Sound options

Track control panel

The track control panel allows the track to be stopped and rewound. If it is not displayed then the applet will be invisible and not take up any space on the web page.

After displaying applet

Once the applet is displayed the sound need not be started. If the control panel is also displayed then the user can choose to start the movie when they are ready.

At end of track

When the track finishes the applet creator can choose to have the sound terminate or loop. Termination can involve simply ending the track or the option can be selected to blank out the movie screen in which case the resources that the track consumes on the client computer are immediately released.

Location of software to play movie

The software to play the track can either be included in the applet or the applet can expect to find the Java Media Framework plugin installed on the client machine.

Expecting the plugin has the advantage that the maximum numbers of media types is catered for and that the best possible performance can be achieved using a version of JMF that is tuned for a particlular platform (eg. the Windows version). There are two disadvantages:

Including the player software with the applet does not require a plugin and will not cause Netscape to ask questions. The disadvantages are:

Width of control panel

The control panel is always the same height but the width in pixels can be set.