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Topic: NCW Player (Read 7549 times) previous topic - next topic

NCW Player

A couple of questions about the Noteworthy Player if I may. Is there any way to permanently change where the player first opens to look for music files? When I bring up the player and click on the 'open' icon it always goes to 'my documents' I'd like to get it to open into my NCW Composer directory where I keep all my music files.

Question two is; why does the player sound so much better than the composer when playing back a midi file? When I open a midi file in the composer the sound and timing are usually off, sometimes quite a bit. Opening the same midi file with the player gives a good sounding song. I've tried varying the settings that come up in the composer when opening a midi file (rests, notes, etc) but it still never sounds as good as the player version.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #1 –
The player "cheates" by playing the midi file, not the (imperfectly) imported tranlation used by Composer.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #2 –
I suspect it's because your midi mapper is mapped to a different device than the one you have activated for Composer. Remember that Player /always/ uses the midi mapper, whereas Composer lets you select whichever devices you have available. If the midi mapper happens to be mapped to a different device (e.g. wavetable synth) than you have set in composer (e.g. OPL3 FM synth) then your sound will be very different indeed.

Try this. In Composer, under Tools --> Options --> Midi tab, select the Midi mapper as your only playback device. Everything should now sound identical in Composer and Player.

If you want to change where the midi mapper points to, open the Multimedia applet, midi tab in Control Panel.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #3 –
Ah so, I see said the blind man. Thanx for the info, Blair and Fred, that would explain a lot.

Happy music to all.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #4 –
Welp, I am running Windows 98, I believe the second edition and version 1.7 of the NWC Player. I right clicked on the shortcut that I have on my desktop and then left clicked on 'properties'. In the box that says 'Start in' I put C:\program files\noteworthy composer. I also tried putting 'maximized' in the box labeled 'Run', but that didn't change anything and I still have to click on the icon in the upper right to get the full page display.

Hope this helps.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #5 –
Oh yea, I am also using the 32bit version of 'Player'.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #6 –
Well, if you are getting the 32-bit edition of the Player to respond to the "Start in" property on a shortcut, I am quite impressed (since this is not supported at this time, and does not work on any system that we have here).

Also, if you are saving your files inside the NoteWorthy Composer program folder, I would recommend that you reconsider this. Storing files inside program folders is usually not a very good idea.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #7 –
Robert, I do not understand your comment. The properties of an EXE file do not include a "Start in" property, so it would be unusual to confuse this with the properties for a shortcut.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #8 –
NW Online wrote:

> Well, if you are getting the 32-bit edition of the Player
> to respond to the "Start in" property on a shortcut, I am
> quite impressed (since this is not supported at this time,
> and does not work on any system that we have here).

Works here too! (Win 95 OSR2.5) Wonder if it has to do with the common controls update? In any case, it's a dandy feature, intentional or not.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #9 –
Correction. I need to go to school on the whole "Start in" shortcut property thing.

The "Start in" property of a shortcut to the Player does seem to work in many cases, but not all. I tried a shortcut on the desktop and that seems to work. Shortcuts selected via the Start menu do not seem to respond to the "Start in" property. Shortcuts to programs not residing on the C:\ drive seem to rarely work as expected.

I guess the bottom line is that if it works for you, great, but be aware that your mileage may vary.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #10 –
Have you tried to set the "working directory" to the one you'd want, in the .lnk file (shortcut) ?
I can't test right here, but usually this works.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #11 –
This does not work in the Player, at least not in Windows 95,98, NT 4, and 2000. We will try to make this better in the next version.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #12 –
Thanx for giving me a clue, marsu. I right clicked on the desktop shortcut and selected 'properties' in this there is a box where you can specify the 'Start In' directory. i entered C:\program files\noteworthy composer and TA DA! there were my music files.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #13 –
Henry, what version of Windows and Player are you using? I am surprised that this worked for you unless you are using Win 3.1.

Re: NCW Player

Reply #15 –
Perhaps you are confusing the effect of right-clicking on the icon for the Player itself, versus right-clicking on the icon for a Shortcut that leads to the Player?

Re: NCW Player

Reply #16 –
My point about Shortcut versus program itself: In Windows (98, at least) a shortcut icon has its own set of properties (as a shortcut) that are unrelated to the program or document linked. When I want a custom-made icon for a program or document, I cannot change the appearance of the icon for the program or document itself. But I *can* create a shortcut to the program or document, then change the icon for the shortcut! This seems to be a property of Windows, unrelated to NWC.

For example, suppose you want to have all of your NWC compositions with a "Jazz theme" have a different icon than those with a "Science fiction" theme. You can find free software that will convert small bitmaps to icons. Perhaps you would make a small saxophone icon to represent Jazz, and a small Saturn icon to represent Sci-fi. Then you would create a folder for Jazz documents, and a folder for sci-fi documents. Next, create shortcuts to the folders, then use "properties" to change the folder icons. This does nothing to the files themselves, just to the appearance of the folder shortcuts. It will only work on your own system. If you want it to work for someone else too, you will have to send them your icons and tell them to create shortcuts and change the properties.

I do things like that all the time ("Idle hands = Devil's workshop").

Re: NCW Player

Reply #17 –
addendum: the information for the 'shortcuts' (links) is all contained in files with a .lnk extension. For desktop links you'll find them in \Windows\Desktop. Presuming that your friend has the same kind of directory setup, you could send him the .lnk file along with the .ico (icon) file. In general though, I agree that simply creating the shortcut from scratch would be easier.
 

Re: NCW Player

Reply #18 –
About sending .lnk files : with Lotus notes at least, I didn't try with others: when you select the .lnk file and join it as an attached file, then the linked file (.exe for example) is joined. Not the .lnk.
The sole turnaround I found was to rename the shrotcut file to .link instead of .lnk, and the people who receives it must do the contrary.
Or zip it :-)
just in case...