Loading sound from an external source (i.e, not embedded in the .swf file) is really easy to do once you know how. I am going to use the same example as i used for the last tutorial but the sound is not going to be embedded in the .swf it is going to be hosted on my site

Here is the example. I have changed the sound to a whole song to demonstrate how quickly it takes to load.

Important!

Before i started i uploaded a .mp3 file to the internet so that i could call it with a URL request in this code.

You will need to do this for this code to work from the internet, alternatively you can put a sound file in the root classpath of your .fla (this is usually the same folder as the .fla).

Another important note

if you are loading a file on the internet change you publish settings for flash to “access network file only” and if you are loading it from a folder change it to “access local files only”.

To do this it was simple. I replaced one line of the old code for three more lines of code.

I replaced the line:

var sound:Sound = new acoust();

with:

var loadsound:URLRequest = new URLRequest(”http://where my mp3 file is on the internet.mp3″);

var sound:Sound = new Sound();

sound.load(loadsound);

Line 1: a new variable called loadsound which requests the file from the url mentioned inside the brackets and the “”

line 2: a variable like before that holds a blank instance of the sound class instead of the class that we made called acoust.

line 3: loading the sound that we got from the internet via the URL request into the blank instance of the sound class that we named earlier. 

Note: if you want to load the sound locally from a folder you just replace “http://where my mp3 file is on the internet.mp3″ with “sound name.mp3” 

The complete code for ease.

import flash.media.Sound;

var loadsound:URLRequest = new URLRequest(“http://where my mp3 file is on the internet.mp3″);

var sound:Sound = new Sound();

sound.load(loadsound);

var channel:SoundChannel;

var soundisplaying:Boolean = false;

var pausePosition:int = 0;

playbut.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, playsound);

stopbut.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, stopsound);

function playsound(event:Event):void {

if (soundisplaying==false) {

channel = sound.play(pausePosition);

soundisplaying = true;

channel.addEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, soundComplete);

}

}

function stopsound(event:Event):void {

pausePosition = channel.position;

channel.stop();

soundisplaying =false;

}

function soundComplete(event:Event):void {

channel = sound.play();

channel.addEventListener(Event.SOUND_COMPLETE, soundComplete);

}

Ok this will hopefully help some of you.

i am going away for a week so don’t expect any more posts until i get back!

Ok, starting off with an example, heres an example where it loops infinitely and you are able to pause and resume it.

In flash, sometimes you might want to add a sound using actionscript, for example:- background music that repeats for ever, or a sound that plays only when you shoot a gun. I’m going to show you how to make this happen!   

1st, find a sound or some music that you have in your computer, when you have found one remember its file path.

Next open up flash cs3 and click File:Import:Import to Library. and then choose your sounds file path from the menu that pops up. 

Then, press control + L to open the library and something like this should appear. 

Obviously the sound name will be different, but it will look mostly the same as this.

Next right click on the sound name (highlighted) and choose linkage from the menu that appears.

 

A box should pop up that looks something like this, but without the “Export for ActionScript” checkbox ticked. 

Check this and then write a class name in the box that is highlighted on the screenshot. But you have to remember this, as we will be using it a bit later. I have called mine “acoust”, so if you have problems with the script i suggest you use that name.

Now we are ready to make the sound play.

just 3 lines of actionscript are required to make the sound play.

import flash.media.Sound;
var sound:Sound = new acoust();
sound.play(0, 99);

I am not going to make a demo, as it will be quite CPU intensive and also it will interfere with the later experiments.

Line 1: importing the necessary classes for the sound to play.

Line 2: Setting up a new variable “sound”, which is a copy of the class “acoust” that we set up earlier.

Line 3: Setting the variable “sound” to play 99 times starting at 0 miliseconds.

Now lets make some buttons that can stop and play the sound.

This script is a lot more complicated than the 1st script that i showed you this is because i have had  to play and stop the sound on command. For this i had to add 2 more variables, one to see if the sound was playing and another one that is a soundchannel variable. some code:-

import flash.media.Sound;
var sound:Sound = new acoust();
var channel:SoundChannel;
var soundisplaying:Boolean = false;
playbut.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, playsound);
stopbut.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, stopsound);
function playsound(event:Event):void {
if (soundisplaying==false) {
channel = sound.play(0, 99);
soundisplaying = true;
}
}
function stopsound(event:Event):void {
channel.stop();
soundisplaying =false;
}