 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Macromedia Director 7 Major Keary majkeary@netscape.com.au |
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Macromedia Press, in association with Peachpit Press, publishes 'official' guides to Macromedia products. This particular title, Director 7 Demystified, in fact covers three applications: Director, Lingo, and Shockwave.
Director is an authoring tool; its purpose is to create other software, typically a "fully self-contained self-running program". Written for both the Windows and MacOS platforms, Director and can be used to create cross-platform interactive multimedia programs. Of course, output does not have to be either interactive or multimedia.
Lingo is a scripting language used by Director and continues to evolve (without attracting ++ as a sign of growth), and in Director 7 it is able to handle object oriented programming.
Shockwave is a Macromedia file format that is designed to turn multimedia into Web content. Most Web users know Shockwave as a plug-in that doesn't take forever to load a target file. Like Lingo, there's a lot more to it than just that.
Why cover three separate subjects in the one volume? Well, Director relies heavily on Lingo and Shockwave. Lingo makes things work, and Shockwave transports the end result to Web users. Any thorough treatment of Director, such as this title, has to contain explanations of Lingo scripts and the innards of Shockwave.
Book 1, Director Basics, introduces Director, discusses elements of animation and interactivity, introduces Shockwave, and describes Director's production tools.
Book 2, Digging Deeper, Introduces Lingo and elements of scripting, and takes the reader deeper into Lingo and Shockwave.
Book 3, Special Topics, discusses Ling lists, debugging, troubleshooting, Lingo and OOP, audio, and video, Lingo Xtras, and cross-platform production.
The book contains four projects, each of which is fully discussed (and present on a companion CD as Director files). These are good examples of real projects and add significantly to the text. The book is not a tutorial, starting at lesson one, but sets out to provide readers with a thorough understanding of how Director works, especially in conjunction with Lingo and Shockwave.
An extensive reference section of over 300 pages contains Director Internet resources, a list of 'retired' Lingo commands, a 306-page list of Lingo elements by category, a Lingo code reference, keyboard shortcuts, and a glossary.
This a massive book packed with well-presented information. Graphics are used effectively to illustrate the text, but are not used to pad out, or show off the product. The table of contents is well detailed and, in conjunction with an extensive index, information is easy to find.
A companion Win/Mac CD contains the examples used in the book. The files are in unprotected open code, which enables readers to study (and even manipulate) the underlying code. There are demo versions of several applications (DeBabelizer, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Freehand, Generator, and Screen Saver Factory.
If you use Director the cost of this book is a small price to pay for such a
comprehensive and useful reference and resource.
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Roberts and Gross: Director 7 Demystified |
Reprinted from the April 2000 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
