MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX-USING DIRECTOR MX, Use Manual

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Director Basics 51
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Transition Xtra extensions supply transitions in addition to the predefined transitions that are
available in the Frame Properties: Transition dialog box.
•
Tool Xtra extensions provide useful functions in the authoring environment, but they don’t do
anything while a movie runs. They do not have to be distributed with movies.
About installing Xtra extensions
To make custom Xtra extensions available to Director, place them in the Xtras folder located in
the same folder as the Director application. You must do this before you launch Director.
An Xtra can be stored in a folder up to five folders below the Xtras folder.
When you launch Director, you can use the
openXlib
command to open Scripting Xtra
extensions that are located in any folder. If you open an Xtra this way, you must use the
closeXlib
command to close it when Director finishes with it.
Copies of the same Xtra can have different filenames or have the same filename but reside in
different folders. If duplicate Xtra extensions are available when Director launches, Director
displays an alert. Delete any duplicate Xtra extensions.
Director automatically closes Xtra extensions when the application quits.
To make any Director movie appear on the Xtras menu and open as a movie in a window during
authoring, place it in the Xtras folder.
About distributing movies
When you finish creating a movie, you have several choices about how to distribute it to users.
You can distribute the movie as a Shockwave movie that plays within a web page or as a projector
that downloads to the user’s computer or that you distribute on a disk.
•
A Shockwave movie is a compressed version of the movie data only.
•
A projector is a stand-alone version of a movie. You can include several movies in a single
projector. Projectors appear on the system desktop as applications.
For more information about distributing movies, see Chapter 26, “Packaging Movies for
Distribution,” on page 571.
Movies that are distributed from the Internet can begin playing as soon as the content for the first
frame is downloaded. This process is called streaming. You can control streaming with behaviors
that make the movie wait for media at certain frames, or you can specify that a movie download
completely before it begins playing. See “Setting movie playback options” on page 592.
To create a Shockwave movie that can play in a web page, you use the Publish command. Director
leaves your original movie in its .DIR format. Director also creates a Shockwave movie in the
.DCR format.
If you use the default Publish settings, Director creates an HTML page that is completely
configured with
EMBED
tags and everything else you need to run your movie in a browser. By
default, Director saves all these new files in the same folder as your original Director movie. For
more information about putting your Director movie on the web, see “Creating Shockwave
movies” on page 576.
For information on how to distribute Xtra extensions with projectors, refer to TechNote 13965 in
the Director Support Center. Although the note might refer to Director 7, the information is the
same for Director MX.