Inserting multimedia objects in Dreamweaver To insert a multimedia object in a page, do one of the following: Place the insertion point in the Document window where you want to insert the object, then choose the appropriate object from the Insert > Media or Insert > Interactive Images submenu. Drag the appropriate button from the Common or Special category of the Objects panel to the place in the Document window where you want the object to appear. Shockwave, ActiveX, and Flash objects have defined buttons. Use the Insert Plugin button to insert QuickTime movies and audio files. Adding sound You can choose from several different types of sound files and formats, and you can add sound to a Web page in various ways. Some factors to consider before deciding on a format and method for adding sound are its purpose, your audience, the file size, the quality of sound quality you want, and differences in browsers. Note: Sound files are handled very differently and inconsistently by different browsers. To improve consistency, you may want to save sound files as SWFs. About audio file formats The following list describes the more common audio file formats and some of the advantages and disadvantages of each for Web design. Some audio formats require that visitors to your site download and install a helper application or plugin such as QuickTime, Windows Media Player, or RealPlayer.
The MIDI or MID (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) format is for instrumental music. MIDI files are supported by many browsers and don't require a plug-in. Although their sound quality can be very good, this can vary depending on a visitor's sound card. A small MIDI file can provide a long sound clip. MIDI files cannot be recorded and must be synthesized on a computer with special hardware and software. Use this format if you want background sounds to play when pages open up. WAV (Waveform Extension) format files have good sound quality, are supported by many browsers, and don't require a plug-in. You can record your own WAV files from a CD, tape, microphone, and so on. However, the large file size severely limits the length of sound clips that you can use on your Web pages. The AIF (Audio Interchange File Format, or AIFF) format like WAV files, also has good sound quality, can be played by most browsers, and doesn't require a plug-in; you can also record AIFF files from a CD, tape, microphone, and so on. However, the large file size limits the length of sound clips that you can use on your Web pages. The MP3 (Motion Picture Experts Group Audio, or MPEG-Audio Layer-3) format is a compressed format that makes sound files substantially smaller. You can use MP3 to convert large stereo WAV/AIFF files to a more manageable format without compromising on the sound quality, which is very good: if an MP3 file is recorded and compressed properly, it can rival a CD. You can stream the file so that a visitor doesn't have to wait for the entire file to download before hearing it. However, the file size is larger than a Real Audio file, so a whole song could still take quite a while to download over a normal phone line connection. To play MP3 files, visitors must download and install a helper application or plug-in such as QuickTime, Windows Media Player, or RealPlayer.
The RA, RAM, RPM, or Real Audio format has a very high degree of compression with smaller file sizes than MP3. Whole song files can be downloaded in a reasonable amount of time. Because the files can be streamed from a normal Web server, visitors can begin listening to the sound before the file has completely downloaded. The sound quality is poorer than that of MP3 files, but new players and encoders have improved quality considerably. Visitors must download and install the RealPlayer helper application or plug-in in order to play these files. The AU, SND, or Sun or Java format is similar to the WAV and AIFF formats, but the compression is more flexible. This format is used exclusively for Java applets and applications and therefore is compatible across platforms. It is also very popular on SUN/Unix machines. Linking to an audio file Linking to an audio file is a simple and effective way to add sound to a Web page. This method of incorporating sound files lets visitors choose whether or not they want to listen to the file and makes the file available to the widest audience. (Some browsers may not support embedded sound files.) To create a link to an audio file: 1 Select the text or image you want to use as the link to the audio file. 2 In the Property inspector, click the folder icon to browse for the audio file, or type the file's path and name in the Link text box. Embedding audio
Embedding audio incorporates the sound player directly into the page, but the sound plays only if visitors to your site have the appropriate plug-in for the chosen sound file. Embed files if you want to use the sound as background music, or if you want more control over the sound presentation itself. For example, you can set the volume, the way the player looks on the page, and the beginning and ending points of the sound file. To embed an audio file: 1 In the Design view of the Document window, place the insertion point where you want to embed the file. 2 Click the Plugin button in the Objects panel, or choose Insert > Media > Plugin. 3 In the Property inspector, click the folder icon to browse for the audio file, or type the file's path and name in the Link text box. 4 Enter the width and height by entering the values in the appropriate text boxes or by resizing the plug-in placeholder in the Document window. These values determine the size at which the audio controls are displayed in the browser. For example, try a width of 144 pixels and a height of 60 pixels to see how the audio player appears in both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. Adding video You can add video to your Web page in different ways and using different formats. Video can be downloaded to the user or it can be streamed so that it plays while it is downloading. The most common streaming formats available on the Web for the transmission of video files are RealMedia, QuickTime, and
Windows Media. You must download a helper application in order to view these formats. With these formats, you can stream audio and video simultaneously. If you'd like to include a short clip that can be downloaded rather than streamed, you can link to the clip or embed it in your page. These clips are often in the AVI or MPEG file format. You can use Director to create Shockwave movies or Flash to create interactive, low-bandwidth, multimedia presentations for the Web. With Flash, file size is surprisingly small, and the technology works across many platforms. (Of course, users must first download the free player plug-in before they can view these files.) In the following sections, we'll focus on adding Shockwave and Flash files to your documents using Dreamweaver 4. Inserting Shockwave movies Shockwave, the Macromedia standard for interactive multimedia on the Web, is a compressed format that allows media files created in Macromedia Director to be downloaded quickly and played by most popular browsers. The software that plays Shockwave movies is available as both a Netscape Navigator plug-in and an ActiveX control. When you insert a Shockwave movie, Dreamweaver uses both the object tag (for the ActiveX control) and the embed tag (for the plug-in) to get the best results in all browsers. When you make changes in the Property inspector for the movie, Dreamweaver maps your entries to the appropriate parameters for both the object and the embed tags. To insert a Shockwave movie: 1 In the Design view of the Document window, place the insertion point where you want to insert the Shockwave movie. 2 Do one of the following:
Click the Shockwave button on the Objects panel. Choose Insert > Media > Shockwave. Drag the Shockwave button to your document. 3 In the dialog box that appears, select a movie file. 4 In the Property inspector, enter the width and height of the movie in the W and H text boxes.