Digital Workshop

I use the launch file action to play media files via the Windows Media Player

Example : launch this file : mplayer2.exe
with option/parameter :pocahontas.mp3

Everything works perfectly - the Media player opens and the files plays.

What I want to know is : Is there a way - in Opus - to keep the player on top of the Opus Pub, because when the user clicks around somewhere else the player is gone. Are there any command line options for the Media Player to keep it on top of any other applications ?

Hi Klaus,

Thank you for your enquiry.

A list of command line parameters which can be used with Media Player 6.2 is available on the Microsoft Knowledgebase:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... -US;241422

However, it appears that it is not possible to control the 'Always on Top' setting from these parameters.

The only solution I can think of would be to modify the registry entry which controls Media Player's On Top behaviour. This appears to be set by the "AlwaysOnTop" key in the following area of the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\Settings

If you are using Opus Pro XE 04, you could use a WriteRegistryValue() function to set this "AlwaysOnTop" key to 'true'. You could then launch Windows Media Player 6.2 with the filename passed as a parameter and the Media Player window should stay on top of other windows.

If you are not using Opus Pro XE 04, you will be unable to directly edit this area of the registry, but there may be freeware utilities available which can modify registry settings based on parameters, or you could include a .reg file on the publication CD containing the required information and launch this file from within the publication (although this will display an on-screen prompt asking the user to agree to the registry changes).

Kind regards,

Thanks for your quick help Robin.

As I only have Opus Pro and not XE I will have to try something else .

Klaus,

Is there a reason you need the video to be displayed in Media Player?

regards

Brenden Knifton
DW

Hi Brendon

I have sound recordings for pupils that I want to use and the Media Player gives me more flexibility , like listening to a certain passage again using the sliders or going to a certain part of the recording very quickly.

That's why I once asked - in a post - if it were possible to embed the Windows Media Player , like for example creating a live Viewport (as can be done for a Word document) since almost all users have the Media Player installed on their computers .

I've tried out using sound with the DocView object and some strange things have happened :

When linking a WMA file as a source document Windows Media player starts and plays but not in the DocView object - it plays full screen in its own window.

When linking an MP3 file Quicktime loads- even though I have the MP3 extension associated with Windows Media Player - in the DocView object but the audio sound is very distorted and sounds like an echo.

Hi, I believe that the pub you have created with opus runs full screen and this is the reason of why media player disappears when pupils click anywhere on the screen.

The easy way without scripting will be to setup windows media player to run "always on top". You can do this by going to view, then choose visualization and make sure you tick "always in top when run in skin mode". Then go to view, skin chooser an select one skin big enough to play a good size video.

A simple procedure to show students how to do it and this will resolve your issue.

I hope it helps

German

It is possible to embed Windows Media Player in a webpage and then get Opus to display that webpage in a Brower or Doc view object. This maintains the features of Media player (Scrub bars, Volume controls etc.) This gives you the controls you want but keeps the video in your publication so you will have no problem with the ontop issue.

I did have an example publication but this is at the office and I am answering this from home and won't be back in the office until Tuesday.

You can get hold of the Microsoft SDK from the link below, this has example webpages and the HTML code needed to link your files into media player in a webpage.


Watch the word wrap you need the whole url.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... layLang=en