MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX-USING DIRECTOR MX, Use Manual

Page: 539 / 624

Movies in a Window 539
Opening a MIAW
Before you can play a movie in a separate window, you must open the window explicitly
with Lingo.
To open a MIAW:
•
Use the
open window
command.
Unless Lingo explicitly preloads the movie, Director doesn’t load the movie into memory until the
window is opened, which can cause a noticeable pause. To load the first frame of the movie, use
the
preLoadMovie
command.
You can specify other window characteristics before or after you open the window.
Closing a MIAW
You can close the window for a MIAW but leave the movie in memory, or you can close the
MIAW and remove the movie from memory when it’s no longer in use.
•
If you leave a MIAW in memory, you get better performance if the window is reopened;
however, the movie still consumes memory. You might want to use this option if you expect
a MIAW to be reopened after it initially runs, or if other windows or global variables refer to
the MIAW.
•
If you remove a MIAW from memory, performance slows down if the window is reopened,
because the movie has to reload; however, it doesn’t consume memory until the movie is
reloaded. You might want to use this option if you don’t expect a MIAW to be reopened after it
initially runs or if you want to optimize memory on the computer running the MIAW.
To close a MIAW but keep it in memory:
•
Use the
close window
command. After the window is closed, the window becomes invisible,
but the movie continues playing. See
close window
in the Lingo Dictionary.
To close a MIAW and remove it from memory:
•
Use the
forget window
command. The window is closed, and the movie is removed from
memory. Use this command only if no other window or global variables still refer to the
MIAW. See
forget window
in the Lingo Dictionary.
Setting the window type for a MIAW
You can select from the following seven styles of windows:
•
Four document window styles: the standard document window, a document window with a
zoom box and variable resize box, a document window with the variable resize box disabled,
and a document window without a resize box
•
An alert box style
•
A plain box style
•
A curved-border style