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Macromedia
Director
Interactive
animation and authoring tool. Director began
life as an animation program on the Macintosh
called VideoWorks. A scripting language called
Lingo was then added to the product and the name
changed to Director. The program rapidly became
the tool for creating interactive
presentations, demos, educational programs and
CD-ROMs. With the release of Director 4, Macromedia
released a Windows version which made it much
easier to create cross-platform titles (though
there is still some work required when creating a
title that performs well on both the Macintosh and
Windows platforms.)
Director movies can be turned into self-contained
executable applications called Projectors.
These can be distributed to others without them
having to have a copy of Director. If you want to
create a version that runs on both Macintosh and
Windows computers then you must have a copy of both
versions of Director (Mac and PC.)
Macromedia has continued to improve the program,
and have released ShockWave, a browser
plug-in that plays Director movies that have been
saved in the Shockwave format.
Because of it's animation history, it can seem
awkward to learn and use for new users. Also,
Director files are called "movies" which can cause
confusion when talking about a Director project
which plays QuickTime movies! (This is a hang over
from the programs history.)
Pros:
Cross-platform, flexible, extensible and widely
used. There's also several third party Xtras
available which extend the program.
Cons:
Can be difficult to learn, and because it's not
really object oriented, reusing parts of a Director
file in another file can be difficult. It's
expensive (and expensive to upgrade.)
lingo
Lingo is the scripting language that is used in
Director. It is a fairly simple language to learn;
the most difficult part is learning how the
language interacts with the different elements of
Director movie.
The following code fragment is executed when a user
clicks on an graphic on the screen. The script
hides the graphics for 1/4 second, then jumps the
movie to another frame.
on
mouseDown
put the clickon
into me
put the memberNum of sprite(me) into
myNum
put the name of member (myNum) into
theframe
set the visible of sprite me to false
updatestage
put the ticks into x
put x + 15 into x
repeat while the ticks < x
end repeat
set the visible of sprite me to true
updatestage
go to movie theframe
end
Xtras
Director can be extended using external programs
calling Xtras. These are like plug-ins, and
must be placed in the xtras directory. Xtras make
it easy to add functionality to Director
(Macromedia used Xtras to add support for QuickTime
3.0 and the Save As Jave feature for example)
however it also means that when you create a
Projector or a Shockwave file, that functionality
won't be available unless you also distribute the
Xtra. Several third-party companies offer Xtras for
everything from database functions to advanced
graphics utilities.
The same architecture is used for expanding other
Macromedia tools such as Authorware, and some Xtras
can be used with more than one tool, though this is
not always the case.
XObjects
An earlier method for expanding Director
functionality. This also involved files that acted
as plug-ins to Director, but has been replaced by
Xtras.
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Multimixer
Xtra
1.5 May
28, 1998
Multimixer Xtra 1.5 is a scripting Xtra
that can mix and pan multiple audio tracks
of any QuickTime file. This release is
cross-platform, and support has been added
for the Access Key functionality of
QuickTime 3 which can encode a password
into QuickTime media that prevents access
without the password. Other features
include:
- Independently
set the volume and balance of any audio
track
- Enable
and disable any media track
- Register
Quicktime Access Keys
Windows
users must have QuickTime 3 installed;
Macintosh users must have at least
QuickTime 2.1The Xtra costs $300.
More information and a fully functional
demo are available (Multimixer
info page
at Turntable
Media)
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XtrAgent
Xtra
May
18, 1998
DirectXtras
has posted a beta of XtrAgent,
an Asset Xtra for Macromedia
Director which enables the use of
Microsoft's "Agent" technology in Director
applications.
XtrAgent adds a new type of cast member -
Agent - an interactive animated character
that can be drawn on top of all other
sprites and windows and even outside of
the stage area. It can talk using a
built-in Text-To-Speech engine, and
understand voice using a speech
recognition engine.
XtrAgent is for Windows 95 & NT only.
DirectXtras also offers a cross-platform
Text-To-Speech Xtra called
'Xpress'.
The final version will be available on the
first of June at a list price of $399.
Until then pre-orders receive a discounted
price of $299.
Information
about Microsoft Agent
technology
can be found at Microsoft's web site.
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PhotoCaster
1.2
is a Director Xtra that creates cast
members from Photoshop layers. It costs
$199 On-line; $249 Packaged.
A demo version is available (the demo
version draws a line across the imported
graphics.)
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Red
Eye Softwares Xtras are distributed by
updateStage:
Popup Xtra - Displays native system
hierarchical popup menus with
fully-customizable properties
Audio Xtra - Records and plays
sound, and includes the ability to
graphically represent a sound's
waveform.
Dialogs Xtra - Displays native
system Open and Save file dialogs for
applications that must access or store
data.
InstalledFonts Xtra - Assesses the
system's installed fonts.
<www.updateStage.com>
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V12-DBE
2.1 is a database engine for
Director which features:
- data
can now be imported from Dbase V or
earlier and FoxPro 5.0 or earlier
files
- Virtual
CR property enables the direct
importing of text files that contain
Carriage Returns as part of their
data
Developers
can now create database-driven user
interfaces without writing Lingo script.
V12-DBE can be implemented into a project
by dragging and dropping behaviors.
Behaviors are special cast members
designed to help users having limited or
no knowledge of Lingo, to implement the
most popular functions of V12-DBE.
New
users can purchase the cross-platform
version of V12-DBE 2.1 for $469.00(US) and
the single platform version for
$349.00(US). The V12-DBE
Director/Authorware cross-platform bundle
is offered at $699.00(US).
A
free evaluation copy of V12-DBE 2.1 with
complete documentation is available for
free at their website
<www.integration.qc.ca>
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Composite
Xtra lets you allocate an image buffer
in memory with a specified DPI resolution,
and composite text, scaled images (from
external graphics files), and graphics
primitives (lines, rectangles, and ovals)
in that image buffer. You can also render
text on a curve, or rotate text by
90-degree increments. Then you can save
the image buffer as a bitmap castmember or
as a PICT or BMP file.
You
can download a free trial version, which
is identical to the retail version except
that it renders a red 'X' through images
before saving.
<www.pablomedia.com/>
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DirectEmail
1.5 Xtra is a Scripting Xtra for
Macromedia Director and Authorware that
lets you compose and send e-mails, with
attachments, from within Director,
Authorware and Shockwave applications. A
fully functional trial version of
DirectEmail Xtra 1.5 (9X/NT and MacOS
PPC)can be downloaded from their
website.
<www.directxtras.com>
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Update
Stage
A website maintained by Gretchen Macdowall
which specializes in tips, tricks and
reporting bugs and problems. Also sells a
range of third party Xtras.
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last
updated: 11/25/98
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