Introduction to Interactive MM in Director

INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA IN DIRECTOR
Focus: Web-based presentations

GENERAL INTRODUCTION:

Macromedia Director is a development toolkit for creating interactive multimedia products as 1) stand-alone applications (for CD-ROM) and/or 2) online embedded content (Shockwave or Java).

In Director both the spatial and temporal structure of a presentation is composed within a WYSIWYG interface. This interface, based on a film-making metaphor (including a cast, score and stage) allows you to collect, organize and assemble (both visually and temporally) numerous types of source media including: images, digital video, audio files, text objects, text fields, color palettes, buttons, scripts, etc.

Over the past few years, Macromedia has been consistently enhancing Director's ability to author interactive products. In general, all interactive programming is achieved via Director's quasi-English internal programming language, Lingo. Consisting of over 5000 distinct commands, Lingo can not only control most every internal aspect of a Director presentation, but can also send commands to the browser environment, and instruct it to load HTML, call Javascript functions, etc.

TYPICAL APPLICATIONS:

Director was originally developed as a toolkit for creating animations (VideoWorks). While having expanded its ability to author interactive products, it has always remained focused on the quick development of time-based, movement-rich presentations. As a result the vast majority of products generated in Director (and its cousin Flash) employ extensive animation in one form or another.

In addition to a full suite of interactive features, Shockwave can also download text content from the web, interact with the browser environment (e.g., load HTML documents), play embedded Quicktime video, work with databases, stream audio content, etc. Because of its versatility, many sites now employ SW/Flash for total online presentation, wherein an entire website's worth of content is presented in (or through) SW/Flash.

EXAMPLES: NAVIGATION

Macromedia

Frog Design

EXAMPLES: TOTAL ONLINE PRESENTATION

EXAMPLES: CONCEPTUAL WORK