System Sounds: Use MIDI files?

Is it possible to associate System Sounds with MIDI files (as opposed to sound samples like .wav etc) in Haiku?

If so - are there any guides and examples of doing this?

If MIDI is possible - I think that would be a nice feature - since for one it would be possible to generate ‘themes’ automatically - using musical constructions (like Major/Ascending for ‘good’/‘positive’ things , and Minor/Descending etc for ‘bad’/‘negative’ things) - and to adjust the instrumentation/after-effects/keys etc by the user. Also MIDI files are a lot smaller in general than samples.

I’m currently using the R1/Beta5 build on a Compaq Presario CQ56 - the MIDI player works just fine - just not sure how to configure the System Sounds.

Open userguide. Search for sounds. So Deskbar > Preferences > Sounds, “select the event from the list and choose a sound from the pop-up menu below”, “You can use any format that’s supported by the system. If MediaPlayer can deal with it, so can any other program.”

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That is wrong. Sound prefs already only accepts audio/ mimetypes and rejects video/

See:
https://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/15545
https://dev.haiku-os.org/ticket/15439

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It also means the answer is no, because MediaPlayer (and the media kit in general) does not play MIDI files (you need the separate MidiPlayer for that).

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See: System Sounds: Use MIDI files? - #4 by PulkoMandy

The enhancement for consideration is to allow MIDI files to be associated with system events - as an option instead of ‘real’ media files.

Suggested advantages:

  • MIDI files are small.
  • Effects/instrumentation could be altered by users to produce variations - which would make it easier to create themes.
  • Since there often a symmetry to system sounds (USB plugged-in, USB removed, OK, ERROR, startup, shutdown) - this may also speed up design-times (by say, reversing note orders, or changing majors->minors)
  • It might be the sort of thing that draw attention to the Operating System: since it would be a bit different to how other OS’s do it.
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We don’t ship any midi fonts by default, so this wouldn’t save any space.

That beeing said there is no reason why this can’t be added imo.

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We ship one in the release images.

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