In the Special Delivery chapter, the book describes a technique for creating a poster/movie combination, so clicking the poster runs a movie that turns back into a poster when it's done.
This works, but only up to a point. The poster turns into a movie, which turns back into a poster. Unfortunately, clicking the poster a second time has no effect.
To make the process repeat as often as the user clicks the poster, you need to add an HREF Track to the movie (instead of using QTNEXT). For an explanation and a demonstration, click here.
All the corrections below this line are incorporated in the second printing of the book.
How do you know if you have the second printing?
You have the second printing if the copyright page (page iv) includes:
Second printing August 2000
Chapter 18, "SMIL for the Camera," discusses the REPEAT attribute.
QuickTime 4.1 does not yet support the REPEAT attribute in SMIL documents.
Oops. Sorry.
The version of MouseJam's mousejamqt4.mov that was included on the CD is an old, unwashed version.
Download the new, wrinkle-free version at:
http://www.mousejam.com/bisset/bissetgroove.mov
or
http://www.mediachrome.com/mousejam/mousejamqt4.mov
Other plugins can hijack the .mov file type, preventing people from viewing QuickTime movies, even when QuickTime is installed. I recommend a solution in the book, but there is a better alternative. The Old SolutionIn the book, I recommend correcting this by setting the SRC parameter to a QuickTime Image File (.qti or .qtif file extension, MIME type "image/x-quicktime"), then passing the actual movie url in the QTSRC parameter.
The HTML looks like this: This does prevent hijacking, because other plugins don't take over .qtif files. People with QuickTime 4 or later see the movie, not the image. BUT, your Web server must have the .qti and .qtif file extensions mapped to the MIME type "image/x-quicktime" for this to work, and the file UNeedQT4.qtif must actually exist on the server. AND, unfortunately, people with earler versions of QuickTime see a broken plugin icon instead of the QTIF image. QuickTime 3 (and 2.5) can display QTIF files, but prior to QuickTime 4 the plugin didn't advertise the MIME type. If you have QuickTime 3, your browser is configured to use PictureViewer for .qtif files, not the QuickTime plugin. The EMBED tag is not compatible with helper apps, only with plugins, so the .qtif image does not display. Again, this technique does prevent hijacking, and with QuickTime 4 or later all is well, but people with earlier versions of QuickTime see a broken plugin icon, not a nice image telling them where to get the latest version of QuickTime. The New SolutionThere is an alternate approach you can take that works with older versions of QuickTime. Instead of passing a QTIF file in the SRC parameter, pass a MacPaint image (file extension .pntg, MIME type "image/x-macpaing"). Don't laugh, this actually works.
The HTML looks like this: This approach also prevents hijacking, and people with QuickTime 3 see an image telling them they need to upgrade, rather than a broken plugin icon. Important: Your Web server MUST be configured to associate the .pntg file extension with the MIME type "image/x-macpaint" or it won't work. Yes, it works on Windows. No, the viewer doesn't need MacPaint (and neither do you). You just need an image in MacPaint format. You can convert a black-and-white bitmap image into MacPaint format using PictureViewer, or you can use one of these images: Here are three images you can use: 640x480, 320x240, 180x120 Use the largest image that fits inside the height and width you allocate for your movie. All the images are 5 kbytes in size. Bear in mind that only people with QuickTime 3 will see the image. People with QuickTime 4 or later will never see it -- they see the movie instead. Note: If you want to make your own image, start with a program such as Photoshop. The image size must be exactly 576 x 720 pixels (W x H). It must be black and white (not grayscale). The part of the image you want people to see must be centered. If your desired image size is 180 x 120 pixels, for example, put an image that size in the center of a 576 x 720 field. Save it as a bitmap image. Convert it to MacPaint format using PictureViewer (included with QuickTime Pro). Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of URL, URL, URLHere's a critical bit of information that got left out of the book-- when you specify a url in the HREF or QTNEXT parameter of the EMBED tag, it's relative to the currently-loaded movie, not relative to the current HTML page. If the page is in a different directory than the movie, that's an important distinction. Why does QuickTime do this? Because the browser doesn't always tell the plugin the url of the current page! For the same reason, but somewhat surprisingly, if you use a relative url in the QTSRC parameter, it's relative to the url specified in the SRC parameter. And if you use a chain of QTNEXT statements, each url is relative to the previous one! Of course, if all the movies are in the same directory as the Web page, the relative url is just the filename, and it always works. The same is true if the movies are in the same directory as the file specified in the SRC parameter-- the relative url is just the filename, and it works. Short answer: If you use relative urls in the EMBED tag, put your movies in the same directory as the Web page that uses them. That way, there's no confusion about what the urls are relative to. It Just Works. Tunnel of FunOn page 580, the book refers to a movie named Tunnels.mov and the LiveStage project used to create it. Through an oversight, the movie and the project were left off the CD. The movie contains multiple VR panoramas linked by transition movies. It also includes a VR object movie and some wired sprite actions (you have to find the object and pick it up before you can go through the closed door). You can download the movie (2 MBytes) and/or the LiveStage project (2 MBytes) from this website. Sorry for the inconvenience. |
More to come...
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