Macintosh Compilation 1

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Extra! Extra! -- Authorware 3.0 Welcome to Authorware 3 For an overview of Authorware's features--both new and old-- run Welcome. You'll find it inside a folder named Welcome in the Goodies folder on the Authorware CD. You'll like what you see! Macromedia Arrives on the Internet If you have access to the Internet, log on to Macromedia's new World Wide Web home page. You'll find the latest information about Authorware and all of Macromedia's products. Our web site also gives you access to TechNotes, updates, and more. The URL for our web site is: http://www.macromedia.com Changes Since Authorware 2 Authorware for Windows and Authorware for Macintosh have become more similar in version 3. As a result, your new version of Authorware might behave slightly differently from previous versions in order to make it more like Authorware on the other platform. The following changes make the application work the same on both platforms: -- Positioning an object on a path doesn't occur unless the object is erased first. This differs from previous versions of Authorware for Macintosh. Other changes can require you to adjust existing Authorware pieces that were originally created in Authorware version 2. -- Authorware on both platforms now treats DLLs, UCDs, and XCMDs as external objects. This differs from Authorware for Macintosh version 2, which loaded XCMDs into the piece or library. When you convert an Authorware for Macintosh piece from version 2 to version 3, all XCMDs are placed in their own external resource file. Be sure to include these resource files when distributing the piece. -- If a piece created in Authorware for Windows version 2 uses the ScrollEdit XCMD, you must reload the ScrollEdit XCMD when you convert the piece to Authorware 3. -- Authorware on both platforms now calculates frames for QuickTime movies the way it did in previous versions of Authorware for Windows. As a result, when you open pieces created in Authorware for Macintosh version 2, the last frame of the QuickTime movie may be dropped. If that occurs, you can work around the problem by reimporting the QuickTime movie in Authorware 3 so Authorware can recalculate the number of frames correctly. (This is necessary only for QuickTime movies that contain video. You don't need to do this for sound-only or text-only QuickTime movies.) -- The TimeLimit decision path feature has been removed. Modify pieces that use this feature to use the system variable TimeExpired instead. -- Authorware 3 for Windows treats the functions CloseWindow, GetProperty, and SetProperty as system functions. A piece that used the CloseWindow, GetProperty, or SetProperty custom function in a previous version must have these functions deleted to avoid conflict with the corresponding system function when the piece runs in Authorware 3. -- As part of renaming the application Authorware instead of Authorware Professional, some auxiliary files have been renamed accordingly. For example, APWMME.UCD has been renamed A3WMME.UCD. Because the new filename uses a different path, when you open pieces created in Authorware version 2, you must load the new UCD and reload any custom functions that the piece uses. -- The AWITOOLS.UCD file included with Authorware 2 for Windows has been replaced with MEMTOOLS.UCD. This UCD is in the Goodies directory. You can continue to use the original file or reload any custom functions from the new UCD. When a piece jumps to a perpetual response that has return branching and then returns, Authorware restores the value of the system variable MatchedIconTitle to the value it had before jumping to the response. This is a change from Authorware for Macintosh version 2, which didn't restore the value of MatchedIconTitle when it returned. When two sounds attempt to play concurrently, the second sound interrupts the first. This is a change from Authorware for Macintosh version 2, in which the first sound would continue to play after the second sound started. When Authorware for Macintosh pastes a model that contains a custom function, it doesn't convert the function to a resource file. Reload the custom function into the piece. Known Problems Interactions On Macintosh computers that have QuicKeys installed, Authorware keypress interactions don't recognize Home, End, Page Up, or Page Down keypresses. Also, other keys designated as QuicKeys might not be recognized. Always test whether keypresses behave correctly before distributing a piece on computers that use QuicKeys. If the target display of a Hot Object response type with Auto Highlight selected contains multiple overlapping objects the highlight effect may look odd or the object may appear to flash. The Erase Interaction options that appear in the Interaction Options dialog box are worded slightly differently on Windows and the Macintosh. The following options are equivalent: Windows Macintosh On Exit Upon Exit After Each Entry After Next Entry Don't Erase Don't Erase The options are described on page 61 of "Authorware Reference." Director Movies The first frame of a Director movie can behave unexpectedly when Authorware plays the movie. It's a good idea to leave the first frame of the Director movie blank and have sprites and other objects appear no sooner than the second frame. On Macintosh computers, Authorware can't import Director for Windows movies that have no Macintosh resources. You can work around this by opening the Director for Windows movie in Director for Macintosh and then saving it or by using the "DirWin-->DirMac" converter that is in the Goodies folder. Either way converts the file to Director for Macintosh format, which you can then import into Authorware for Macintosh. Sounds that continue to play after the last frame of the movie are cut off when the movie reaches its last frame in Authorware. You can work around this by adding enough frames at the end of the movie to allow the sound to finish or by providing a Lingo handler in the last frame that returns the playback head to an earlier frame. For example, you could use the following statement that checks whether the sound is playing and if it is, loops in the current frame in an "on exitFrame" handler: if soundBusy(1) then go to the frame When you play a Director movie in Authorware, the movie's stage size behaves differently than it does in Director: -- When jumping between Director movies by using the Lingo "go to movie" or "play movie" commands, the stage doesn't resize. The stage size remains the size of the first movie played. You can avoid this by ensuring that all the movies in a set of movies used by one icon have the same stage size. -- When editing a Director movie in the presentation window, dragging one of the movie's right handles to the center of the box crops the right side of the Director movie. Dragging one of the bottom handles toward the center of the box crops the bottom of the Director movie. In Authorware, clicking a Director movie during a transition jumps to the end of the transition. When you exit and then return to an Authorware piece that contains a Director movie that is already open, puppeted sprites may be assigned the wrong cast member. Avoid this by reentering Authorware only when the Director movie is at a frame that has the correct sprite in the puppeted channel. This problem occurs in authoring mode only, not in projectors. On Windows computers that have no default printer installed, importing a Director movie produces a file sharing system error. Digital Movies On Macintosh computers, if you use the Movie Options dialog box to create a QuickTime movie from a System 7 sound file, the dialog box converts the sound to a QuickTime movie, but doesn't load the movie. After the sound is converted to a QuickTime movie, you must reload it into the piece. QuickTime sound-only movies that loop in Authorware have a brief gap before the sound restarts. Authorware doesn't support QuickTime VR movies. Any QuickTime VR movie that you import into Authorware plays back as an empty box. One-bit movies imported from PICS or Movie Editor (MVE) files may play slower in Authorware 3 than they did in Authorware 2 because Authorware 3 converts all internal movies to 8-bit which makes greater performance demands. Sound On Windows computers, using WinSoundSystem to adjust the sound volume while a sound icon is playing causes Authorware to quit the sound and skip to the next icon in the flowline. Text When you create text with the text tool without first selecting a named style, Authorware uses the text attributes (such as font, size, and color) that are currently selected, not the default style. If you want to use the default style, select it before you start typing. If you have overlapping text objects in the same display icon and you've applied a hot text style with a custom cursor to one of them, the custom cursor will appear only if the text object with the hot text style is farthest back. This situation sometimes arises when you use overlapping text objects to create a drop-shadow effect. To create hot text with a drop shadow, apply the hot text style to the drop shadow, not the foreground text. The Oval Tool Double-clicking the oval tool in the toolbox opens the Color palette. This differs from the Authorware documentation, which states that double-clicking the oval tool opens the Fills palette. Video Setup Dialog Box In Authorware for Windows, the MCI video overlay driver always appears in the Video Setup dialog box, even when no MCI video overlay driver is installed. This is different from drivers for the MCI player, which appear only if they are installed. Buttons In Authorware for Windows, clicking a button that has a sound attached produces an error when a digital movie with sound is playing. Use a button that has no sound attached to it. Button labels created on the Macintosh can be too large when the piece runs on a Windows computer set to Large Fonts. When authoring a piece on the Macintosh, make sure to allow enough button area for a larger button label if you plan to run the piece on Windows. OLE Using the Paste Special command to paste an OLE object can crop the image. To avoid the problem, use the Insert Object command to paste an OLE object. You can't paste a Drawing Chart 3.0 OLE object into Authorware for Windows. (Drawing Chart 3.0 comes with Word Perfect Office 6.1; you can paste Word Perfect OLE objects into Authorware without any problem.) In "Authorware Reference," the values given for the OLESetTrigger function's "trigger" argument are incorrect. The correct values are: 0 No trigger. (Default) 1 The object is triggered with a single-click. 2 The object is triggered with a double-click. The values returned by the OLEGetTrigger function are also listed incorrectly. The correct values are: 0 No trigger. (Default) 1 The object is triggered with a single-click. 2 The object is triggered with a double-click. Variables and Functions The system variable MediaPosition doesn’t work with a video icon unless a digital movie icon precedes it. Avoid problems with video icons by using the system variable VideoFrame to identify locations in a video. In Authorware 3, setting the system function DeleteFile's nested parameter to true doesn't delete all files in the folder. Authorware Portfolio Several file locations given in the "Authorware Portfolio" guide are incorrect. The following files are in the Prtfolio folder, not in subfolders inside the Prtfolio folder: DataGrph MapScroll DataLib TextFld1 MapLargr TextFld2 MapLib TextLib Hardware Compatibility Macromedia has tested a wide range of video display cards, video overlay cards, sound cards, and videodisc players to certify their compatibility with Authorware 3. Some cards performed well for playback and authoring, while others performed well for playback. The following tables list the results of these tests. Some cards were tested for playback but not for authoring. In that case, we have listed these as good for playback. However, that doesn't imply that the card isn't necessarily adequate for authoring. Video Overlay Cards The following video overlay cards give good performance for authoring and playback: Manufacturer Model Bus Operating system tested Apple Apple Video System PDS System 7.1.2 Apple Quadra 660av Built-in System 7.1 Apple Quadra 840av Built-in System 7.1 Apple Power Mac AV Card PDS System 7.5.1 The following video overlay cards give good performance for playback: Manufacturer Model Bus Driver ver. Notes RasterOps 24STV NuBus 3.2.1 24-bit color only RasterOps 24XLTV NuBus 3.2.1 24-bit color only RasterOps ColorBoard 364 NuBus 3.2.1 24-bit color only. Doesn’t support QuickTime. RasterOps Mediatime NuBus 3.2.1 24-bit color only SuperMac Digital Film NuBus 1.5 24-bit color only. Leaves video image on screen. SuperMac Video Spigot NuBus 1.0 Must use QuickTime overlay and Vdig extension. Truevision NuVista+ NuBus 3.9 24-bit color and System 7.1 only. Doesn't support QuickTime. Sound Cards The Spectral Innovations NuMedia sound card gives good performance for playback. Videodisc Players The Sony LDP-120 videodisc player gives good performance for authoring. The following videodisc players give good performance for playback: Sony LDP-1200 Pioneer LD-V4400 Pioneer LD-V6000a Other Compatibility Issues The CD Technology CD-ROM driver version 1.2.2a2 has been tested and shown to slow down CD-ROM throughput. If you have trouble with sounds or movies skipping when using this driver, change to a different driver. The overlay device on Macintosh AVs can be used by only one application at a time. If two Authorware pieces try to display video on an overlay device at the same time, one will be denied use of the video overlay. The icon color palette doesn't display its colors correctly in 16-bit mode on a Hercules Graphite Power ISA card. However, the same card works well in 8- and 24-bit mode. File Conversion Authorware 3 uses the system variable IconID and the system function IconTitle differently from Authorware 2. When opening an Authorware 2 piece, Authorware 3 maps occurrences of IconID and IconTitle as follows: -- Phrases that consist of IconID@ or IconTitle followed by an icon title are unchanged. -- Occurrences of IconID not followed by an @ symbol and an icon title are changed to ExecutingIconId. -- Occurrences of IconTitle not followed by an @ symbol and an icon title are changed to ExecutingIconTitle. For information about the use of ExecutingIconId, ExecutingIconTitle, IconId, and IconTitle in Authorware 3, see "Authorware Reference." Director Movies Authorware uses more memory when it plays Director movies. For good results, the playback computer's total available memory should equal the sum of the memory that the Authorware piece and Director movie would need to run separately. In Director, a movie plays differently when you play it back while authoring and when you play it as a projector. The same thing is true in Authorware: when you're authoring the piece that contains the movie, the movie plays just as it does when you're authoring in Director; when you run a packaged piece that contains a movie, the movie behaves like a projector. Always test the packaged version of an Authorware piece that contains a Director movie to verify that the Director movie plays properly. Digital Movies PICS Movies A PICS movie plays back at the rate set in its resource file. If no rate is specified in the resource, the movie plays at 30 frames/second. This differs from earlier versions of Authorware, in which PICS movies always played at 30 frames/second. Memory Requirements The memory that a digital movie uses is in addition to the memory used by the Authorware piece. When using digital movies in an Authorware piece, allow enough memory for any players and drivers that the movie requires plus enough memory for the movie components to load and play efficiently. The amount of memory movies use varies from movie to movie. However, you should allow approximately the following amount of memory for various digital movies on Windows and Macintosh computers: Movie type Memory -- Macintosh Memory -- Windows Director 400K + the amount 1Mb + the amount of memory shown of memory shown in the About Director in the About Director dialog box dialog box QuickTime 350K 350K AVI -- 350K Sound On the Macintosh, avoid SoundEdit 16 stereo sounds that have empty sections on a track (offset sounds). Authorware plays such sounds improperly. You can fix the problem by filling the offset track with silence as part of the SoundEdit 16 file or by converting the files to AIFF format. The sound playback rate on the Macintosh is limited to approximately 64 kHz, which means that sounds with high sample rates may exceed 64 kHz when they are played back at fast Authorware rates. Use the following equation to estimate the playback rate for a sound: (Sound sample rate) x (Playback speed) = Playback rate For example, the playback rate for a 44 kHz sound playing at 150 percent of its original rate is 44 kHz x 1.5 or 66 kHz. Authorware actually plays the sound back at 64 kHz or approximately 145 percent. To play a sound at a rate that exceeds the 64 kHz limit, downsample the sound to a lower sample rate. For example, reducing a 44 kHz sound to 22 kHz essentially doubles the speed at which Authorware would be able to play the sound back. Authorware doesn't support the newer QuickTime compressed sounds. On the Macintosh Quadra 638 and similar new Macintoshes, the control labeled Built-In in the Volumes page of the Sound control panel controls the volume for sounds played in Authorware as well as desktop sounds. Custom Palettes If you run a piece in 8-bit color and the graphics and movies don't look right in Authorware, the problem might be caused by custom palettes. Images that are scanned, saved in image editing applications, or use gradient fills, usually use a custom palette to get all the proper colors in the images. When you import these graphics into Authorware, the palette doesn't come with them, so Authorware displays the images using the default Authorware palette. Extracting a Custom Palette Authorware can load and use the palette assigned to the graphic or movie, but you must extract the palette from the image first. To extract a palette on Windows computers, you can use one of two utilities. The DIB2PAL.UCD, which is in the Goodies folder, creates a Microsoft RIFF-compatible palette file from a DIB or BMP file. PALUTIL.EXE, which comes with Authorware, creates separate palette files from Director movies. When the palette exists as a separate file, you can import the palette by using the Palette dialog box that you open from the File Setup dialog box. If you have more than one palette, use the PALETTE.UCD that comes with Authorware to load the different palettes. Include the PALETTE.UCD and the palette files when you distribute the piece. Both the UCD and palette files must be in the search path for Authorware to find them. The best place to put them is in the same directory as the piece's .EXE file. To extract a palette on the Macintosh, use a utility like PalUtil, which extracts palettes from a Director movie, or ResEdit, which extracts the pltt, COLR, or CLUT palette from an image. You can then import the palettes into Authorware using the SetPalette XCMD, which is in the Goodies folder. See the SetPalette XCMD documentation for more information. Avoiding Color Shifts When you change palettes in a piece, the colors of the objects on the screen change to the colors defined by the new palette. Because there are only 256 chips where a color can be defined in a 256-color palette, when you change a palette new colors are assigned to the old chips. As a result, pixels in the image are now colored with the new colors. To avoid these undesirable color shifts, change the computer's display to 16-bit or 24-bit color, or make sure that all 8-bit images in your production share a common palette. Remember though that using 16-bit or 24-bit mode affects performance. Color Depth A graphic's color depth in Authorware depends on the graphic's original color depth and how it is brought into a piece. The following procedures maintain an image's original color depth when bringing the graphic into Authorware: -- Copying and pasting graphics and icons -- On Windows computers, importing a DIB, BMP, or PCX graphic -- On Macintosh computers, importing a PICT graphic. The following procedures give an image the monitor's current color depth when bringing the graphic into Authorware: -- On Windows computers, importing graphics in the Button Editor -- On Windows computers, pasting a graphic as a bitmap -- On Windows computers, using OLE rendering. For example, if the monitor is set to 16-bit color when you import an 8-bit graphic, the graphic becomes a 16-bit graphic in Authorware. On the other hand, if you import a 16-bit graphic when the monitor is set to 8-bit color, Authorware dithers the graphic to 8-bit color. The dithering that occurs when you import an image whose color depth is higher than the monitor's current color depth makes importing very slow and reduces image quality. For best results when importing graphics that have a higher color depth than the monitor, use an image editing application to dither the graphics to the monitor's color depth before you import them. Text and Fonts Authorware 3 provides new features that make it easy to import and format text. The following are some additional points to be aware of when working with text in Authorware. Importing Text Before you import RTF text, insert a page break where you want each new screen to begin. That makes importing RTF text faster and laying out screens easier. When importing text containing braces ({ or }) any text surrounded by { and } is interpreted as an expression, just as if you had typed that text manually in the Authorware text editor. If it is not a valid expression you will get error messages and the text will not be imported. If you don't want braces to be interpreted as expression delimiters, precede each left brace with a backslash, as follows: "this is a left brace: \{ and doesn't start an expression" When you import RTF text and you select Ignore as the Hard Page Break option, Authorware will still create additional display icons if you're importing more text than can fit in a single display icon. Font Problems When you open a piece on a computer that doesn't have one or more fonts that the piece requires, the Font Problems dialog box appears to let you decide whether to reformat text. However, if you reopen the same piece later, differences in font metrics make the Font Problems dialog box reappear only if the font metrics have changed since the last time you saved the file. Installed Fonts If you have more than 200 fonts installed on your Macintosh, you cannot choose fonts that appear after the 200th on the Fonts submenu. On Macintosh computers, Authorware can have trouble handling text entry rates greater than 50 words per minute if you have more than 100 fonts installed. Cross-Platform Fonts A set of custom Fontographer fonts that look the same on both Windows and Macintosh computers is available with Authorware 3. You can use the fonts and distribute them with anything you create in Authorware. To install the fonts, go to the main menu, and click Install. When the Install screen appears, click Authorware and then the Fonts button. See the Read Me file that accompanies the fonts for more information about them. Adding and Deleting Points on a Polygon To add a point to a polygon: 1. Select the polygon with the arrow tool. 2. Choose the polygon tool. Handles appear at the points where the sides of the polygon meet. 3. Hold down Control (Windows) or Option (Macintosh) and click the place on the polygon where you want to add a point. There isn't any way to delete a point from a polygon once you've added it. General Protection Faults (Windows) A General Protection Fault (GPF) is a general Windows error that indicates that an application tried to access memory at an invalid address or tried to use memory that didn't belong to it. The most important thing to note in a GPF message is the module name that the error occurred in. For example, the error message might say, "PROGRAM caused a general protection fault in module USER.EXE...." The module name, which is USER.EXE in this example, varies depending upon what crashed. If the GPF occurs in GDI.EXE (the Windows .EXE program that handles graphics display) or in the Windows driver for the graphics card (whose filename usually ends in .DRV) the problem is probably with the graphics card driver. Graphics card manufacturers update their drivers often, so if this is the problem, contact the manufacturer to see if they have new drivers. The new drivers don't always fix the problem, but it's a good idea to have the latest drivers because they often fix problems that other users have reported. You may also want to switch to a different resolution. If the GPF occurs when you're using the 1024x768 16-bit driver, you might want to try a lower color depth or a lower resolution because the previous driver wouldn't work. If the problem still occurs with a different driver, use the VGA driver that comes with Windows. Use the Windows Setup program to change your display driver to the generic VGA driver. Restart Windows to have your changes take effect. If the errors don't occur after you switch to VGA, the display driver should be updated. Allocating Memory (Macintosh) Sometimes a graphic doesn't appear, a digital movie doesn't play correctly, or a sound won't play, but when you import it into a new file, it works fine. Not having enough memory allocated to the application could be the cause. This is especially the case for Director movies. Every Macintosh application has a setting that determines the maximum amount of memory that it should use when it's running. Each application has a default memory allotment, but sometimes the number is too low. In this case, you need to increase the memory allocation. To increase the amount of memory an application uses: 1. Quit the application if it is running. 2. Select the application's icon in the Finder. 3. Choose Get Info from the Finder's Edit menu. The application's Get Info dialog box appears. 4. Enter a new value for memory in the Preferred Size field in the memory Requirements section of the Get Info dialog box. Made with Macromedia Macromedia offers Authorware 3 developers the ability to distribute applications created in Authorware without paying royalties. Our new Macromedia licensing policy allows you to distribute your Authorware pieces royalty-free, provided you include the Made with Macromedia logo as described in our guidelines. For the logo guidelines, the logo graphics, and a short presentation showing the different Made with Macromedia options, look inside the MWM folder (Windows) or the Made w/ Macromedia folder (Macintosh). You'll find the folder inside the Program folder. For more information on the Made with Macromedia program call Macromedia Publisher Services at +1 415 252 2000. Contacting Macromedia Source & Center Call +1 415 252 7999 Contact Source & Center for training, consulting services, priority access, referrals for multimedia development, and authorization programs for trainers and developers. Macromedia International Call +1 415 252 7999 User Conference Success Stories Email pr@macromedia.com Fax +1 415 626 1502 Authorware Product Team Fax +1 415 626 0554 Contact the Authorware Product Team with product suggestions and feedback about Authorware.