Table of Contents | Menu Reference

File Menu | Edit Menu | Movie Menu | Actor Menu | Content Menu | Arrange Menu | Text Menu | Web Menu | Window Menu



File menu

New

New Movie dialog box

Creates a new Electrifier movie. When the movie is created, you can specify the dimensions of the movie and choose whether to create a sprite track

Sprite tracks are a way to enhance the playback of animation, effects, and text. Actors in a sprite track can use interactivity and will animate more smoothly. It is still possible to animate actors if you don't use a sprite track, but the animation performance will not be as good.

Video actors don't play back as smoothly inside a sprite track, so you may not want to use a sprite track if smooth video is your main objective.

Open

Open dialog box

Opens an existing Electrifier movie so you can make changes or exchange actors with another file.

Close
Closes the current movie but leaves Electrifier open so you can continue working.

Save
Saves changes to the current movie.

Save As

Save dialog box

Saves the current movie under a new name.

Revert to Saved
Discards changes to the current movie and returns to the last saved version.

Export
Saves the Electrifier movie in one of many standard formats for viewing on the Web or within other applications.

Electrifier movies can be exported in QuickTime 3, QuickTime 2.x (bitmap) or Animated GIF formats, or in any other export format supported by QuickTime.

QuickTime 3.0
Creates a QuickTime 3 movie for compact and high-quality playback on any computer with QuickTime 3. QuickTime 3 movies support all of the advanced compressors, media types, interactivity options, and special effects available in Electrifier Pro, for the ultimate multimedia experience.

QuickTime 2.x
Creates a standard QuickTime bitmap movie that is viewable by anyone with QuickTime. Bitmap movies are much larger than vector movies, but they are more widely viewable. Transitions and Effects created in Electrifier will be applied before the export takes place, so that the movie will display the appropriate end result.

Exported QuickTime movies can be saved using any of the standard graphics or audio compression formats supported by QuickTime; however, some advanced compressors may not be playable with older versions of QuickTime (for example, Sorensen Video, QDesign Music Codec, and Qualcomm PureVoice were all introduced with QuickTime 3).

QuickTime 2.x movies allow you to specify the exact frame rate of your movie for output to rate-dependent media such as videotape or film.

For more information
For a description of the QuickTime 2.x audio and video compression options, see the Video Settings Dialog and Sound Settings Dialog sections of the Compressing Video and Audio appendix

Animated GIF (visual)
Creates an animated GIF file. Animated GIF files are intended for simple animation, since they are large in file size, and cannot be interactive.

Electrifier's animated GIF export has been carefully tuned to allow the GIF to mirror the Electrifier movie as closely as possible. Animated GIFs do not support audio content, but the first sound actor in a movie can be exported separately as a Wave file.

Frames per second: Sets the frame rate for the animated GIF file.
Palette: Chooses the palette to use for the animated GIF file.
Transparent: Chooses a color to make transparent in the file. Pixels which are in the transparent color will not be drawn, allowing non-rectangular images to blend more seamlessly into a web page. If you are creating transparent GIFs, we recommend that you either use an optimized palette or turn color simulation off.
Include preview (interlacing): Stores the image so that a web browser can draw a rough image first, and refine the resolution as the file downloads. Previews are not generally appropriate for animations.
Color simulation (dithering): Approximates the colors in your Electrifier movie by patterns of dots in related colors. This makes continuous-tone shapes such as gradients draw more smoothly, but it may also increase the size of your GIF file. Since images with non-standard palettes may have their colors simulated again by the web browser, color simulation is only recommended for use with the standard palette.

Wave (audio)
Creates a Wave file from the first sound actor in the movie. The Wave format is intended for simple audio, since it is large in file size.

The export options for Wave files are the same as the audio options for a QuickTime 2.x movie, except that the Wave format does not support compression, so the only available compressor is None.
For more information
For a description of the sound settings, see the Sound Settings dialog in the the Compressing Video and Audio section of the Authoring Reference
Other formats
BMP
Creates a still image of the Electrifier movie for viewing on Windows machines.
DV Stream
Creates a digital video stream for use with digital video cameras or DVD-ROM. DV Streams have very high quality and smooth playback, but they are not compressed, and so can be very large in file size.

DV Streams can be saved in either NTSC (US) or PAL (European) video formats.
Picture
Creates a still image of the Electrifier movie for viewing on Macintoshes. PICT files can be compressed using any of the standard QuickTime graphics compressors, though not all choices are appropriate for still images. For more information about graphics compression, see the Supported Compressors appendix.
Page Setup

Page Setup dialog box

Formats the current movie for printing. Options include the size of the page, the orientation of the printed document on page (landscape or portrait), and printer-specific quality settings.

Print

Print dialog box

Prints the preview view of the current movie. Options include the size of the page, the orientation of the printed document on page (landscape or portrait), and printer-specific quality settings.

For more information

For detailed information about delivering multimedia, see the Delivering multimedia section of the Authoring Reference.
If you are concerned with keeping multimedia file sizes small, see the Compressing Video and Audio section of the Authoring Reference.

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