Technical note on Shockwave Player

and the Bach fugue movies

 

These movies require the full version of AdobeÕs Shockwave Player 11

 

Shockwave player comes in two versions, slim and full.  AdobeÕs Shockwave Download Center defaults to the slim version which will play most, but not all, of the movies at the Bach Fugues site.  It will not play movies that require Xtras for streaming audio and other functions.  For this reason it will not play the Well-Tempered Clavier interactive home page.  YouÕll know that you have the slim version of Shockwave Player if you access the foregoing link and get an error message about an Xtra that didnÕt initialize properly.

To play all of the Bach fugue movies you should use the full version of Shockwave 11.  Because this is not the default, this download will involve one extra step:

 

1.   Go to AdobeÕs Web Players Download Page and click the link to "Shockwave Player."

2.   Download the ÒFull InstallerÓ of Shockwave 11 for your operating system and browser.

3.   The download will include an "Uninstall" button that I recommend you execute before installing the new version of Shockwave Player

 

To users of the Intel Mac

Good news! In March of 2008 Adobe released the universal binary version of Shockwave Player 11.  With this new player you'll no longer need to open your browser in Rosetta mode.  If you have been running your Intel Mac in Rosetta for the purpose of playing Shockwave Player 10, you should download the new Shockwave Player 11 (above), then reset your browser for native operation as follows:

1.   Quit your browser and open your applications folder.

2. Select your browser icon by clicking on it ONCE.

3. Pull down the file menu to Get Info.

4. Click the "General" drop-down list and DESELECT "Open using Rosetta."

This site is best viewed in Firefox

Internet Explorer is problematic as Microsoft has recently introduced a protocol requiring the client to authorize active-X controls for embedded files like Shockwave. With most of you this results in an annoying ding and popup when the page loads. There is a workaround, but the time required to implement it is time robbed from doing more useful things, like finishing this project.   The most elegant solution is to switch to Firefox.