Never Mind! Fixed! Start Player 1 Freezes LC

[NullSet]

Oopsie!

After posting my query, I investigated the problem further and answered my own question, so I deleted it. To anyone who pondered my question without replying, thank you for thinking about it!

It looks like there was an old bug, which caused LC to crash when more than one player was started around the same time. That has apparently been fixed.

I think I was getting freezes because the file paths in the players were invalid. I've got a new computer and username, hence new file paths. I'll write some new scripts to check for invalid
"source" in the players, to prevent problems like that in the future.

Tim

[Klaus]

I think you are a spammer and give you one day to prove you are not!

[NullSet]

How do I prove I am not a spammer? What if I don't spam? Would that prove it?

I previously typed:

To anyone who pondered my question without replying, thank you for thinking about it!

Is that the sort of thing that spammers type?

Your comment is so odd, I can't figure out if it's an un-funny joke, or "friendly" teasing. I think you are a troll, and give you one day to prove you are not!

I'm working on an ear-training stack. Last I heard, LC won't play musical sounds, so I recorded short musical sounds with a different application, in .mp3 format, and play them back, by script, with player objects. It would be nice if LC would bring back the old Play command from HyperCard, or something similar.

An older version of my stack froze frequently, apparently because of a bug that inconsistently caused freezes when two or more players were started around the same time. Apparently, that has been fixed. My stack works correctly now, after I fixed some other problems that were causing freezes.

I've learned over the years that if I cannot solve a problem, then ask for help on the forum, I solve my own problem a few hours later, before I get help on the forum. That happened again. I hate to waste others' valuable time getting suggestions for a problem I have already solved. So, I decided to delete my post, with a short explanation.

I used to have a different account, but I couldn't reset my password. If I try to reset my password, I'm told that my username and email aren't associated with an account. But if I try to register, using my email, I'm told that my email is associated with an existing account. This is a registration bug that bothered me several years ago, and yes, I did report it at the time. Yesterday, to save time, I created a new account. I've been away from LiveCode for two or three years.

Is this forum a warm and fuzzy place for amateur-level LC users? I give you one day to prove it is

Jacque has always been friendly and helpful. The others? Not all are reliable sources of support and encouragement.

[Klaus]

Hi Tim,

I have to apologize, I had a very bad day, I am really really sorry.
Well, I am not a troll, but a forum moderator with more than 10000 postings.
Sounds funny, but is true.

Is this forum a warm and fuzzy place for amateur-level LC users? I give you one day to prove it is

It actually is, I hope the above excuse will be prove enough.
Again, my apologies, that is not my usual behavior, and thank you for taking my faux-pas quite humorously and not freaking out!

Hm, wrong pathnames for players and images usually do not make LC crash.
But you have been able to fix this, which is great.

I previously typed:

To anyone who pondered my question without replying, thank you for thinking about it!

Is that the sort of thing that spammers type?

Yep, something like that, and the fact that this was your first posting, sorry for my distrust.


Best

Klaus

[NullSet]

Klaus,

I'm sorry you embarrassed yourself. Dude, I've been there too! Feels kinda funny, don't it?

Apology accepted.

My players did freeze LC a few times because of wrong pathnames. In a perfect world, that wouldn't happen. It's not a big deal. Scripts can always check for wrong pathnames before the Start command.

I do wish someone would fix the registration bug on the forum, though. It's been going on for years.

Tim

[bogs]

Well, I am not a troll, but a forum moderator with more than 10000 postings.

In other words, he is a loveable Ogre. How silly of you to mix those two up

I've learned over the years that if I cannot solve a problem, then ask for help on the forum, I solve my own problem a few hours later, before I get help on the forum. That happened again.

Happens to me all the time, so I know the feeling

Last I heard, LC won't play musical sounds, so I recorded short musical sounds with a different application, in .mp3 format, and play them back, by script, with player objects. It would be nice if LC would bring back the old Play command from HyperCard, or something similar.

There is actually a play command, which you can find out more about either in the

play
type
command
syntax

play [clipType] {filePath | clip} [looping] [at point] [options xOptions]
play {stop | pause | resume | step {forward | back}} [clipType] [clip]

summary
Plays a movie or sound.
introduced 1.0
OS - mac, windows, linux, ios
platforms - desktop, server, mobile
parameters - Name Type Description clipType enum

The type of clip to play. audioClip videoClip

filePath - The location and name of the file you want to play. If you specify a name but not a location, LiveCode assumes the file is in the defaultFolder.

clip - A reference to an audio clip or video clip in an open stack.

point - Specifies the center of the movie to be played, relative to the current stack window. If the point is not specified, the movie is positioned at the center of the current card. If a sound is being played, the point has no effect.

xOptions - Are command line parameters passed to the "xanim" package on Unix systems. (On Mac OS and Windows systems, this parameter has no effect.).

examples-

play "/usr/local/clips/music.aiff"
play videoClip "Movie" at 100,100
play audioClip "Trust No One" looping
play "/usr/local/clips/music.aiff"

# to stop the currently playing audio clip
play stop

You can also go to Max's excellent Wiki and do a search for play, which will probably return more information than you can use

Jacque has always been friendly and helpful.

I couldn't agree more with that sentiment, but I think everyone else here tries to live up to the same standard. Jacque is just one of the best-est

[Klaus]

Hi Tim,

I'm working on an ear-training stack. Last I heard, LC won't play musical sounds, so I recorded short musical sounds with a different application, in .mp3 format, and play them back, by script, with player objects. It would be nice if LC would bring back the old Play command from HyperCard, or something similar.

LC does in fact still support the "play" command, but it is very picky when it comes to the supported sound formats!

You can "play" uncompressed WAV and AIF files and the "compressed by nature" AU format.
And you can only play ONE sound at a time with the PLAY command.


Best

Klaus

[NullSet]

Thanks to bogs and Klaus on this thread.

The old Play command in hyperCard would play a musical note from one of several instruments, as I recall. The user could determine the pitch and duration, by script. No need to import a sound clip or anything. There have been times when I wished for that. On the other hand, it probably only played one sound at a time.

If LC could do what hyperCard used to do with the Play command using native sounds, and play several sounds at once, it would make it easier to write musical stacks like my project.

Tim

[bogs]

Oh I see, your talking about something like midi. Thierry wrote a program that will do that for Apple I am pretty sure, and a few others have taken a stab at it as well.

On the other hand, it probably only played one sound at a time.

I don't know if that was an issue or not, but I think the larger issue is that it wasn't completely cross platform. I.e. you can't get it to work for say, 'nix for sure. May not be the large issue for you, though

Thinking about the way Lc plays though, I am sure you are correct that it can not play several sounds at once. I don't think, though, that is a limitation of Lc itself per se, I know for a fact that RB can't play more than one sound at a time either with out a lot of jim-crackery going on. I don't know if Python can or not.

[NullSet]

Oh I see, your talking about something like midi. Thierry wrote a program that will do that for Apple I am pretty sure, and a few others have taken a stab at it as well.

I've heard of an LC extension that makes it much easier to create music stacks. Is it still available?

I don't know if that was an issue or not, but I think the larger issue is that it wasn't completely cross platform.

This was a LOONNGG time ago. Cross-platform versions of HyperCard had not yet been dreamed of.

Thinking about the way Lc plays though, I am sure you are correct that it can not play several sounds at once.

LC can do that now, with Players and external sounds. The Player bug has been fixed. But it's cumbersome if you want a lot of sounds and you want do so something complicated.


Thanks!

Tim

[Klaus]

Hi Tim,

here the links to the above mentioned LC midi stuff:
http://sunny-tdz.com/livecode/sunnymidi
https://sunny-tdz.com/livecode/shakobox

Best

Klaus

[SparkOut]

Well, I am not a troll, but a forum moderator with more than 10000 postings.

In other words, he is a loveable Ogre. How silly of you to mix those two up

Klaus is not a loveable ogre, he's a loveable kid who just happened to grow up with a hard head.
viewtopic.php?p=40553#p40553
As long as you don't spell his name wrongly.
I can just about get away with Klausimausi but just don't say Kalus or Kluaus or anything like that.

[bogs]

Ogre, troll, or kid, at least we can agree he is loveable. Just don't call him Sinterklaas (even though he is)

bogs wrote: ↑
Fri Dec 28, 2018 4:16 pm
I don't know if that was an issue or not, but I think the larger issue is that it wasn't completely cross platform.

This was a LOONNGG time ago. Cross-platform versions of HyperCard had not yet been dreamed of.

My bad, I should have specified I was talking about Lc, not Hypercard

The larger issue (for RunRev) is that you can't really do midi cross platform reliably, particularly where it comes to 'nix. I should add that doesn't mean impossible, especially on Mac and Win, but you couldn't do Win for instance like it was in Hypercard on Mac.

Now, if one of *my* favorite requests ever got fulfilled, where Lc has their own sound/video related driver developed so you don't have to rely on someone elses stuff to generate sound/video (like qt back in the day, or the way it is currently setup), that might make it easier to do midi like sound, possibly even multi instrument

Hi Tim,

here the links to the above mentioned LC midi stuff:
http://sunny-tdz.com/livecode/sunnymidi
https://sunny-tdz.com/livecode/shakobox

Best
Klaus

Thanks Klaus, I had not been able to find the links again

[NullSet]

here the links to the above mentioned LC midi stuff:

Hey Klaus, I would love to have this functionality. Oh! The music tutorials I could write!

I'm not hopeful, though. The "Buy it" "Try it" "Questions" and other links on this site seem to be dead.

Anybody else know anything about this? Does Thierry still participate here? I'll try searching for him.

Edit: It looks like he last posted here on January 12, 2018.

Tim

[bogs]

Thierry has been away a long time, and I for one miss him sorely