Audio in Introduction

From what I can tell, it is not possible to have audio in a book introduction. Is this true or is there some way to add it that I’m not seeing? Is there a hack that I can do somehow to get it to work?

I have the same question. The fact that this has had no response for more than a year is not encouraging. Please, someone with knowledge answer to help us understand how to proceed! I have had success making apps with book intros, but NOT with any audio associated with a book intro. I am now faced with trying to do this and am at a loss.

1 Like

There are instructions for including synchronized audio for book introductions in the PDF help file “Using Audacity for Audio-Text Synchronization,” much as one would do using Reading App Builder, but being sure that the audio and timing files for the introduction are designated as chapter 0. If any have been successful in making this work recently, it would be helpful perhaps if you could respond to this and describe what was done to make it work, and what version of SAB you are using. I’ve tried using Audacity to generate the phrases and then the timing file, and have tried with the timing file that Aeneas generates. Either way, I can validate the timing files and generate a good working HTML file and fine tune the timings, but the option to play the audio still does not become active when the introduction is selected in the resultant app installed on an Android device. Thank you for any insight anyone might have as to what perhaps I’m missing.

(One other note. In the appDef file for the project, the definitions for the book audio always begin with page 1 (i.e., chapter 1). The code for a page “0” is not being generated.)

1 Like

I just tried it, I upload my introduction audio file to the cloud. Did the timings and installed it on my tablet. It now reads to me after downloading the audio file. The speaker symbol appears in the Introduction page.

Yes, this issue was fixed in SAB 5.5, released on June 14 of this year. Audio for introductions now works well.

That’s fabulous news! I hadn’t been aware of it. The project I had been working on can now be updated. :slight_smile:

It would be helpful if this information was also in the PDF that explains how to use Aeneas for Synchronization (I wouldn’t have known to open the PDF for Audacity). As a newbie, I didn’t know all I had to do was make the introduction chapter 0.

One item that is NOT clear is if anything needs to be changed in the Paratext file, as we currently have it, each introduction is at the beginning, before the start chapter 1 in Paratext.

@Andy_Weathers, there is also a document “Using aeneas for Audio-Text Synchronization”

I have the whole set of PDF documents, and started with the one that explains the use of Aeneas, but it doesn’t mention how to make the audio play for introductions. Only the Audacity PDF touches on how to make highlighting work for introductions. But even so, when I create the trial HTML files it doesn’t even include my introduction text, so I’m doing something wrong.

All of the references I have seen, here and in the Help PDFs are to individual book introductions. (And the reference saying that the book introduction has to be labeled chapter 0 is only in the Audacity PDF, not in the Aeneas PDF…)

Can you include an audio of the Bible intro, the OT intro and the NT intro? Obviously naming them with chapter 0 doesn’t really make any sense, since they aren’t associated with an individual book. Trying to sync with Aeneas simply gives:
image

Those three intro books appear fine in the app, but I can’t seem to associate any audio with them. I can add the audio files to those books, but Export to HTML in SAB does nothing, and Aeneas sync fails as mentioned above. If I build the app with those Audio Files (one in each intro book), it doesn’t complain, and the .apk file gets larger by about the right amount (so I think the audio files are included in the app assets), but there is no play button on those 3 intros, to be able to play the audio, even if they aren’t synchronized and the text highlighted.

So does that mean that audio for Bible, OT and NT introductions is not currently possible?

Well, I have a rather surprising turn of events on this question! I was right-clicking on the audio files to see if there were any other options. There was one that said Edit Audio. I was thinking, is that going to open it in Audacity, or what? But it turns out that it opened a dialog box to edit the settings on the audio file, including the paths to the Audio File and the Timing File, and this:
image

Yes, the Chapter number! And the Chapter number was set to 1! When I set it to 0, as shown here, all of a sudden I was able to synchronize with Aeneas, then fine-tune timings, etc. Now that I’ve done that, I see very plainly that the Chapter number is in the Audio Files list:
image

So I should have been able to see that the Audio File was still on Chapter 1, although I’m not sure I would have realized that Edit Audio would edit those settings. Maybe that menu should say Edit Audio Settings or Edit Audio Parameters? So even though those introductions are not associated with an individual book, they still need to be set to Chapter 0 to get the magic introduction treatment.

I have now synchronized with Aeneas, fine-tuned the timings, and built those introductions (all configured as Chapter 0) into my Bible app, and it’s working very nicely.