Key Sound Generator Copyright (C) Moose O'Malley, ------------------- September 2007. +===========================================================+ | T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S | +===========================================================+ | * Introduction | * Why I Wrote This Program | * Installing and Using this Program | * Uninstalling this Program | * The Future | * Reviews / Awards / CDs | * Freeware Information | * Warranty | * Amendment History | * Contacting the Program's Author +===========================================================+ Introduction : -------------- Key Sound Generator is for Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, and similar. This program is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. See "Freeware Information" below. Key Sound Generator is a fun program that plays a particular sound effect each time a mouse button or keyboard key is pressed. Different sounds are played depending on the type of key or button. Sound File Type of Key which Triggers this Sound ------------- ------------------------------------- ARROW.WAV An arrow key BACKSPCE.WAV The backspace or delete key MOUSE.WAV A mouse button RETURN.WAV The Return key SPACEBAR.WAV The Spacebar OTHER.WAV Some other key on the keyboard. The following sounds are available: - Typewriter sound effects, recorded from my "Brother 300T" portable typewriter. - Electronic Sounds a Public Domain sounds CD. - Wind (Thanks to Murray for these disgraceful burping sounds.) - Arcade (selected sounds from classic arcade games running in MAME) To change the sound set, simply select a new directory (within the program - see below) which contains the new sounds. You can record your own sounds and use these within the program. Just record them (using Windows Sound Recorder or similar) and save them in a directory and then select this directory to load sounds from. N.B. Short Sounds work best ! When run, this program's icon will sit in the Windows Tray Bar area, and monitor your keystokes and mouse clicks and play sounds as appropriate. When you left mouse click on the program's icon in the tray bar (or right mouse click and choose the "Restore" option in the popup menu), then the program window will appear : - which enables you to see what sounds are needed, - enables you to select a new directory which contains alternate sounds, - and enables you to keep repeating sound while key is pressed / held down or else just play bthe sound once no matter how long the key is held down. The menu options enable you to : - make the program stay "Always on Top" of other programs. - Auto-Run the Program when Windows Starts Up. - Restore Factory Defaults - and all other functionality that is standard to my programs. (About menu, Catalog menu, etc). Developed using 32-bit Delphi. This program will **NOT** run under Windows 3.x (even with Win32 installed) !! Why I Wrote This Program : -------------------------- I wrote this program because I had many requests from people on the internet for a program like this. Sure, key sound programs like this already exist, in fact, at the request of others, I downloaded 4 key sound programs from the internet and reviewed these before starting work on this program. All four of these programs were either limited, or you could not use your own sounds, or they were deficient in other ways. In addition, three of the four key sound programs I trialed costed $15 US Dollars or more. My program costs $10 Australian dollars - which is about $5 US dollars. i.e. one third of this ! One of the four key sound programs was "free", but this nagged you too much and changed your WEB browser's Home page. Other programs I was told about, click on Ad banners behind the scenes, or hide cookies in your machine, or displayed similar unacceptable behaviour. I also found quite a few bugs with some of the key sound programs I downloaded. e.g. they didn't play sounds for all keyboard keys. My program incorporates all of the best features of all of these programs, comes complete with multiple sets of sounds, allows you to use your own sounds, ensures that some sort of sound is played for every key on the keyboard, and only costs a small fraction of these other programs without any of the nags or home page changes. Installing and Using this Program : ----------------------------------- The steps for using the program are : - Step 1 : Install the program. Unzip the program to a directory on your PC. Such as: C:\Program Files\Key_Snd\ - Step 2 : Run the Program : Using Windows Exmplorer, open the directory where you extracted the contents of the ZIP file (in 1. above), and double click on the KEY_SND.EXE file torun the program. When you do this, a small icon will appear in the Windows tray bar, talkclckand sounds will be made when you hit *any* key on the keyboard. If you click on the Key Sound Generator icon in the Windows Tray Bar then the program window will apear, and you can then choose from a whole range of options, such as : - Always On Top - Auto-Run at Windows Startup - Restore Factory Defaults - View Readme File - View Catalog - About ... (i.e. about this program). - Exit (this program). N.B. To run this program every time Windows starts up, then use the "Auto-Run at Windows Startup" option under the File menu. You only have to select this option once, and from then on, Key Sound Generator will automatically run every time Windows starts up. I hope you find the program easy to use and useful. Uninstalling this Program : --------------------------- Before deleting the program, you should turn off the auto-running of this program under Windows - if you have previously enabled it. Simply, run the program and re-select the option under the File menu to achieve this. Exit the program - so it is no longer running. Using Windows Exmplorer, open the directory where you extracted the contents of the ZIP file (in 1. above), and then, simply delete the directory to where you extracted the ZIP file. e.g. C:\Program Files\Key_Snd\ Simple as that ! The Future : ------------ In the future, many improvements could be made to this program such as : - More sound groups. e.g. a different sound for the function keys, or numeric keypad keys, or TAB, etc. - More sounds. In the future, I would like to add additional sounds : * Animal noises * Farmyard noises * any others ? - Better sound quality. All sounds at the moment are 8 bit mono, to save disk space and make the download from the internet as small as possible. However, 16 bit CD quality stereo sounds are much better ... :) - Anything else ? If you would like any improvements, or would like to suggest any improvements, please email me and let me know. As with all of my shareware programs, how much more work I do on this program depends entirely on what support I get, how many people use the program, etc. None of my programs are perfect - I am the first to admit that. I have ideas for improvements and enhancements for all of my shareware. How much I improve things and when depends on the support I receive for my hard work. Reviews / Awards / CDs : ------------------------- None so far. Freeware Information : ----------------------- This is free software. Anyone - any person, any company, or any business - can use this program for free. No fees or payment is required. However, if you find the program useful, then please consider making a PayPal donation to support my efforts. (To make a donation, please run the program and select the "About" option under the Help menu, and then click the PayPal link on the "About" screen). Warranty : ---------- This software and the accompanying files are provided "as is" and without warranties as to performance or merchantability or any other warranties whether expressed or implied. The user assumes the entire risk of using this software. If you do find any faults with this program, email me and let me know. Amendment History : -------------------- Vers Date Description 1.0 7-Apr-2001 First Public Release. (8,314 lines of code / comments.) 1.1 6-Feb-2002 Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. Introduce yet more Anti-Hacker / Anti-Cracker measures. (10,435 lines of code / comments.) 1.2 21-June-2002 Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. Make the TAB key use the same sound as the Spacebar. (Until now, the TAB key had no sound allocated to it, and it made no sound at all). (Thanks for reporting this Bill !!). (19,519 lines of code / comments.) 1.2b 20-Nov-2002 Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. Registered Users - please contact me via email. (29,781 lines of code / comments.) 1.3 22-Apr-2004 Add in the ability to disable or change the sounds played in each category. The user could always do this - but only manually renaming the sound WAV files. However, now this functionality is provided directly by the program - no messy renaming of files is required. In addition, the user can also choose "No Sound" for each sound category - which is useful if a particular sound is becoming annoying. e.g. You might like to turn sound off for the arrow keys. Add in the ability to restore the default sound settings for each key / button category. All of these changes were made following some great feedback and a request by Jonathan H. Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. (45,256 lines of code / comments.) 1.4 25-June-2004 Fix the playing of sounds which I broke in the previous release - but the testers somehow failed to notice this. Thanks to David for reporting this to me earlier today. Also, add in buttons to enable the user to play / hear / test the selected sound in each category. At the end of the installation of Key Sound Generator, when the user presses the "Finish" button, automatically run Key Sound Generator, so that the user does not have to find it and execute it manually. Bring the program up to date with my latest code libraries. (45,327 lines of code / comments.) 1.4f 3-Sep-2007 This program is now FREEWARE - see "Freeware Information" above. If this program was not downloaded from my Home Page, then it is most likely an old version. The latest version of this program is available from my Home page and its mirrors. Mike "Moose" O'Malley ____________________________________________________ Moose's Software Valley - Established July, 1996. WEB: http://move.to/moose ____________________________________________________