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[Plug-Ins] [Plug-In Pack]

Shockwave
[Imagemap]

Purpose: Views inline, interactive multimedia files
Company: Macromedia
Platform: Mac; Win95, NT, 3.1
Plug-in cost: Free
Developer tool: Director, Authorware, or FreeHand
Download from: http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/plugin/plugin.cgi

In late 1994, multimedia meant two things to most graphic designers: CD-ROMs and Macromedia Director. Accustomed to powerful authoring tools like Director and the generous memory allowances of CD-ROMs, most multimedia designers were underwhelmed by the "opportunities" on the Web. After all, they were building interactive presentations with animation, sound, and video, while their Web counterparts were still oohing and aahing over small triumphs like image alignment and color backgrounds. For the Web, t rue multimedia was a ways away.

By the time Macromedia released Shockwave in late 1995, however, online design had made tremendous progress - allowing for tighter font control, tables, frames, and animated GIFs - but the plug-in took it to the next level. Shockwave allowed designers to easily create inline multimedia files out of existing Director movies, opening the door for audio, video, animation, and expanded interactivity on the Web.

Since Director already had a broad and experienced developer base, the plug-in immediately took off, and "shocked" sites popped up all over the place. But users were lucky if they made it past the broken plug-in icon. Designers didn't know the plug-in' s limits yet, and sites went crazy with huge files. Browsers were crashing right and left; a lot of users just decided to steer clear.

When things settled down, Shockwave emerged as one of the more reliable plug-ins. Used widely for both animation and audio (Shockwave recently added a streaming audio function, which is being positioned as a challenge to RealAudio), Shockwave has stead ily moved toward becoming a universal creation tool, letting developers convert files from Authorware and FreeHand, as well as Director. Bit by bit, implementation is improving as well. Some sites have actually found ways to employ Shockwave elegantly and usefully - as in typoGRAPHIC's letterform tutorial.

Of course, some designers have dismissed Shockwave and moved on to Java as their development tool of choice. Now, that's all fine and good for commercial sites with engineers aplenty. But smaller operations will likely stick with Shockwave; if you've a lready laid out the cash for Director, it's definitely the economical way to go.



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