Move sounds out of the System Suitcase and into the Font Folder.
There was a recent discussion on the Macintosh Information List (mac-l) about moving alert sounds out of the System suitcase and into the Fonts folder. Gordon Moynes mentioned a trick that worked with System 7.x, and it's updated here for MacOS 8.
Why would you want to have your alert sounds in the Font folder? Because you can turn on/off different sound suitcases with an extensions manager, creating sounds sets.
Imagine two sound suitcases with the exact number of sounds, and the exact same names.
Sound Suitcase 1
(Cartoon)
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Sound Suitcase 2
(Hi-Tech)
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Error Sound
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Error Sound
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You got mail
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You got mail
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Spelling Error
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Spelling Error
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You can switch sound suitcases to match your Kaleidoscope Schemes and all your application preferences will still play an appropriate sound!
What you need before you get started.
A copy of your System suitcase, a copy of any Font, ResEdit, and some sounds. :)
If you double-click on the System suitcase, you will see the installed sound files. Normally, you add and remove sounds by dragging them into and out of the suitcase, and this option still works after the edit.
You can close the suitcase.
 Open the System suitcase copy with ResEdit and scroll down to the snd resource.
Open it with a double-click.
 Any ID numbers less than zero are reserved for the system and should not be moved. (side note: those ID's are the default beep, and the camera sounds from screen snapshots.)
The default system sounds are ID's 1-9. All of the sounds after those were added by me. I'm choosing to move all of my sounds into the Font folder. You can move all of them, or only select ones.
Select the sound ID's you want to move and Cut them (Command-X). This removes them from the System, and puts them on the Clipboard.
You can save and close the System suitcase.
 Open your font suitcase in ResEdit. Select all the font resources (Command-A), and hit the Delete button to remove them.
The font window should now be empty.
 Paste in the sounds from the clipboard (Command-V).
The Font suitcase window should now look like the one on the left. If you want to, you can double-click the snd resources to see the ID numbers, but it's not neccessary.
 From ResEdit's File menu, select
"Get Info for..." and change the name of the suitcase.
This will forces a save and close of the new Sound Suitcase.
 What you are left with is a System Suitcase that is devoid of sounds, and a new Sound suitcase.
Drag the Sound suitcase into the Font folder. Move the old System suitcase to a location outside of the System Folder and put the new one in its place.
Restart the computer to see the results of your work. Everything should sound the same, but you will now see the Sound suitcase in the Font folder of your Extensions Manager.
Update: 9/15/98
Mike Annino asks a two part question:
I've tried the Hack which allows you to create Sound Sets and place them into the Fonts Folder. My question is, do I have to load sounds into my System Suitcase and paste them into a Font Suitcase everytime I want a new set? Is there another way of simply opening sound files in ResEdit and combining them into one Sound Resource?
I was also wondering how font management software reacts to this hack. I tossed all of mine awhile ago, but most utilities check for corruption and attempt to repair the files.
 The previous edit showed how to move all of your System sounds into a Font suitcase. If you want to add individual sounds to the Fonts Folder, open the sound in ResEdit and change the file type to FFIL. Miraculously, the sound becomes a font suitcase that you can put into your Fonts Folder and turn on and off with Conflict Catcher.
In addition, you can open the single sound file and the Font Suitcase that's full of sounds in ResEdit, and paste the new sound into the font suitcase. Be sure to not to have duplicate ID's.
My main reason for conceiving this edit was to keep me from accidentally trashing sounds after a Clean Install.
As for the second part of Mike's question, I have to request responses from ResExcellence readers since I do not use any font management software. Does it cause a problem? Let me know. |
