Advanced HTML: Objects

In addition to images, it is possible to put (almost) arbitrary other objects on Web pages. The only constraint is that the browser must be able to do something with it at the other end. The limitations of a browser such as Netscape are, however, reduced by their ability to accept Plug-Ins: other pieces of software that will deal with file types (e.g., movies and sound) that might be embedded in a page. Note that embedded sound and movies, etc., is not part of standard HTML---therefore, not all browsers will support all of the tags and methods for incorporating sound and movies. As an example, Microsoft's Internet Explorer uses some Different tags to do this than Netscape.

A tag to include objects is

embed
embed an object in a web page:
<embed src="source_file" attributes>
Examples:
Embedding a background sound file called cut1.wav:
<embed src="images/cut1.wav" autostart=true controls=false volume="100%">

Embedding a console to allow people to play the sound at their whim:
<embed src="images/cut1.wav" autostart=false controls=console height=60 width=145 volume="100%">

Embedding a small console:
<embed src="images/cut1.wav" autostart=false controls=smallconsole height=15 width=145 volume="100%">

The sizes for the second two are given in pixels, and were chosen to give the right general size.

Another way of embedding background sound is with a Head HTML element called meta: in the head section of the HTML file, we include:

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1;url=images/cut1.wav">

We could also embed a quick-time movie:
<embed src="images/ex.mov" height=216 width=360 controls=false loop=false autostart=true>
Another attribute of the embed tag is loop: loop=true will cause the object to repeat endlessly...

Among the things that might be embedded are: Quick Time movies, sound files (one archive site), etc. The one disadvantage of embedding objects is that for the person who is browsing the page to be able to appreciate them, they must be using a browser that supports the appropriate plug-in, and must have the plug-in.

animated gif Another way of introducing animation to web pages is through animated gifs, as shown with the crude example to the right. (If it has stopped animating, press the Reload button on your browser.) These are actually easy to make with such tools as (for Mac) GifBuilder, (for Win95) Gif construction set, or (for UNIX) GIFMerge.

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last modified (( Wed Jun 25 10:49:26 CDT 1997 ))
HTML/WWW Wkshop: Adv HTML-Objects
©1997 Gavin LaRose
Comments to: glarose@NebrWesleyan.edu