add it to the ever-growing list of requests for future versions of Indigo.

However, there will always be tasks or functionality that fall outside of the scope of what the core application (Indigo in this case) performs. Using an external application to solve this problem really shouldn't cause you too much concern. In this case, the Play Sound application is a "scriptable facelss background" app, which means you won't really notice that it is running. There are already several faceless background appliations (or processes) running on your system. Type "ps -ax" inside of a terminal window to see them all. Adding one, or even several more, won't have a negative impact on the stability of the system. The stability of the system is more of a function of the quality of the services that are running on it. A poorly written scripting addition that plays sounds will be just as harmful to system stability, if not more so, than a poorly written faceless background application. Based on our testing of the Play Sound application it seems to behave itself very nicely (i.e., no problems to report).

The good news is that with the strong foundation that OS X is built on top of (protected memory, good process manager, etc.), I don't believe you will have any problems running several background applications at once. If they are poorly written then it might cause performance problems or crashes, but the same holds true for scripting additons. In fact, scripting additions are more dangerous than individual processes because they don't run in their own protected memory space. Additionally, the overhead in running an additional process really isn't going to be a factor on the UNIX based OS X.

The ReadMe that comes with the Play Sound background application has more details about the advantages of using facelss background apps compared to a scripting addition.

regards,
matt

Yes, this would appear to work, but I'd prefer to keep the number of applications running on the server to a minimum. If every little task Indigo performs requires a separate app, the numbers, and the stability of the server, quickly get out of hand. Under OS9 there was a scripting addition called PlaySound, and it was a simple matter to execute an applescript like PlaySound("doorbell") to get a sound to play. I'm new to MacOS X Applescript, and would appreciate any pointers for doing this.

Thanks in advance,

Scot