SoundExtractor is shareware and copyright by Alberto Ricci. If you use it or keep it, please send me $5 (checks or cash). If you think that’s too much, send me whatever you think it’s worth, or a postcard, but please do send me something. If you don’t like it (I can’t believe it’s possible!), pass it along to your friends or trash it.
Please always include this document with the SoundExtractor application when you distribute it.
My address is:
Alberto Ricci
Corso De Gasperi, 45
10129 Torino, Italy
I’d also be very glad to receive suggestions, bug reports, etc.. You can reach me on Internet as FRicci@polito.it or on CompuServe as 100010,3275 (on CompuServe probably only until August, 1992).
When you register, please send me your mail address and an e-mail one, if you have it (Internet, CompuServe, AppleLink, etc.), so that I can notify you of new versions.
••• Distribution
You can (and are encouraged to) distribute SoundExtractor to anybody through electronic services or on disks, but contact me for permission to distribute it on disks of a capacity of more than 2Mb, such as CD-ROMs or cartridges: Shareware Authors, Inc. owns the exclusive rights to the sale and distribution of versions 1.31 and higher on high capacity media (over 2Mb).
••• What is SoundExtractor?
Do you remember those sound suitcases created with utilities like SoundMover or SoundEdit? Each of them contained one or more sound resources. They were (and still are) a very popular way of storing sounds.
When System 7.0 was released, we saw that one of the new Finder’s features was to play a sound by clicking on its icon. So, for example, to hear a sound in the System file you just have to double-click on the System file, and you can see the sounds installed in it. To play one, you just need to double-click on it.
The problem is that this can’t be done with sound suitcases. Here is where SoundExtractor comes in.
Just open one of these sound suitcases with the “Open” choice in the File menu of SoundExtractor or drag its icon on top of SoundExtractor’s, and a new folder will be created. This folder will have a custom icon of a folder with a little speaker on it, and it will contain all the sounds that were in the sound suitcase. But now, double-clicking on the sounds will play them!
If you check the option “Prompt for Destination” in the Preferences menu, SoundExtractor will ask you where you want to create this sound folder. Otherwise it will create it next to the sound suitcase.
You aren’t restricted to sound suitcases, though. You can also extract sounds from applications, stacks or other files. You can choose whether to look for standard sounds of type ‘snd ’ or other custom types, or sound data files.
If an error occurs while you are extracting sounds from a sound suitcase, SoundExtractor won’t stop. Instead, it will skip that sound and ask you if you want to go on extracting the other sounds. You can choose whether to interrupt the extraction (by clicking on “Stop”), to continue (clicking on “Continue”), or to continue without bothering you if other errors occur (clicking on “OK, No More Alerts”).
••• Version History
• Version 1.0, October 25, 1991
First release.
• Version 1.1b1, November 3, 1991
Version 1.1b1 was distributed locally, and it shouldn’t have gone too far. It still had some bugs that have been fixed in 1.1b2.
• Version 1.1b2, November 23, 1991
More options added: a Progress Window, and the option to delete sounds as they’re converted.
Balloon help added.
You can now drag a file on top of SoundExtractor, and it’ll be processed.
Preferences are now stored in a separate file in the Preferences folder in the System folder, so you should be able to run SoundExtractor from a locked disk or a read-only shared volume.
• Version 1.1, November 28, 1991
The Delete after Extracting option now works properly.
Custom Sound Resource Types option added.
Memory watch window by Alessandro Levi Montalcini was added.
• Version 1.2, January 12, 1992
You can now extract sounds from the data fork of a file.
SoundExtractor now handles Apple Events.
You can interrupt the extraction progress by typing Command-Period.
Cosmetic changes.
• Version 1.21, January 17, 1992
A bug that required twice the RAM while extracting sounds from the data fork was fixed.
A bug in creating the Preferences file introduced in version 1.2 was fixed.
Cosmetic changes.
• Version 1.3, February 20, 1992
SoundExtractor now automatically recognizes the sampling rate of data sounds.
SoundExtractor recognizes stereo data sounds and extracts them properly.
It renames sounds with the same name.
It doesn’t interrupt the extraction any more when an error occurs.
A progress bar was added to the Progress Window.
More preferences for stereo sounds were added.
Some memory bugs were fixed.
••• Plans for Next Version:
Extract compressed data sounds correctly… I hope I'll find out how to do it!
Under certain conditions, for example when the destination disk becomes full, and the “Delete after Extracting” preference is active, SoundExtractor will delete the sound from the original even if it can’t extract it. I’ll try to fix this.
Option to always add a sound header to custom resource sounds. This may be useful for non-standard sound resource types which do not include a sound header (some ‘ASND’s, I think).
Version 1.31 will be ready in April ’92, and I will post it on CompuServe and Internet. It will be able to play asynchronously the sounds it is extracting and/or beep when finished, it won’t create any more a sound folder for only one sound, and some other bugs will be fixed.
••• Thanks to:
Alessandro Levi Montalcini and Fabrizio Oddone for their invaluable help and for beta testing.
Craig O’Donnell for information and help with stereo sounds.
