As with most of you, I’m sure, I was excited to employ the streaming audio option made available in the new version 8.0.
As I was trying to set up streaming audio on my app, I realized (thanks to @jkurian) that I needed to create a new File Source to do it. I originally just had the download option, since it was all that was available. I now have 3 File Sources set up: one download only, one stream only, and one download or stream option:
I’ve built the app with each of these File Sources – with Access Method set to ‘Stream audio files’:
– and when I click the play button I inevitably get this message:
Matt, I don’t understand why you made 3 separate file sources for this in the same app. Do you really want some books to be download only, others to be stream only, and yet others to be user selectable between download and streaming? I would have thought that you’d set all books to the “download or stream” option…
But, having said that, I can’t get it to work either, though there are glitches with the SAB UI. I’ve set my file source for “download or stream”:
OK, Matt, it’s working for me now. I exited SAB, made a backup of %appdata%\SIL\App Builder\settings.xml and then deleted it. When I restarted SAB, I had to fill in folder names from the backup xml file, and reopen projects. But then streaming worked!
There must be a less disruptive solution, but this is what worked for me.
I only made 3 separate file sources for testing purposes. As soon as I got one that worked, I was planning to delete the others.
HOWEVER, you mentioning using different sources made me realize that setting one of the new streaming options as the Default wasn’t enough: I had to go into the book collections and change them to the right one:
Hey @Kathy_Dadd. I’ll be honest, I’ve only used the FCBH audio so far, so I haven’t had first-hand experience with the ‘Download from the Internet’ option. @Dan_Em has used that, I think, so he might be able to add some pointers. I’ll take a shot at it, though:
Looking at your File Source, I can see that the ‘Web Address’ field is blank. This option is meant for pulling the audio files from somewhere on the internet. Are the audio files stored on a website somewhere? Wherever they’re stored, that address should contain all the files that you’ve specified in your second picture (with the same file names). And that’s the address that should be in the ‘Web Address’ field. You won’t be able to ‘Download from the Internet’ (which should stream properly too, but I can’t verify that) until you tell the app where on the internet it should be looking for those specified files.
Sorry the web address field is filled in. It disappeared when I tried different options, but I put it back. I didn’t realise it was missing when I took the screen shot. Downloading from the internet works, it’s just that streaming isn’t given as an option in the app.
Sorry, Kathy. This is about where my usefulness starts to die out, not having had any experience in this particular method. But I do have another question/thought, hoping to buy a little more time until someone more experienced hops into the conversation.
It looks like even if your ‘Source’ says ‘Download from the Internet’, you should still be able to choose from the ‘Access Method’ drop down an option called ‘Files are streamed’:
Yeah I chose “Allow user to chose between download and streaming”, but when I installed the app, and tried to play something, it just asked to download without offering to stream. @mcquayi - any ideas?
You selected “Allow user to choose…” but did you make streaming the default? That is under ‘Audio’ (in the left menu) and under the ‘Audio Settings’ tab.
Even if you didn’t do that, you should be able to select ‘Stream audio files’ in the app itself (in the Settings menu, under Audio, click on ‘Audio download or streaming’).
Thanks Matt!
I didn’t realise that you had to go into the app settings, I assumed when you clicked play it would ask which you wanted. I might have to ask if that’s a possible build, as most of our users are not that tech savvy.
What @mcquayi was showing in his first picture is that you can set the Access Method for your File Source to ‘Files are streamed’. In that case, the user won’t even have the option to download the audio - it will be streaming only.
His second picture shows how (if your File Source’s Access Method is set to ‘Allow user to chose between download and streaming’) you can set streaming as the default when the app is first installed. This way, people won’t have to change the settings in the app themselves.
