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MODPlug Central | How Do I Use the MOD Plugin on My Page?
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This page will help you add the power of the MOD Plugin to your site easily. Of course, there are more advanced ways of configuring the plugin on your site, but the following examples will get you started. If you already know the basics, you can click HERE for more advanced topics, such as using the MOD plugin with Javascript.



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How Do I Add the MOD Plugin to My Site?

This page will take you through the steps for adding the MOD Plugin to your Web Page. If, by the end of this little guide, you are still having trouble, you may need to seek psychiatric help. 8-)

First, I will take you through the EASY way of adding the MOD Plugin to your page as background music. The MOD Archive has been gracious enough to create a little program that will make a random song appear on your web page. All you need to do is cut and paste the following code:

Background music provided by The Mod Archive



The only down side to this is that you have no control over the SIZE of the song that is played on your page, or the TYPE of song that is played on your page. If you want to choose the song that is played on your page, you will need to follow these instructions:

Step One: Download the MODPlug Player. You will need this for the following reasons:
  • To listen to MODs that you may want to use on your web page.
  • To test that a MOD will sound the way you want it to through the MOD Plugin
  • To compress the MOD to shorten download times.

Step Two: You will need to find a MOD that you would like to use on your web page as background music. If you are already a collector of MODs, then chances are that you have just the right song. Most of you are probably new to this MOD thing, so let me steer you in the right direction for finding the MOD that fits your web page. If you have a particular style of MOD in mind, or if you know the name of a popular song that you would want to use, you can try using this MOD Search Engine to find the song you are looking for. You could also peruse through the list of New Releases to get some ideas.

Step Three: Once you've found the MOD that you want to use, you must SAVE and COMPRESS it. This is done in different ways, depending on how you are viewing the MOD file...

If you have the MOD that you want to use in the MOD Plugin, then the first thing that you want to do is right-click on any BLACK area of the plugin panel to bring up the main menu. Choose "Properties" from the main menu to bring up the instrument panel. From this panel, press the SETUP button, and then make sure that the box labeled "Save Packed Songs" is checked. Once the "Save Packed Songs" box is checked, click on the "OK" button to return to the MOD Plugin Panel. Right-click again on any black area to access the main menu and then choose "Save As". Choose the name for your MOD, and save it.
The MOD Plugin has now compressed the MOD a little bit, but not quite all the way... Locate the MOD on your hard drive and then proceed to Step Four.

If you have the MOD that you want to use saved on your hard drive, that is, if you have downloaded it from a MOD archive and want to use it, you must follow these steps. First, load the MOD into the MODPlug Player. The MODPlug Player is capable of loading ZIPped MODs, so if you have downloaded a MOD in ZIP format, you can load it directly into the player by choosing "Zipped Modules" in the "Open" dialog box. When the MOD is loaded into the Player, stop the MOD from playing, and then click on the "Pack As" button on the front panel. Choose the name that you want for your MOD and save it. The Player has now compressed the MOD a little, but not quite all of the way... Proceed to step Four.


Step Four: Now that you have your MOD somewhat compressed, you should compress it even further using WinZip or some other ZIPping utility. Say for example, that you have "Aryx.MOD" that you want to use on your page. You have already compressed it in one of the ways mentioned in Step 3, so now you must ZIP it. You should end up with "Aryx.ZIP" when the compression utility is done. You should now have a file that is about 45% smaller than the original MOD file. However, the MOD plugin will not load ZIP files directly, so we must call this file something other than ZIP. The MOD Plugin has been programmed to recognize files with a .MDZ extension, so now you must rename the file to *.MDZ - for example, "Aryx.ZIP" should be renamed to "Aryx.MDZ". If you are using Windows 95, you will get a warning message about changing file extensions, but fear not! It will work just fine.

* Note: The MOD plugin cannot be programmed to recognize ZIP files - if it was, then any ZIPped file that you tried to download would be loaded into the MOD plugin, which needless to say, makes for some interesting problems.

Step Five: You should now have a file with an MDZ extension ready to go. Now, you should upload it to your web server. This is done in the same way that you have uploaded images and HTML documents to your server. If you run into a problem, you should contact your web service provider for help. Make sure that you know the directory that you have uploaded the MDZ to, as you will need it in the following steps.

Step Six: Once you have the MDZ file on your server, it is time to add the HTML code to the web page that you want to use the MOD Plugin on. The code is as follows:



The parts in italics you can change as necessary to reflect your web server, directories and location of the MDZ file. The rest, you will pretty much want to leave alone. Details on the options that you can use are found in the README.TXT file for the MOD Plugin.

Step Seven: Now, try it out and see how it worked! You should have the MOD that you wanted playing as background music on your web page. If not, double-check the location of your file, make sure that you spelled the filename correctly, and that the filename uses the proper case - filenames are CASE-SENSITIVE. If the Plugin window appears, but the MOD will not start playing, even if you press the play button, the file may be corrupt. Try uploading the MDZ file again. If it still will not play, contact your web service provider to make sure that your web server supports this type of file. They may ask you for the MIME type, which is "audio/x-zipped-mod".



There are many different things that you can do with the MOD Plugin. All are listed in detail in the README.TXT file. you can change the size of the display, the number of bars in the spectrum analyzer, the color of the plugin, VU-Meter and Spectrum Analyzer, etc. You can even use JavaScript with the MOD Plugin! For examples of these options, visit this page, located on Olivier's Home Page. If you are at wit's end, and just can't figure out how this plugin works, feel free to visit the Tech Support area.

I hope that this tutorial has helped you add the MOD plugin to your web page. Once completed, make sure to submit your site to the list of MODPlug Links!

Once you've mastered the basics of using the MOD Plugin, you can move on to the more advanced MODPlug applications, such as detecting the MOD Plugin with JavaScript, and creating your own Pop-Up MOD Jukebox!

Once you have the MOD Plugin working on your page, please E-Mail me so that I can include your page on the MODPlug Links page. Also, please visit the Linking section of MODPlug Central MORE for a selection of buttons and banners that you can use on your site. Just cut & paste the code!


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