Product Reviews

In the 1990s, Director became the de facto standard for building multimedia applications, such as those included on music CD singles. Its Shockwave features also provided for online applications, especially games, long before Flash's scripting capabilities elevated it to lofty heights. Yet for a few years it has languished without a native Intel Mac version, so the announcement of Director 11 in February was something of a surprise.

In the interim, the previous version and applications built with it ran through Rosetta, though as a consequence end users had to run their web browsers through it too. Now Director, its output and all bundled Xtras are universal binaries, though users can download Shockwave Player 11 of their own accord to avoid using Rosetta.

Authoring is now only supported on Intel Macs, though applications built with Director run on PowerPC Macs too. A quick installation on a G4 revealed no immediate issues, but we can only trust Adobe that there's a reason for this Intel only compatibility.

The interface hasn't been radically overhauled to use the visual style of CS3 for floating palettes - though Director isn't as overladen as Photoshop. The document window has changed though, with the score and stage docked together. Initially, the score is docked on the left of the stage, but it can be moved above if you prefer consistency with Flash's layout.

Items of one kind - scripts or graphics - are gathered under one tab to avoid clutter. Select it and a second row of tabs appears for the documents. The script editor is split into the Script Browser and Dictionary on the left, and the editor on the right. The browser lists all scripts without the need to pick them out of the cast, and the dictionary lists methods by category. Double-click to insert it into the script, with placeholders for parameters, but this functionality already existed as buttons in the toolbar, which revealed pop-up menus to browse alphabetically and by category.

Adobe boasts of Flash CS3 integration to roundtrip

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elements back to Flash for editing, and the ability to use Flash video in Director movies. Sadly, CS3 integration doesn't extend to ActionScript 3. That could be problematic if you've moved onto developing with ActionScript 3 as code will need to be redeveloped in ActionScript 2 to reuse it in Director.

Director uses movie-like terminology to describe its environment. There's a timeline, a stage and a cast (or several) that can play on the stage, where instances of a cast member are called sprites, each with their own name or number. More complex applications can use the built-in language, Lingo, to direct the action on stage.

Flash integration was already available and JavaScript-style syntax is a clear nod to making development easier when working with both applications. Flash sprites can even be scripted, allowing data to be passed to them. A small set of Flash components are included - useful form elements like text boxes, lists, radio buttons and checkboxes, though there are omissions such as the ComboBox (pop-up list), despite an ActionScript 2 version being provided with Flash.

Director also inherits graphics filters, making it easy to apply drop shadows, glows and other basic effects to sprites. They're also scriptable to produce more dynamic results, and they allow a more consistent visual aesthetic to be maintained between graphical cast members developed in Flash or imported from elsewhere.

A new publishing option copies linked and dependent files to sit alongside your application. Set it up once and you can rely on external casts - or other files you choose - being copied alongside your latest build.

Games developers will be pleased to see a couple of features pitched firmly at that area. A new physics engine, PhysX, is provided as an Xtra, though newcomers should not expect to just dive in, game development being a specialised task in itself. Nonetheless, existing games developers will be pleased by the possibilities it affords, just as they will by DirectX 9 support allowing hardware acceleration for more end users on Windows.

The accompanying release of Shockwave Player 11 ought to make Intel Mac owners more willing to investigate Shockwave games and similar content, though the move to Intel-only authoring is curious. Lack of ActionScript 3 support places a burden on developers, who must maintain their older version 2 skills set to work between Flash and Director, and the new and improved elements aren't as enticing as in previous updates. That said, Director is the same capable application as ever, supported by a wealth of knowledge and Xtras online.