Does sound work in OpenOffice.org-1.9m133_en-US.dmg?

[Fredrik Stendahl]

Hi!

Before I go further on with this can someone else try to make sound work on latest release?

My steps: Tools: Gallery
Choose a sound file in the sounds sub gallery. Double click the sound. The Media Player opens and displays a question mark, no sound is heard.

I thought that sound was fixed some time ago and wonder now if it is my system locally that is at fault or if it is the build.

Regards
Fredrik

[sardisson]

I can confirm this behavior.

Also, if I use the "open" button in the media player and navigate to the location of the gallery sounds, I get an error dialogue: "The format of the selected file is not supported."

Smokey

[sardisson]

...and it's the case for every sound or media file I throw at the media player... MP3, QT, MPEG, AVI, WAV, AU, AIFF.

Busted.

Smokey

[ericbachard]

This is a complete FAQ : to have sound with OpenOffice.org 2.0, you must install JMF : <http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/jmf/>

If you think you're able to install it, just :

0) choose the cross-platform archive
1) download it
2) uncompress it, and place it in ~ (Users/your_login is your home dir)
(the result should be an existing /Users/your/login/JMF-2.1.1e dir )
3) start OpenOffice.org2
4) Tools -> Options-> Java
click on "Class Path"
click on "Add Archive"

place you in ~/JMF-2.2.1e/lib , and choose jmf.jar
click ok, and restart OpenOffice.org

-> If I made no mistake in my descriptions, sound will be available. Maybe video, but I don't exactly know which .jar has to be installed.

Note : another solution may consist in place jmf.jar in the system directory, this way, all users will be able to use jmf.

--
eric bachard

[Fredrik Stendahl]

Got it (JMF 2.2.1) and followed instructions.

Sound works!

Sorry to have blown the wistle unnecessarily.

Cheers

F

[ovvldc]

[sardisson]

A better question is why it isn't shipped with OOo to begin with; I can't imagine the mass of OOo users having some random Sun Java app already installed. And even if they did have it installed, the "OOo way" is to ship its own copy of everything, so we have Mac OS X Python and OOo Python, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

At the very least, there should be some release notes/readme on the .dmg with those instructions.

(Frankly, I still don't understand why OOo had to dump "integrated" sound that "just worked" in favor of a new, stand-alone app anyway, other than Sun wanted them to do so.)

Smokey

[sardisson]

There's now a stub article for this tip in the wiki, in the OOo 2.0-specific tips section.

Application Support (either in your own user folder, or in the main Library for multi-user setups) seems like a more appropriate, Mac-like place to put the JMF (and it won't clutter up the root of your user folder, either--also nice and Mac-like).

Of course, if you're also using other apps that expect this to be in some standard Java location, then that standard Java location would make sense, too, but I don't think most of us fall in that boat.

Smokey

[sardisson]

According to the Sun documentation, the JMF version available for us supports a very limited number of old, poor-quality video formats (but most of the audio ones). However, even that might be stretching the truth. I've found one H.263 movie the QT will play (it's a very lossy codec), but the JMF refuses to do so. I'll hunt around for some old Cinepak movies(!) and see if that support is a lie, too.

Yep, another lie. I found a ca. 1996 Cinepak version of the 1984 commercial that was on some Apple promo CD. It will actually load, but it's audio-only.

(I added the other .jars in the lib folder and restarted OOo, too, just to make sure.)

So once again Sun has foisted a poor media experience on Mac users. <sigh> Nihil novi. NIH big-time.

For the love of cute and cuddly kittens, QT has this whole Java thing in QT for Java; why isn't that being used so we can actually play media developed in, oh, this century!?

Smokey