Background sound

[johnnyk]

What's the best way to embed a sound into a webpage so that it will work with most browsers? Also has to be something that doesn't give the Firefox plugin error.

[CoderGenius]

Well I'm not positive about the firefox plugin error, but this should work in all browsers:
[hr]
[pre]<embed src="Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (Scherzo).wma" autostart="true" loop="true" width="500"
height="100">
</embed>
<noembed>
<bgsound src="Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (Scherzo).wma" loop="infinite">
</noembed>[/pre]
[hr]
just use your sound file instead of that one.
the noembed tags are so that older versions of IE can use it, and it keeps newer versions of IE from reading it and the embeded one and getting an error.
Hope this helps

[CoderGenius]

oh ya and you can change the height and width to whatever size you need.
(making them both zero makes it Invisible)

[Daniel0]

Many people are annoyed by background music. It's one of the most annoying things on the internet.

[ToonMariner]

you shoudl never play a sound with out asking the user!!!!!

[phprocker]

Doesn't <embed> work with all browers these days?  Is <noembed> still needed? 

[fenway]

I didn't think that FF would handle windows media files properly by default... but EMBED isn't a W3C tag, nor is BGSOUND -- OBJECT would be the right way to go.

[smashingred]

<embed> was developed by Netscape in the 90s as part of many proprietary elements during the browser wars between them and MicroSoft. It behaves buggy in Firefox but is supported by Internet Explorer.

That aside if you want to learn about what is called bounce rates put audio on your page and play it without asking the user. It is considered both rude and invasive. For the most part people expect for their browsing experience to be silent unless they are actively using a multimedia file. It was trendy for amateurs to put midi files into their pages and autoplay on load back in the mid 90s. It along with flash sites with obtrusive intros or annoying splash pages are not user oriented and will put off more people that they impress.

If you want people to be interested in the sound you have to offer I would suggest a prominent link in the middle of the page or in an obvious place to say, "Turn On Music" or some such.