My Midi file only plays in certain folders ! ? !

[mikeycorn]

Now this seems really strange to me, but maybe one of you out there will know what the reason for this is.

I've copied some code to get a midi file playing when my splash screen loads. I wanted to use a midi file I had put in the subfolder of c:\Program Files where the rest of my project resides. The thing just would not play so just as I was about to give up on having music with my splash screen, I tried copying the file to the desktop, switched the file path to the desktop file and voila! I had sound!!! I really don't understand how a midi file could work off the desktop but not in the same folder that the rest of my project resides.

I don't want people to install this program and have a midi file added to their desktop, so I tried stashing it in the \Windows\Media and it works from there, too. I know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, but I'm totally perplexed as to why it seems I can only get my midi to play when the file is in a subfolder of \Windows.

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone?

If it helps, here's the code that relates to midi:

In the main module:

Option Explicit

Public Declare Function mciSendString Lib "winmm.dll" Alias "mciSendStringA" _
  (ByVal lpstrCommand As String, ByVal lpstrReturnString As String, _
  ByVal uReturnLength As Long, ByVal hwndCallback As Long) As Long

In the splash screen general:

Public Sub sndPlayM(Filename As String)
    Call mciSendString("Open " & Filename & " Alias MM", 0, 0, 0)
    Call mciSendString("Play MM", 0, 0, 0)
End Sub

The splash screen form load:

Private Sub Form_Load()
sndPlayM "C:\Windows\Media\Hall.mid"

It works like this, but why the heck wouldn't it work when I had sndPlayM pointing to "C:\Program Files\Pest\Hall.mid"?????

[Anders Englund]

Try calling the function with

sndPlayM chr(34) & "C:\Program Files\Pest\Hall.mid" & chr(34)

The path contains a space, so that may be the problem.

//Anders

[mikeycorn]

Wow, I have no idea why that worked, but it did! Not that I doubted you, but I really didn't think adding those chr$(34) was going to work. Well, I guess that means I did doubt you, but I was very happily surprised when my little tune came thumping through the speakers!

The "Program Files" part of the path contains a space, but why does that make it necessary to add the chr$(34)'s to the beginning and the end of the file's path name?


Thanks a bunch!

[Edited by mikeycorn on 07-18-2000 at 12:43 AM]

[Anders Englund]

I'm not sure why it's neccesary, but it's the same thing when you make a link in explorer. If there is a space in the path or filename, it adds the " thingies. I would imagine that if you tried to execute a program via the run option for example, anything after the space could be considered a parameter to whaterever is before it... if you get what I mean.

//Anders