MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX 2004-GETTING STARTED WITH... User manual

DIRECTOR
®
MX
2004
Getting Started with Director

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Macromedia, Inc. Part Number ZDR10M100
First Edition: January 2004
Macromedia, Inc.
600 Townsend St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

3
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
About Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
What’s new in Director MX 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Guide to instructional media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Getting online help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Sources of information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Document conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
CHAPTER 2: Installing and Configuring Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
System requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Installing Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Installing Xtra extensions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Connecting to the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
CHAPTER 3: Getting to Know the Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Understanding the Director metaphor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Navigating the Director workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Getting to know the default workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Manipulating the default workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Getting to know window types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Using the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Moving around on the Stage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Increasing or decreasing your view of the Stage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Using the offstage canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Using the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Navigating the Score. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Showing and hiding the effects channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Setting the number of Sprite channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Turning channels on and off. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Changing your view of the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Using the Control panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Displaying the Control panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Controlling movie playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Navigating frames in a movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Using the Cast window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

4 Contents
Using the Property inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Controlling your view of the Property inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Setting cast member and sprite properties. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Setting movie properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Using the Script window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Using the Message window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Customizing your workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Customizing panel groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Docking panel groups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Saving panel sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Opening, closing, and collapsing panel groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Working with Xtra extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Adding media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Adding script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Adding transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Distributing Xtra extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
CHAPTER 4: Building Your First Basic Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
What you will learn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Preparing to build the movie scenes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
View the completed movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Open the movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Set up the movie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
View your cast members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Building the first scene with text and an image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Edit a text cast member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Add sprites to the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Add sprites to the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Add an existing button to the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Create a new button cast member. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Observe the difference between sprites and cast members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Edit sprites in the Score window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Change the default length of sprites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Building the second scene with animation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Place the background bitmap on the Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Name a cast member . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Import media into Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Animate the image to travel up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Scrub the playhead to view your animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Animate the image to travel down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Extend the background across additional frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Change the tempo of an animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Change the span of an animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Add an existing navigation button to the Score. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Add a new navigation button to the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Arrange sprites in the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Building the third scene with sound and video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Import a digital video cast member. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Play the digital video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Contents 5
Create a QuickTime sprite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Specify direct-to-Stage playback for a QuickTime cast member . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Add custom buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Import a sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Add a sound to the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Add navigation buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Writing scripts to control the movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Looping the playhead with Lingo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Write a handler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Reuse the handler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Add a marker to the Score . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Create navigation in Lingo using marker names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Add Lingo to navigation buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Test your script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Add markers to two additional scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Write script that refers to scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Add scripts to the animation scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Add one more script to the sound and video scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Controlling digital video with script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Rewind the QuickTime sprite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Add a script that plays the QuickTime sprite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Add a script that pauses the QuickTime sprite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Control sound with script. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Modify the script for the Pause button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Modify the script for the Rewind button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Add sounds to buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Publishing your movie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Use a QuickTime Xtra extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Get linked media ready to play on your local computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Change Publish settings and publish your movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Summarizing what you learned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

6 Contents

7
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Welcome to Macromedia Director MX 2004. With Director, you can develop high-performance
multimedia content and applications for CDs, DVDs, kiosks, and the Internet. This guide,
Getting Started with Director, is designed to get you up and running as quickly as possible. It
includes installation guidelines for both new and returning users as well as an orientation to
Director and tutorials for new users.
In this chapter, you can get an overview of Director, learn about the features that are new in this
release of Director, and find additional sources of information.
About Director
With Director, a proven multimedia authoring tool for professionals, you can develop high-
performance content and deploy it anywhere: on CDs, DVDs, intranets, kiosks, or the Internet.
Whether you are creating enhanced CD/DVD-ROM content, educational content, or
entertainment applications, Director handles the widest variety of media, letting you unleash your
creativity and build rich, interactive experiences that deliver measurable results. Director provides
all the tools you need to maximize productivity, including a choice of scripting languages and
cross-platform publishing.
With Director, you can now do all of the following:
•Embed most major media formats in your multimedia projects, including DVD-Video,
Windows Media, RealMedia, QuickTime, and Macromedia Flash content, in addition to
audio, bitmap, and 3D formats.
•Work seamlessly with other Macromedia MX products, including Macromedia
Flash MX 2004.
•Extend the authoring environment and playback engine with the Xtra extension plug-in
architecture in Director. Use third-party Xtra extensions or write your own to control external
devices, such as joysticks and cameras, and perform sophisticated operating system-level tasks.
•Write scripts to add interactivity and automation to your projects, using the Lingo scripting
language, JavaScript syntax, or a combination of the two.
•Publish content across platforms and to different formats, including Macintosh and
Windows projectors.

8 Chapter 1: Introduction
Users view your completed Director movies in one of the following ways:
•In a projector, which plays on your user’s computer as a stand-alone application.
•In the Macromedia Shockwave Player format, which plays in Shockwave-enabled web
browsers. Millions of web users already have the Shockwave Player on their computers,
browsers, or system software. Others have downloaded Shockwave Player, which is free, from
the Macromedia website at www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/.
Tip: To see some of the exciting and varied ways in which developers use Director, visit the Director
showcase at www.macromedia.com/go/discreet_inspiration. You can also see great examples of
Shockwave content at www.shockwave.com.
What’s new in Director MX 2004
Director MX 2004 introduces many new features, designed to save time during authoring or to
improve integration with other software, media types, and multimedia development processes.
Importing Macromedia Flash MX 2004 content You can now access Macromedia Flash MX
2004 from within Director.
Scripting in JavaScript syntax Director now supports scripting in JavaScript syntax, in
addition to Lingo. You can use whichever language is more familiar to you or use both languages
in the same movie to develop interactive features and functionality.
Using prebuilt components Prebuilt Macromedia Flash MX 2004 components are now
available to reduce your scripting time. You can drop components, such as calendars and user
interface elements, into movies to cut the time that it takes to develop interactive features.
Adding DVD-Video You can now embed, control, and play back the popular DVD-Video
format inside Director movies. This feature makes DVD possible and affordable for a wide variety
of developers—including entertainment studios, distance learning professionals, DVD authors,
and corporate presentation specialists.
Publishing to Mac and Windows in one step After you complete a movie, you can now
publish across platforms in one step, creating either stand-alone applications or web-based
Shockwave content that runs on Mac and Windows. The new projector publishing feature
eliminates extraneous dialog boxes, saves projector settings on a per-project basis, and eliminates
redundancies.
Naming sprites and channels Sprites and channels can now have custom names, and absolute
references to sprites are no longer necessary. This feature is an advantage when you make last-
minute changes to your movie. With absolute references, your Lingo or JavaScript syntax scripts
might break. But with sprite names, you can move sprites on the Score without worrying about
broken scripts.
Customizing your workspace You can arrange your workspace in multiple configurations and
save each workspace for later use. As a new part of this feature, you can now create workspace
settings that include Movie in a Window (MIAW) windows that are docked alongside your other
windows. These docked MIAW windows can extend Director functionality.
Integrating with other Macromedia Studio MX 2004 products If you already use other
Macromedia Studio MX 2004 products, such as Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia
Fireworks MX 2004, then the Director interface is already familiar to you. In addition to a
common interface, you can now start and edit other Macromedia Studio MX 2004 files from
directly within Director.

Guide to instructional media 9
Integrating with Macromedia server technologies You can now choose to integrate Director
with Macromedia server technologies, such as Macromedia ColdFusion MX 6.1 and Macromedia
Flash Communication Server MX. For multi-user games, distance learning content, and other
server-controlled content, this link between your Director content and IT infrastructure extends
your interactivity options.
Getting help from the reference panel A new reference panel is now available in Director to
simplify getting help with using Director, behaviors, Xtra extensions, and application
programming interfaces (APIs) for both Lingo and JavaScript syntax.
Guide to instructional media
Director contains a variety of information sources to help you learn the program quickly and
become proficient in creating multimedia. This information includes several printable PDF files
and online help. The Director workspace contains tooltips and context-sensitive help, and
additional help is available on the Director website at www.macromedia.com/go/
director_support.
Getting online help
As you use Director, you can get immediate online help by opening Director Help. You can also
get help with the specific item in Director that you are currently using. This feature is called
context-sensitive help.
To access Director Help:
1Select Help > Director Help.
2Browse for a topic on the Contents tab, or type a keyword on the Search tab.

10 Chapter 1: Introduction
To access context-sensitive help, do one of the following:
•If you are working in a window, display the Options menu for that window and select Help.
•If you are working in a dialog box, click the Help button.
Director Help opens and displays a topic that relates to the window or dialog box that you
are using.
Sources of information
Getting Started with Director This printed manual contains the essential information that you
need to get started, including information about installing the latest version of Director. This
manual also guides you through the workspace and offers a tutorial, designed for those who are
new to Director.
Director Help Panel This online help system is the comprehensive information source for all
Director features. It includes overviews of the features, examples, how-to procedures, descriptions
of interface elements, and a reference of all scripting objects in both Lingo and JavaScript syntax.
Topics are linked and indexed to make finding information and jumping to related topics quick
and easy. To view the Director Help Panel, select Help > Director Help while you are working
in Director.
Using Director This manual is available in printable PDF format from the Director
Documentation Center at www.macromedia.com/go/director_docs. It explains how to use all of
the features and functionality offered in Director. Information in the manual is also available in
the online Director Help.