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A hello and request for suggestions


Doc

Well-Known Member
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Hi all,

First, I wanted to say that I've been browsing this board for a few days since I discovered it and I am very much impressed with not only the quality of the work you guys do but in the friendly manner which you help others...new to photoshop or not.

As for myself, I am a novice at photoshop and there is so much to it...I've barely scratched the surface.

I have an idea I'm trying to impliment but am not even sure where to begin. I have an image of a juke box on one of my web pages where you can click on any of the buttons to start the appropriate song. What I'd like to do is a rollover effect where the window that the song 'label' is in 'lights up' when the mouse is over the button. I'll attach a small version of the juke box below and a link to my web page so you can see what I'm talking about.

Any help on the best way to get started would very much be appreciated. I know I've probably gotten way over my head on this idea, but I'd sure like to give it a try.

Here's the web link: http://www.glewis.net/jukebox.htm

Thanks,

Doc
 

namvet

Power User
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welcome Doc, ... getting outside of the square is what's it's all about, for me anyway, ... have heaps of ideas but can't impliment them 'cos they are very high up on the the learning curve I'm climbing ... but it's fun getting there :) can't help you with your quest but there are heaps here who can/will

btw .. question ... a starlite? ... if the question confuses don't worry :D
 

wbiss

Guru
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Welcome Doc to the forum! :)

It's a great idea that you have and one that you're sure to find help with here. Unfortunately, not from me... Not to worry as there are web experts amongst this fine group who will reply to you soon. :)
 
G

Guest

Guest
Welcome to the board Doc :perfect:

I don't think that I'm going to be a lot of help.
I do know how to do it in Dreamweaver (using behaviours), but I rather leave this one for the experienced web designers among us.

Trust me, give it time; they will show up ;)
 

Doc

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Wow...thanks for the quick welcome. Whether your able to help or not, it's nice to be greeted so soon.

Here's what I think I need to do to start:
I believe I would have to make a seperate layer for each label window and to be sure each layer maintains the correct location so they can be superimposed later...but, do I need a seperate layer for each state (off & on)?

If that's one way of starting off...then what?


namvet,

starlite? You got me there. I know of a couple of meanings of 'starlite'...just not sure which you were referring to.
(btw...U.S. Navy 1963-1967 / USS Oriskany CVA-34)

Gausian,

I use Front Page 2000 which uses 'hoover buttons' but I don't think it will handle what I have in mind.

Doc

If you've gone to my juke box page, I hope you liked the music.
 

SilvrWolf

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Doc Welcome to the board.
As far as your request your just asking for a rollover. You have to do several things. First, you already have your STEADY (default) state picture. The Jukebox. Next you need to create the OVER image. This is the image that will appear when the cursor is over. You can also create a third, optional image for the DOWN state. This is the image that shows when you click the mouse.

Once you have the pieces you must put them together. The only way that this will work other than using Flash is to take your ORIGINAL image of the Jukebox and bring it into ImageReady. You will then have to slice the image up appropriately. Each individual area that will be a rollover must be sliced accordingly. Then you can use ImageReady's HTML output. it will create the appropriate table structure for you. Then my next piece of advice would be to go to any Javascript site and do a search for ROLLOVER. this will provide you with the javascript needed to perform the rollovers. It will also show you how to pre-load all your images so there is no delay when you do a rollover. It will also give you the onClick() and onOver() commands which go into the image links. If you can not find this please let me know I'll fire up Dreamweaver and do a cut and paste example for ya.
 

theKeeper

Guru
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Hi Doc, welcome aboard. [excited]

SilvrWolf is right... it's just your basic slice job, and the use of altered copies of all the buttons for a simple 'rollOver' effect. However... you can do the whole job using just ImageReady if you like. Your specific image will definately be a fair bit'o work, i'll say that right off. ;)

This is a 'simple' effect to create in theory, but can be a long process to explain. In general, as mentioned, you'd drag Guidelines from your rulers into positions whereby all of the buttons are surrounded by Guidelines -- your basic grid setup. Then within ImageReady under the SLICE menu, you'd choose "Create Slices from Guides". That will automatically slice all of the buttons for you -- but no physical harm is actually done to your source image. They're just 'virtual' slices
You would then need to double-click on these slices (on their blue tabs upper left corner) and name them, plus fill-in a few other attributes for them.
And last... you'd need to assign the altered duplicates of all the buttons to function as the rollOver images.

And that's the basic gist of the method.

Here is a page where you'll find lots of info/tutorials on this:
http://www.graphicssoft.about.com/cs/imagereadytips/

Hope that helps.
And please feel free to aks for help with anything more on this. It can be a confusing effect to do if you're not used to using IR.
 

sfm

Guru
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Welcome Doc
looks like you have plenty of help here hope it helps
sfm
 

Doc

Well-Known Member
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A big THANKS to all of you for your help. I used imageready and just did one rollover effect to start with...just to see how well it worked. Whew...the load time will be even more awkward when I do all the rest of them.

There are actually two effects for the button. On mouse over, the label 'lights up' and On click, the music starts. That's exactly what I was hoping to achieve.

Here's the link to my results so far:
http://www.glewis.net/jukeboxlabeled1.htm

(The first song, "In the Mood" is the one with the rollover effect)

Doc
 

SilvrWolf

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Looks great Doc. Just optimize your images the best you can to get file size down.
 
G

Guest

Guest
One comment though: when I try to play the file "In the mood" I get a message back saying "missing codec". I'm using Win XP SP1. I was however able to play this song on win98 and win2k. You might want to check out on any other XP computer then your own, to see if this XP related or just a problem on my computer. I don't have problems to play any other wav or mp3 file.

Update: I FOUND THE CAUSE

Doc, make sure that you read my post on the next page of this thread.
 

Doc

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Gaussian,

That's really strange. I've had "In The Mood" up at my site for some time...just with a different way to access it and the rest of my songs. I haven't heard anyone else have that problem. Thanks for the headsup.

I too am using Win XP SP1.

I've completed the entire left side of the jukebox. Hope you don't have problems with the other songs as well.

Doc
 

wbiss

Guru
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Hey Doc, I can see that you've been busy! Good job, thus far! :perfect:
 
G

Guest

Guest
DOC, I found the problem.

I compared the installed codecs on my computer with a Win2k machine and found out that the Indeo Audio Software codec is not installed on my computer and I also found out the reason why.

Check the Ligos web iste: http://www.ligos.com/indeo.htm#xp

I quote:

"With the September 2002 update to Windows XP (known as Service Pack 1), Microsoft is no longer distributing any version of the Indeo codecs with its operating system. This only affects users with new PCs that are shipping with Windows XP Service Pack 1, or clean installs of Windows XP SP1 on an older system. Installation upgrades of SP1 and the use of Windows Update does not remove existing Indeo codecs from your system"

The reason why it works on your machine is because you probably installed SP1 after you installed XP.
My machine however is installed from scratch with a Windows XP SP1 installation CD and that's the reason why I don't have these codecs and the reason why I can't download them from the XP web site.

So the conclusion is; every user that has a new PC with Windows XP SP1 installed in the factory, will be unable to listen to your songs and also every user who installed XP using a Windows XP SP1 installation CD. At the moment these are just a minority, but you will hear more and more complaints in the future about users who will be unable to listen to your audio.

I thought you should know that ;)

Solution; don't use Indeo Codecs for your Wav files.
 

Doc

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I'm glad you found the answer to why you were unable to play the song, It looks like I may have to resample my music soon. To be sure, more and more computer users will have new systems shipped with XP SP1 installed.

And, you are correct. I recently downloaded SP1 to my already existing XP OS.

Many of the songs I have were originally in MP3 format. I resampled them to wav...this reduced file size from as high as 3 mb to around 500k in most cases. The loss in sound quality works to my advantage in that it helps give the music that old am radio/scratchy phonograph sound. Now I need to figure out how to best resample to ensure compatibility with SP1.

Doc
 

Tron

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Welcome Doc , been watching here good work so far. :perfect:

BTW I have the same problem as Gaussian playing In the Mood, using a favctory install on XP [confused]
 
G

Guest

Guest
Thanks Rick, because this confirms that the Indeo Codec that is not available is causing these problems.

Ok Doc, make you a deal; you try to figure out what the best universal codec is that you can use and when you're done and uploaded one to your web site, I will check to see if it works on XP SP1, Win2k SP3 and Win98 SE.

I already tried another codec in Sonic Foundry and the IMA ADPCM audio codec was working quite well; I managed to get 230kb for a 3.5MB MP3 converted to mono. It all depends what you prefer of course; quality, size, mono/stereo. To be on the safe side you might consider using only codecs that start with the text "Microsoft".

Let me know when uploaded a new sample file with the new codec.
 

fdeaton

Member
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I just looked at it everything worked very well. Actually I thought it was way cool and will come back later.
 

Doc

Well-Known Member
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Well, I resampled "In The Mood". Not sure if it will work any better but, it did cut 2kb from the file :) BTW, have you checked the Microsoft Knowledge Base regarding indeo codecs and XP?

Here's a snippet from the Microsoft Knowledge Base (no reference to SP1 however):

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - Q291948

Windows Media Player for Windows XP Supported Codecs:


...NOTE: Not all of the supported codecs are installed by default. These codecs will be downloadable when you play content that requires the codec.
There is an option in Media Player under tools to automatically download the necessary codecs. Have you given that a try? It would be just like MS to discontinue including indeo codecs with nothing compatable to replace it. [confused]
mediacodecs.gif



Doc
http://www.glewis.net/jukeboxlabeled1.htm (now completed)
 
G

Guest

Guest
Doc, I don't know about you but the information on the Indeo web site is perfectly clear; Indeo is not going to be included in XP anymore.
It's all in in black and white and very well explained in their statement.
This a good example of an ending licence agreement, in this case for a codec.
 

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