Built-in click sound

Question

Windows has built-in system sounds like win.sound.exclamation, win.sound.asterisk, etc. By built-in, I mean these sounds already exist on the operating system and I don't need to rely on providing a sound file to my program.

I have code that accesses these sounds (see below).

final Runnable runnable = 
(Runnable) Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getDesktopProperty("win.sound.start");

Unfortunately, I cannot find the built-in system sound for clicking.

I do not wish to download a .wav file and read the file programmatically. Is there a system call that will allow me to play an operating system's default sound for clicking?

Possible duplicate of [System Sounds in Java](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3927941/system-sounds-in-java) — Nishesh Pratap Singh, Jun 01 '18 at 15:16
@NisheshPratap How is this a duplicate? That answer has nothing to do with clicking. — MrPickles, Jun 01 '18 at 15:18
I agree with @NisheshPratap - those answer show how to "play" windows sounds, but not how to read those files programmatically. Not a duplicate of that question in my opinion. — slartidan, Jun 01 '18 at 15:24
We don't have any sound for **clicking**, please visit **https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/guides/swing/1.4/w2k_props.html** for more info. — Nishesh Pratap Singh, Jun 01 '18 at 15:29
Under what name is this clicking sound listed, in the “Sound” control panel in Windows? — VGR, Jun 01 '18 at 16:36
See [Best way to get Sound on Button Press..](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15526255/best-way-to-get-sound-on-button-press-for-a-java-calculator) — c0der, Jun 01 '18 at 16:43
The click sound is called "Start Navigation" in the Windows sounds applet. — Duston, Jun 01 '18 at 17:22
The sound you are looking for is called: **Windows Navigation Start.wav**. In Windows 10 it can be found here: `C:\Windows\media\Windows Navigation Start.wav`. — DevilsHnd - 退職した, Jun 01 '18 at 17:38
@DevilsHnd So would it be accessed like `win.sound.windows_navigation_start`? — MrPickles, Jun 01 '18 at 21:20

DevilsHnd - 退職した · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-02T15:20:01.687

OP: So would it be accessed like win.sound.windows_navigation_start?

No....I don't believe you can access the file through the Windows Audio Feedback Properties, it just doesn't seem to be available that way. Of all the audio feedback sounds available in the Windows OS there are really only a handful of them that are supported and can be utilized with the Toolkit.getDesktopProperty() method and these audio sound properties are:

win.sound.asterisk
win.sound.close
win.sound.default
win.sound.exclamation
win.sound.exit
win.sound.hand
win.sound.maximize
win.sound.menuCommand
win.sound.menuPopup
win.sound.minimize
win.sound.open
win.sound.question
win.sound.restoreDown
win.sound.restoreUp
win.sound.start

If you want to see which audio feedback sounds are supported on your Windows system use this code:

System.out.println("Supported Windows Audio Property Names");
System.out.println("======================================");
String propnames[] = (String[]) Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getDesktopProperty("win.propNames");
for (String propname : propnames) {
    if (propname.startsWith("win.sound.")) {
        System.out.println(propname);
    }
}

I would suspect that you already know this and I would imagine you already know that because the property is available it doesn't necessarily mean you will hear an audible sound when trying to use some of them (at least not for everyone). As an example, using the "win.sound.start" property does not give me any audio feedback whatsoever no matter what I do. I'm not even sure I know what that particular audio feedback is for.

So, with the above in mind the only way to utilize the Windows supplied click sound which happens to be the Windows Navigation Start.wav file located in the C:\Windows\media\ directory is to use one of Java's Audio Classes. In the example code below we use the Clip class along with the AudioInputStream and the AudioSystem classes, all from the javax.sound.sampled library.

private void playWav(String soundFilePath) {
    File sFile = new File(soundFilePath);
    if (!sFile.exists()) {
        String ls = System.lineSeparator();
        System.err.println("Can not locate the supplied sound file!" + 
                ls + "(" + soundFilePath + ")" + ls);
        return;
    }
    try {

        Clip clip;
        try (AudioInputStream audioInputStream = AudioSystem.
                getAudioInputStream(sFile.getAbsoluteFile())) {
            clip = AudioSystem.getClip();
            // Rewind clip to beginning. 
            // Not really required in this example!
            // It's just good to know.
            clip.setFramePosition(0); 
            clip.open(audioInputStream);
        }
        clip.start();
    }
    catch (UnsupportedAudioFileException | IOException | LineUnavailableException ex) {
        Logger.getLogger("playWav()").log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
    }
}

And to use this method:

playWav("C:/Windows/media/Windows Navigation Start.wav");

If you've gone this far then you may as well just download and embed your own Click sound file rather than relying on the Windows file. At least that way it can work on almost any platform.

Built-in click sound

1 Answers1