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++, choose to develop applications in Lingo
and Director instead of a "real" programming environment? Because Director,
despite the occasional quirks, offers a significant advantage over more
traditional languages.
I know this is why I originally chose Director as a development platform.
After years of developing multimedia in C for DOS and Windows, I needed to
find a way to create a product on the Macintosh. I was not in a position at
that time to go up the Mac learning curve, so I start... (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 of
writing Xtras is unfortunately beyond the scope of this article (indeed, it
would fill a small book), but we do have enough space to start to show you
how to write a basic Scripting Xtra.
A... (more)
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... (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 from doing
everything at once.
In my last article, I got you to the city. We went through the steps of
building an Xtra and got it so that you could issue a Lingo command that
would invoke a "Hel... (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.
David Lucas
Shaul Efraim
Terence Martin Breslin
Cory Marchand
David Hughes
James Carlini
John Iffert
Dan Stolts
Joe Zeto
