Other media players open and play MIDI files in your browser

[Sherry C]

Hi friends,

I've had a lot of requests at the helpdesk lately about other media players "stealing" the association of MIDI (.mid) files or opening them in the user's browser rather than Notation Musician or Notation Composer. That often happens when a new media player is installed or updated, and it's not particularly nice of them to usurp those file associations. However, there is hope :)

You can review our KnowledgeBase article for specific steps to associate .mid files with Notation Software products. You can find that article by clicking here. (http://notation.com/helpdesk/admin/support/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=78)

A couple of media players use a bit of a "stealth" approach to running their software in your browser. Here are two that I'm familiar with, and the specific steps that (should) work for not having them immediately playback MIDI files.

QuickTime (full installation - the Player-only version seems to behave a bit better and allows the "regular" Windows associations to rule its behavior):


Open QuickTime
Select "Edit/Preferences/QuickTime Preferences" then the "Streaming" tab
There is an option called "Instant On." Checking this option will automatically play all audio media in QuickTime when a web page is opened or a linked filename is clicked. Uncheck this option.


RealPlayer:


Open RealPlayer
Select “Tools/Preferences”
In the left hand panel, under “General”, select “Playback settings.”
In the bottom of the right-hand panel, make sure that “Instantly play media links instead of downloading them” is unchecked.


If you have insights into these or other media players and how to make them play nice, please feel free to post it here in this thread :)

Thanks!
Sherry

[rrayner]

Thank you very much for this tip, Sherry. This has been a major source of frustration for me, and I'm sure for many others. RRR

[mgj32]

Hello all,
This will work in Firexfox with tabbed browsing, and should in any tabbed bowser. If you have a .not file you want to play in your browser, click for it to open in a new tab, and choose Notation Composer as the program to open it. You can also choose for the choice to always open a file (in Firefox) with the same extension. This method will save a bit of time getting .not files downloaded and opened.

best,
mgj

[Sherry C]

Hi friends,

It seems that updates of Windows Media Player aren't playing nice always, either.

To set the file association to your Notation software:



Use Windows Explorer to navigate to a .mid file on your hard drive.
Right-click the filename, and select "Open with..."
Choose your Notation software product (eg. notation composer, notation musician, or notation player) from the list.
Make sure the "Always use this program..." box is checked.
Click "Ok" to save the change and exit the dialog.

ttfn,
Sherry