BGSOUND - Background Sound

Internet Explorer only

Syntax

<BGSOUND>

Attribute Specifications

CLASS=string
LOOP=string
SRC=string
TITLE=string
BALANCE=string
ID=string
LANG=string
LANGUAGE=string
STYLE=string
VOLUME=string

Description:

"Enables an author to create pages with background sounds or soundtracks."

"The BGSOUND element can appear anywhere within the document."

(From the Microsoft MSDN Online Web Workshop - HTML References (Elements))

SRC

"Sets or retrieves the URL of a sound to play."

(From the Microsoft MSDN Online Web Workshop - HTML References (Elements))

LOOP

"Sets or retrieves the number of times a sound or video clip will loop when activated."

(From the Microsoft MSDN Online Web Workshop - HTML References (Elements))

This attribute may be given a value of:

The default loop value of the element is 1.

VOLUME

"Sets or retrieves the volume setting for the sound."

"Valid values range from -10,000 to 0, with 0 being full Wave Output volume."

"The higher the setting, the louder the sound.

(From the Microsoft MSDN Online Web Workshop - HTML References (Elements))

BALANCE

"Sets or retrieves the value indicating how the volume of the background sound is divided between the left and right speakers."

Values may range from -10,000 to +10,000.

"A -10,000 value indicates that all sound is directed to the left speaker. A +10,000 value indicates that all sound is directed to the right speaker. A zero value indicates that the sound is balanced between the left and right speakers."

(From the Microsoft MSDN Online Web Workshop - HTML References (Elements))

ID

The ID attribute uniquely identifies an element within a document. No two elements can have the same ID value in a single document. The attribute's value must begin with a letter in the range A-Z or a-z and may be followed by letters (A-Za-z), digits (0-9), hyphens ("-"), underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".").

The following example uses the ID attribute to identify each of the first two paragraphs of a document:

<P ID=firstp>My first paragraph.</P>
<P ID=secondp>My second paragaph.</P>

The paragraphs in the example could have style rules associated with them through their ID attributes. The following Cascading Style Sheet defines unique colors for the two paragraphs:

P#firstp {

  color: navy;

  background: transparent

}



P#secondp {

  color: black;

  background: transparent

}

The paragraphs in the initial example could also be used as a target anchor for links:

<P>See <A HREF="#firstp">the opening paragraph</A> for more information.</P>

Note that most browsers do not support the ID attribute for link anchors. For current browsers, authors should use <A NAME>...</A> within the element instead of ID.

Since ID and NAME share the same name space, authors cannot use the same value for an ID attribute and a NAME attribute in the same document. Also note that while NAME may contain entities, the ID attribute value may not.

CLASS

The CLASS attribute specifies the element to be a member of one or more classes. Classes allow authors to define specific kinds of a given element. For example, an author could use <CODE CLASS=Java> when giving Java code and <CODE CLASS=Perl> when giving Perl code.

Unlike with the ID attribute, any number of elements can share the same class. An element may also belong to multiple classes; the CLASS attribute value is a space-separated list of class names.

Note that most current browsers do not support multiple classes. Such browsers typically ignore a CLASS attribute that specifies multiple classes.

The CLASS attribute is particularly useful when combined with style sheets. For example, consider the following navigation bar:

<DIV CLASS=navbar>
<P><A HREF="/">Home</A> | <A HREF="./">Index</A> | <A HREF="/search.html">Search</A></P>
<P><A HREF="/"><IMG SRC="logo.gif" ALT="" TITLE="WDG Logo"></A></P>
</DIV>

This example's use of the CLASS attribute allows style rules to easily be added. The following Cascading Style Sheet suggests a presentation for the preceding example:

.navbar {
  margin-top: 2em;
  padding-top: 1em;
  border-top: solid thin navy
}
.navbar IMG { float: right }
@media print {
  .navbar { display: none }
}

LANG

The LANG attribute specifies the language of an element's attribute values and its content, including all contained elements that do not specify their own LANG attribute. While the LANG attribute is not widely supported, its use may help search engines index a document by its language while allowing speech synthesizers to use language-dependent pronunciation rules. As well, visual browsers can use the language's proper quotation marks when rendering the Q element.

The attribute value is case-insensitive, and should be specified according to RFC 1766; examples include en for English, en-US for American English, and ja for Japanese. Whitespace is not allowed in the language code.

Use of the LANG attribute also allows authors to easily change the style of text depending on the language. For example, a bilingual document may have one language in italics if rendered visually or a different voice if rendered aurally. The HTML of such a document might be as follows:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd">
<TITLE>Welcome - Bienvenue</TITLE>
<H1>
  <SPAN LANG=en>Welcome</SPAN> -
  <SPAN LANG=fr>Bienvenue</SPAN>
</H1>
<P LANG=en>This paragraph is in English.</P>
<P LANG=fr>Ce paragraphe est en français.</P>
...

A document's primary language may be set using the LANG attribute on the HTML element, or, alternatively, by using the Content-Language HTTP header.

STYLE

The STYLE attribute allows authors to specify style rules inline for a single occurrence of an element. An example follows:

<P>A popular font for on-screen reading is <SPAN STYLE="font-family: Verdana">Verdana</SPAN>.</P>

When the STYLE attribute is used, a default style sheet language must be specified for the document by setting the Content-Style-Type HTTP header to the media type of the style sheet language. The previous example could use the following META element in the document's HEAD:

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Style-Type" CONTENT="text/css">

In most cases, use of the CLASS or ID attributes is a better choice than using STYLE since ID and CLASS can be selectively applied to different media and since they provide a separation of content and presentation that often simplifies maintenance.

TITLE

The TITLE attribute provides a title for an element and is commonly implemented as a "tooltip" on visual browsers, though many browsers lack support for TITLE. The attribute is most useful with A, LINK, IMG, and OBJECT elements, where it provides a title for the linked or embedded resource. Some examples follow:

TITLE is also helpful with the ABBR and ACRONYM elements to provide the long form of the abbreviation. Examples:

LANGUAGE

"Sets or retrieves the language in which the current script is written. "

"The language property can refer to any scripting language."

(From the Microsoft MSDN Online Web Workshop - HTML References (Elements))

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