The reason I ask is because I've had a problem with sounds on my laptop, which started out of the blue (or so I thought).
Actually, Realtek drivers have an ultra-power-saving mode, where the sound card goes into "sleep mode" if it's not used within a certain period of time, and the driver automatically reactivates it, when a sound is played. Only, the reactivation takes a second or two, so you miss the first couple of seconds of sound, which is enough to lose a sound effect entirely. Then, for as much time as Realtek thinks is ok, you hear everything. Then, after a certain period of audio inactivity, no sound again.
The setting for that is deeply buried inside the Realtek control panel, and you can control whether the soundcard goes to sleep always or only on battery or never. In desktop computers, that setting is "always on", but some change in the power profile can trigger it.
I don't know if it's at all relevant to your case, I just thought I'd point it out, just in case.

Jorge,

I regret to say that I fell back to Nexus 11.06.0968 and there are no problems with the sound. It consistently plays, just as it should, first time, every time.

I think that says that something has changed in your code that affects playing "Launch item" sound.

Thanks,
Grouch

I've also lost launch sounds with Winstep Extreme 11.10. Launching sub-docks seem to still work. Desktop running Windows 7 x64.

It seems that things are launching, and the dock retracting, much more quickly than they used to. And with that clue, if I turn off the 'Hide dock after launching', things seem back to normal sound wise. When I have that turned on, sometimes I get the launch sound, sometimes I get an anemic short version of the launch sound, and sometimes I get nothing and the dock hides very quickly.

@winds350,

YES! Thank you for affirming that I'm not the only one. I'm seeing the exact same symptoms. Sometimes a wimpy ½ beep, sometimes none at all, and sometimes normal.

Thanks,
Grouch

Well, if you guys have the dock set to auto-hide immediately after launching an application, it could be that the dock's auto-hide sound effect is overriding the launch sound effect.

I'll look into this.

Hey, Jorge... since this is related to something I had posted a few days ago, concerning the launch effect with relation to "hide dock after launch", maybe you could add some sort of delay, so that the hiding action/sound is delayed until the launch effect and/or sound is over?
That would solve both problems, the easy way.

@skagon,

Yes, I agree that your idea would be the most elegant fix. Then whatever the length of the associated sound duration, the auto-hide event and "Hide/Collapse sound" would wait until the "Launch item" sound is over before playing. Good call.

Thanks,
Grouch

Jorge,

Is this something that is readily implemented?

Thanks,
Grouch

I looked into this and here I can hear both sounds (launch and auto-hide) playing at the same time.

Make an experiment, Grouch: use two really long sound files for both events (IIRC, you can even use MIDI files, but try to stick to .WAV just in case), then please report back what happens.

Jorge,

I tried a 7 second sound for "item launch" and a 4 second sound for "hide/collapse". It went straight to the "hide/collapse" sound. It must be a combination of my settings that causes it to hiccup. I will attach a zip file with my settings backup file.

Thanks,
Grouch

Unfortunately your settings won't do anything for me because I don't even have the sound files you use.

One more question: what if you turn off the 'auto-hide/collapse on launch' setting? Does the Launch sound play in that case?

Yes, but then I have to remember to move the cursor off the icon for the dock to collapse. You're depending on my hand-eye coordination. I just expect it to behave the way it used to.

The sounds I use are the ones that came with Nexus in the first place. They're in the Winstep Samples folder "C:\Users\Public\Documents\Winstep\Themes\WinstepSamples".

Skagon was having the same problem. Maybe he has some insight into the problem.

Thanks,
Grouch

Yes, but look, here the sounds are playing normally, one on top of the other as it should be. This means it's not the API call used to play the sounds.

I remember a few years back when sound cards could not play more than one .wav file at the same time - those times are long gone, so, as Skagon pointed out, it *could* be a sound driver problem.

I'll have to check again and get back to you on that, guys. I have currently disabled the "hide on launch".
In any case, I would definitely want to see the whatever sound or on-launch effect finish and then have the dock/shelf hide, though. I mean, what's the use, if the dock hides *instantly* upon launch?
Jorge, maybe you could add a user-definable delay to the "hide on launch", or add another option for "hide after effects have finished". Makes more sense.

Jorge,

Well, if it were the driver, why did it go bad after the current release? Why, when I fall back to version 11.06.0968, does it work just fine?

Thanks,
Grouch

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Do you call a different subroutine for the "Nexus Free" and "Nexus Ultimate"?
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