In this last article (for now) of a series of articles on Xtra development
using Macromedia's Open Architecture, or MOA, I thought it'd be nice to take
a quick tour through some of the little quirks, clues, shortcuts, and hints
I've accumulated over the years. These are in no specific order other than
that I've tried to keep related items together.
Director Isn't Loading My Xtra
First, make sure it really isn't loading. Unfortunately, in Director, there
is no specific menu item that will show you all the Xtras. In later versions
of Director you can type "put the xtralist" (without quotes) in the message
window and it will list all Xtras loaded by Director. It's not formatted for
easy reading, but it is comprehensive. Other than that, where your Xtra
appears depends on wh... (more)
If I promised to take you to see a foreign city, one where you were not
fluent in the language, and didn't know your way around, and then actually
flew you there to visit, would you wnat me to just drop you off in the center
of town and leave you there?
Well, that's sort of what has happened in my last two articles on Xtras
(MXDJ, Vol. 2, issues 2-3) - space considerations precluded us fr... (more)
In my last article (MXDJ, Vol. 2, issue 2), we looked at how Macromedia
Director is extensible, primarily through Xtras (plug-ins); and that there
are four major types of Xtras - Scripting/Lingo Xtras, Sprite Xtras,
Transition Xtras, and Tool Xtras.
Now it's time to look specifically at what's involved in rolling your own
Xtra. A full treatment of all the ins and outs, gotchas and nuances... (more)
Macromedia Director has proven itself in myriad applications as the
development platform of choice. Although Director lets nonprogrammers create
multimedia applications, there are a surprising number of developers with
traditional software engineering backgrounds who use Director.
Why would software engineers, who are perfectly capable of writing in
"professional" languages like C/C++, ch... (more)
Tab Julius has been writing software since the mid-70s, and now works for a software firm developing medical imaging applications, although he still does limited consulting on the side.
Keith Bergelt
Gaurav Mantri
Aditya Banerjee
John Karamitsos
Kaj van de Loo
Bob Little
Alois Reitbauer
Chris Schin
Richard Gordon
Anil Parambath
