EXCLUSIVES

Macromedia® Director® MX 2004
By Trey Yancy

August 2004

If you are a multimedia developer and are involved in creating projects that can be dispersed through the widest variety of media or if you want to take the widest variety of media possible and incorporate it into an easily distributable format, chances are you are using Macromedia Director.

Version 8.5 saw the introduction of broad support for incorporating 3-D content into Director projects. Director MX saw the introduction of Section 508 compliant accessibility features, including text-to-speech, captions, and tab navigation, as well as OS X native output.

Director MX 2004 spreads its grasp even further by adding support for DVD navigation, playback, and event triggering. It has also broadened its appeal to developers by incorporating support for JavaScript® alongside its Java®-like scripting language, Lingo™. While both of these features are very appealing, the true head-turner for me, small though it may seem, is the ability to create projectors for both Mac® and Windows® from either version of Director. This has been a very, very long time coming; and I am delighted to finally say goodbye to my collection of Windows stub files.

Another improvement is the enhanced publishing panel that eliminates various dialogue boxes, allows the user to save settings by project, and provides a one-click solution for publishing simultaneously in OS X and Windows formats, as well as Classic, Shockwave®, and HTML. Also new is the ability to assign custom names to channels and sprites, making it possible to move channels and to move sprites between channels without breaking scripts.

Along with the publishing panel, there are a variety of improvements to the interface, including window docking, the docking of movie-in-a-window tools, multiple panel sets for multi-author use and for easily setting up a variety of projects. My only complaint with the interface is that the stage and stage window size cannot be linked for easy zooming.

Also new to the interface is a huge, sparsely populated, ever-present start page. Its convenient go-away-forever checkbox is a pleasing feature.

As expected, this release also supports the most recent versions of Flash™ and Fireworks® and provides click-through editing for both. Flash playback, by the way, is noticeably more responsive, with a speed increase by as much as 70%, depending on content. There are also a number of canned Flash elements, such as calendar tool, scroll pane, and navigation elements, all with an ActionScript programming interface. Now that Director supports no less than three scripting languages, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t time for Macromedia to either switch to Java entirely or to integrate its scripting languages for Director and Flash and eliminate the need of learning multiple languages.

DVD Video
The incorporation of DVD video into Director projects is an interesting move. Via a Flash-based DVD controller, you can now play DVD content within a Director project via a variety of controllers; and you can use the DVD event manager to trigger events during DVD playback. What does this mean for you? It means that you can incorporate DVD content into CD-ROMs and web-based projects. It also means that you can take a company’s promotional DVD video, pull it into a Director movie, and add interactive in-depth content such as live-updating charts, text, images, and the like, making it easy for a user to view a chapter and then step out of the DVD and study related products or services, interact with Flash movies, visit Web sites, and much more.

While not as spectacular as DVD content, the equally welcome capability of including Windows Media® and RealMedia content in Director projects is also welcome. In practical terms, the inclusion of the latter should appeal to a broader range of developers, but I love the concept of integrated DVD content.

License Activation
Something else that is new is a web-based locked license. If you wish to switch between two machines you must disable the first copy and then register and activate the second copy via a web link. If you use Director on a desktop machine when in the office and on a laptop when traveling, this adds several extra steps. If for some reason your Internet service goes down in the middle of changing machines, neither copy could be used until your Internet service is restored. Fortunately, there is a workaround for tech hounds, but anyone else would simply be out of luck.

Learning
An easy learning curve has never been one of Director’s strong points, particularly when you delve into the realm of advanced scripting where master scripters can create projects with the scope and vision of Cecil B. DeMille while requiring only a handful of frames to execute. For beginners working on basic-to-intermediate level projects, the curve is much less steep, however, thanks to a wealth of canned behaviors and the ease with which one can create basic scripts for navigation, image swapping, audio playback, and the like. One can also get a great deal of animation mileage from the combination of keyframes, sprite placement, and properties editing.

What is lacking is the set of printed manuals that once accompanied all Macromedia products. Except for a simple Getting Started Guide, everything you would once have found in print is available only via HTML-based help. This may work well for many users; but for others searching for the proper term, it is much easier and faster to fan through an alphabetized book with several entries per page than to navigate up and down through a hierarchical online help system, alphabetized or not.

The documentation has always had a bit of a hit-or-miss feel, often compelling the learner to follow trails of breadcrumbs as they try to figure out how to create various sorts of seemingly simple scripts. The lack of printed documentation makes the forest seem larger and darker. I would rather pay an extra $50 and have the printed documentation than blow hours of productivity.

Conclusion
Director is the undisputed king of the interactive multimedia hill and the latest release stuffs more than a few more phone books under the cushion of its already lofty throne. Its support for cross-platform publishing, JavaScript, and DVD content are compelling reasons in themselves to buy or upgrade; and its other great features are much more than just icing on the cake. I have a few concerns but am happy to give Director MX 2004 a big thumbs up.

Director MX 2004
Pros: Support for DVD content, JavaScript, cross-platform publishing
Cons: Minimal printed documentation
From: Macromedia <macromedia.com>
Price: $1,199 (Upgrade: $399)
Rating: 4.5 out of 5