Product Reviews

Now in its fourteenth year, Director is the latest addition to Macromedia's MX series. Taking full advantage of the underlying technology within Mac OS X, in this versionthe multimedia authoring package is fully optimised for the G4's AltiVec and ready to use the new features found within QuickTime 6. Unlike the last big upgrade, which included Shockwave 3D, this latest version focuses more on depth and workflow than new feature, although there are still enough of these to excite long-term users.

As Director is now part of the MX suite, one of the critical aspects of this upgrade is its integration with existing MX applications and extensibility through server side Internet technologies. Apart from an overhaul to the user interface and workflow, Director gains some significant enhancements, including new accessibility features and additional Lingo behaviours.

Director MX is fully Carbonized and makes full use of Aqua and standard MX interface features. This update has improved the program's use and reduced the clutter of palettes found in earlier versions.

In line with other MX products, Director has now replaced the Watcher with the Object Inspector, which can be used to monitor values of subproperties from such objects as Cast members, Lingo objects and Sprite references. With Flash movies, the Object Inspector allows you to see all the variables that are at the root level of a movie. You can also expand this view to show additional subproperties.

Another interface improvement is a new, unified Script and Debugging window. As in Flash MX, the Debugger is context-sensitive and only becomes available when you are in debugging mode. Also inside the Debugger are the Watcher, Call Stack and Variable panes. Usefully, scripts now remain inside the Debugging window after they've been corrected, allowing you to debug, browse and edit scripts in the same window.

Similarly, the Script window has a number of improvements to help workflow. It contains six new window buttons for line numbering, auto colouring and formatting along with categorised 3D Lingo commands and scripting Xtras.

Talking the lingo

There are also enhancements to the Message window, which has been refined into two panes: input and output. This is very useful, as you can enter Lingo inside the input pane and simultaneously view information regarding statements in the output pane. Like the Script window, the new Message window contains buttons to help workflow, including 3D Lingo references and Scripting Xtras.

As in previous versions of Director, you can specify external editors for any file type supported by the program. By clicking on a Cast member, you can launch an external application, edit then save and reimport. This workflow has been significantly improved, especially if you're using MX products like Flash or Fireworks. Double-click a SWF cast member to launch Flash, and once you've finished editing the file, press the Done button inside Flash's editing window. The Cast member is then neatly updated inside Director with no resaving or reimporting of the Cast member.

This round-trip editing streamlines the process of editing Cast members significantly. Even if you use third-party editors the integration and round-trip editing is just as impressive, and Director places a Done button inside each editor window. We tested the feature inside Photoshop, Pro Tools and Discreet Cleaner and it worked perfectly, updating the Cast on the fly.

Director can now import native Fireworks PNG files using the new Fireworks MX Import Xtra. The Xtra also allows Fireworks MX layers to be exported into Director as a combination of HTML and images, using Fireworks MX CSS Layers export format. Each of these layers are imported as individual cast members and positioned exactly on Director's Stage. If your Fireworks file contains buttons and rollovers, these are also converted into separate cast members. Going a stage further, the new Xtra

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allows an HTML output template to be used, letting you transfer the JavaScript behaviours found in Fireworks into Lingo ones.

Direct approach

The Fireworks MX Xtra will significantly improve workflow between the two applications, but for Flash users the integration with Director has been taken forward considerably. This is good news if you are a Director developer wanting to take advantage of the graphics and animation features of Flash, and the powerful authoring environment of Director.

You can import Flash SWF files into Director as Cast members, view Flash properties and make basic modifications using Director's new Flash Options window. More importantly, Director can now control Flash ActionScript objects using Lingo. The Lingo control goes further by letting you create Flash MX objects directly from within Lingo. These new abilities with Flash SWF files significantly increase Director's development capabilities.

The added integration with the Flash format also means that Director has access to the SWF format, providing it with access to all of Flash's server capabilities. Importantly, Director can now use all the functional capabilities provided by Macromedia's Flash Communication Server. This means that it will be able to use USB or FireWire cameras and microphones, or use Flash's XML socket object, allowing access to, and the use of, XML data streams.

Although it wasn't featured in our beta version, Director MX will ship with a copy of Macromedia's Flash Communication Server: Personal Edition. This is likely to become the preferred server for multiplayer games, streaming and real-time collaborative environments. Macromedia will drop support for the Shockwave Multi-user Server with Director MX.

On the server side, Director will be able to take advantage of Flash Remoting, which can communicate directly with databases and application servers supported under the SWF format. These include Macromedia Cold Fusion, Microsoft .NET, Java and simple object access protocol (SOAP) services. Again, because we were testing a beta version, we are unable to review these features.

While the majority of Director MX's new features fall under the headings of workflow, integration and extensibility, there are some that don't fall into these categories. If you are a Mac OS 9 user, you won't be able to use Director MX. However, you can create projectors for both OS X and older versions of the Mac OS. QuickTime 6 is supported, including MPEG-4 playback and the ability to do interactive 'live scrubbing', where you can jump to any position in a movie and get it to stream from that point.

Wave finder

The only way you'll be able to produce cross-platform content is by creating Shockwave, which Director MX generates to be compatible with the Shockwave 8.5.1 player. Surprisingly, you still can't use the Mac OS version to write Windows projectors, or vice versa. Almost the whole of the Director development community has made this an important issue for any future versions of Director, but, despite this, its missing from this version.

For many developers this upgrade may not seem that important, but it is once you understand the potential of combining Director with Flash technologies. For the first time, Director developers have Lingo control over Flash assets and can work seamlessly between the two development environments. The ability to create lightweight Shockwave with all the capabilities of Flash Remoting, means connected CD-ROM, DVD or Kiosk content can interact with live data sources. For some time, Director has been able to work with online and localised databases, but with all the capabilities built into Flash, these abilities have been considerably enhanced.

Flash in the pan

For Flash developers, Director offers significantly more when it comes to developing truly interactive multimedia applications. This includes better QuickTime and Real Video control and powerful interactive 3D content.

Some developers may be disappointed with this release, as the feature set seems light and highly focused around MX integration, workflow and accessibility. Many will have wanted better direct XML handling, Unicode support and improved imaging Lingo. Sadly, these features have not appeared.

But if you never made the move to version 8.5, this may be a good time to upgrade. Director MX incorporates all benefits found inside version 8.5 including support for interactive 3D and adds the vital support for integration, server side interactivity and Flash Remoting.