The Speed Beep INIT causes the System Beep (which you set in the Control Panel) to play asyncronously ╤ that is, you can do other work while your Macintosh beeps. This isn╒t much of an advantage if you have one of the normal Macintosh beep sounds set, but if you have a longer custom beep sound it can be quite handy.
For example, I have a beep sound that is over 2 seconds long (it╒s the Apple Moof¬ sound). While using America Online, I typed a few characters while the software was doing something else. This causes it to beep once for each key pressed. I had to wait over 20 seconds for my Mac to stop beeping╔
So I wrote Speed Beep. If your Mac beeps once, Speed Beep starts the beep sound playing and returns control to you. If a beep (or other sound) is already playing, your Mac simply flashes the menu bar quickly (in the same way that the menu flashes if the volume is turned all the way to zero). It╒s all very intuitive, and works pretty much the way you╒d expect it to. The volume control works just the way it always did.
This software is not compatible with SoundMaster - it won╒t crash or anything; one of them simply won╒t have any effect on the beep sound (the last one to load at startup time works; the first doesn╒t).
You can make new sounds appear in your Control Panel by a number of methods: you can use Suitcase¬ to open a file containing 'snd ' resources; you can use a "Sound Mover"-type utility to put them into your System file; or you can use ResEdit to paste 'snd 's into it directly. The Suitcase method is best if you have it, because you can upgrade System versions without worrying about it.
For the technically minded - the source code (written in THINK C 4.0) is being freely distributed in a separate file; it is available on America Online if you can╒t find it wherever this file came from. The source file has more extensive technical information and explains a few basics of writing an INIT and using asyncronous sound. You might also want to check out my "ASndPlayer" library for THINK C, which allows you to easily use asyncronous sound in an application.
If you have any complaints, comments or suggestions, e-mail me at ╥L Products╙ on America Online. This software is completely free and may be redistributed as long as this text file is enclosed. However, it is distributed without warranty of any kind. ╥If it doesn╒t work╔ remember how much you paid for it.╙
