Cross-platform, cross-browser way to play sound fr

Question

I am writing a dhtml application that creates an interactive simulation of a system. The data for the simulation is generated from another tool, and there is already a very large amount of legacy data.

Some steps in the simulation require that we play "voice-over" clips of audio. I've been unable to find an easy way to accomplish this across multiple browsers.

Soundmanager2 comes pretty close to what I need, but it will only play mp3 files, and the legacy data may contain some .wav files as well.

Does anyone have any other libraries that might help?

Answer 1

I liked dacracot's answer... here is a similar solution in jQuery:

function Play(sound) {
    $("#sound_").remove()
    $('body').append('<embed id="sound_" autostart="true" hidden="true" src="/static/sound/' + sound + '.wav" />');
}

Answer 2

You will have to include a plug-in like Real Audio or QuickTime to handle the .wav file, but this should work...

//======================================================================
var soundEmbed = null;
//======================================================================
function soundPlay(which)
    {
    if (!soundEmbed)
        {
        soundEmbed = document.createElement("embed");
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("src", "/snd/"+which+".wav");
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("hidden", true);
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("autostart", true);
        }
    else
        {
        document.body.removeChild(soundEmbed);
        soundEmbed.removed = true;
        soundEmbed = null;
        soundEmbed = document.createElement("embed");
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("src", "/snd/"+which+".wav");
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("hidden", true);
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("autostart", true);
        }
    soundEmbed.removed = false;
    document.body.appendChild(soundEmbed);
    }
//======================================================================

Answer 3

<audio controls>
  <source src="horse.ogg" type="audio/ogg">
  <source src="horse.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
Your browser does not support the audio element.
</audio>

See http://www.w3schools.com/html/html5_audio.asp for more details.

Answer 4

If you are using Mootools, there is the MooSound plugin.

Answer 5

If you're using Prototype, the Scriptaculous library has a sound API. jQuery appears to have a plugin, too.

Answer 6

I believe that the simplest and most convenient way would be to play the sound using a small Flash clip. I appreciate it's not a JavaScript solution but it IS the easiest way to achieve your goal

Some extra links from the previous similar question:

• Scriptaculous, a Javascript library: http://github.com/madrobby/scriptaculous/wikis/sound
• an opensource Flash project: Easy Musicplayer For Flash http://emff.sourceforge.net/