Welcome to Astound Dynamite. With Astound Dynamite you can create compelling, high impact,
dynamic HTML web pages and sites quickly and easily.
Dynamic HTML is the powerful new way to create web pages with movement and multimedia,
without the need for special plug-ins or lengthy downloads. Until recently, HTML has been
static. Objects couldn't overlap or move around the web page. Basically, nothing on a page
could change unless a new web page loaded in its place or a Java Applet or ActiveX control
was used to create an animating advertisement or a form to enter information.
Numerous web-authoring tools are available to create static HTML web pages. Astound Dynamite
also gives you all the power of Dynamic HTML without hassles. You don't even need to know
how to write garden variety static HTML to use it. Astound Dynamite offers an easy-to-use,
point and click user interface together with powerful graphics, animation and interactivity.
With Astound Dynamite you can create multimedia-rich web pages without writing complex
programming or HTML code.
Once you have created your web pages by laying out your images and animations, adding
multimedia, and entering your text, Astound Dynamite's Publish Wizard outputs Dynamic HTML
pages for viewing with either Netscape navigator 4.0, or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0,
and static HTML for older web browsers.
What's New in Astound Dynamite 1.1
==================================
We have added a Javascript version of our Astound Dynamite playback engine for faster
loading of pages! You now have the option to publish your Astound Dynamite Pages as native
java or as javascript, depending on your needs.
The new Javascript engine is much faster because it does not have to start the Java VM
before loading your page. This will increase your page loading time. However, the
JavaScript version does not support the "Control Object" interaction in Astound Dynamite.
If you want one object on your web page to control another object, you must publish your web
pages as Java.
Helpful Tips for Creating Web Pages
===================================
At this time, Dynamic HTML is only supported by Netscape Navigator 4.0 or later and
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or later. Many of Astound Dynamite's features aren't
supported by web browsers that only support static HTML. To avoid problems creating static
or dynamic HTML pages, remember these pointers.
For static HTML pages:
----------------------
Transitions and paths won't work in static HTML. Any objects you animate in Astound Dynamite
will be shown in their starting positions in static HTML.
In static HTML, objects cannot overlap. You may wish to group overlapping objects so that
they are treated as one object.
Don't set timelines. In static HTML everything will appear as it is downloading anyway.
For all HTML pages:
-------------------
Don't use full page images or textures. Use small images and textures, or use a tiled
texture to fill a large area. A large texture will create a large file to download, but a
tiled texture can fill a large area with a repeated image that only has to download once.
Keep any gradients horizontal or vertical as they compress better than angled gradients and
will therefore download faster.
When working with text, try to avoid using text with underlining and shadowing. If you
really want to use these options, click the Tools/Options command, click the Save tab and
enable the Text As Bitmaps option. This way, the text will be converted to a bitmap, but
will take longer to display. Text with textured, pattern or image fills will automatically
be converted to an image when the HTML files are created.
AVI videos clips and WAV sounds are generally large files so use them with discretion.
Use .AU format sound files as they will play on all computer platforms.
Preview your web page in a Browser often to be sure you are getting the results you expect.
Using Internet Explorer 4.0 the browser will display "Done" in the status line while it is
still downloading images to use in the animation, to comfort end users any object that is
visable at time zero in the timeline window and does not have a transition will show up as
soon as it is downloaded on the page. Therefore you can include a message such as "please
wait, loading..." with a timeline that starts at zero and lasts for .1 second and it will
show up right away, display on the page while files download, and dissappear as soon as the
animation starts. Any object will show up right away that starts at time zero on the
timeline and does not have a transition. This will give you users something to look at while
other files are downloading.
Using Markers on an Object's Timeline
=====================================
When using timeline markers ensure at least 2/10th's of a second of static time is placed
after the pause to ensure timelines are displaying the proper state when the browser pauses.
This will prevent objects from disappearing or appearing incorrectly because the browser
pauses 1/10th of a second too late.
Using Templates
===============
Templates (Masters) do not scale when they are selected to use with a page to maintain the quality of the original artwork. If you are using pages that are a different size than the template you should copy the template objects to the page by double clicking on them and scale them to fit the current page or resize the template by going to the tempate view and selecting File/Page setup.
Astound Incorporated Web Site
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Check out our web site at http;//www.astound.com to find out information about Astound Dynamite updates, see examples of cool dynamic HTML pages in action, and to learn more about Astound's line of business multimedia software.
