Panic seems to be a common feeling for those new to Director, those who dare to launch it. We're going to try to ease the feeling of panic and create familiarity with common interface elements. You should also feel inspired to use Director for projects where you may be using Flash for comfort's sake. Director is a great tool that just needs a bit of patience and less fear.

What causes this fear? The interface would be one of the main factors. Why? It contains so many options. Most of the tools that you use extensively in a project are open and ready. This may, for a beginner, cause the interface to look far too busy and complex. In essence, the elements are very user friendly and easy to work with. The ideal work environment would be dual monitors, one for the panels and the other for the stage. If this is not available, the MX interface allows for panels to be grouped together and hidden quickly.

The Director Metaphor
Let's begin with the Director metaphor. When you work with Macromedia Director, you become the director. This is your show! You get to sit in the chair and tell the cast members what to do and how to act, and they listen to you - what a treat! You have a cast full of actors that you call onto the stage when needed and then send them back after they have done their bit. How do they fit in? They join the score. The score in Director is not just for music; all media elements join the score when they are called to perform. At this point the elements are referred to as sprites and we add behaviors (or script) to add control. Behaviors tell any element how to behave - even the whole movie.

The Property Inspector
It is worth noting that the Property Inspector is one of the most basic ways to edit the properties of all elements. This is the same, in essence, as any other application that has a Property Inspector. It is content sensitive and will display the properties of the selected item. The great thing that sets it apart from the average Property Inspector is that it contains properties for all elements, at all times. You can switch between options without having to deselect an item. If you have a Flash sprite selected on the stage, you can access properties ranging from the sprite's location or size of the movie, to the Flash member's frame rate. Although it may appear to be a very busy inspector, it is extremely useful. Another key difference is that it is structured vertically rather than horizontally (see Images I and II).

     

The Stage
The stage is the window in which actions are viewed. This is also what the end users will see when they are playing the project. The stage size, color, and position are some of the basic properties that can be set in the Property Inspector. These properties can also be set on the fly through Lingo. Position and zoom can be set to make the authoring environment easier to use and then reset for final output.

At the base of the stage is a control panel. It is a useful tool that allows you to control the playback of your movie in the working environment. These playback options not only allow you to play, stop, and rewind, but also to play selected frames only, change the sound level, loop the playback, and jump between markers (see Image III).

 

The Cast
The cast is the storage space for all content that will be used and stored. Any content created on the stage is automatically added to the cast. When a new Director movie is created, a cast is automatically created with it. You can have multiple casts within a movie. The casts can be either embedded or linked. This is useful for sharing casts between Director movies. You can view multiple casts or keep the view to only one and swap between them as needed.

Everything can be targeted by reference to its location in a cast, either by name or by numerical position. If you are working with multiple casts, a reference needs to be added to the cast that the member is stored in. If you do link to cast members by numerical position, you should not move them within the cast as this will break the link. This reference is the same regardless of whether the cast is internal or external.

The property inspector will display information about a cast's name and its number in the list of casts. It will also display the file size and memory and whether it is stored internally or externally. The cast window can also be used to display information on the cast members. The list view of the cast can display a range of information from file size to date created (see Image IV). The thumbnail view is useful to view thumbnail previews of the cast members and is set to display the media type by default (see Image V).

Cast Members
Cast members are media elements that are either created within Director using the basic bitmap, vector, text, and shape tools or they can be imported. Director can use external editors (applications) if you wish to edit imported cast members. You may edit some media types in Director.

The cast members can be either embedded or linked to an external file. If you link to external files, they must be bundled with the project for distribution. The default import option embeds all content except for digital video. QuickTime, Avi, and Mpegs will automatically be linked to its external file and cannot be embedded in Director. Linked content can be very useful for quick updates to a project as it is easy to replace. The project can then be repackaged and distributed with minimal work.

The Score
The score is the timeline where all the elements in a movie are organized and controlled. The elements are placed in channels that define the stacking order and sequencing. The main channels can contain all media types except for sound, which has its own special channels. There are also extra channels for controlling playback options such as the tempo (frame rate) and color pallette used in the project. These can all be changed at any time during playback. There is a channel dedicated to frame scripts that control a movie's behavior in a time-based manner. Although this is the only timeline available in Director, multiple views of the score can be viewed.

Markers can be used in the score for navigational purposes or for general authoring. They are useful for quickly jumping to a specific section of a Director movie. Markers are located at the top of the score window and are displayed any time the score is open. The control panel at the base of the stage allows you to navigate back and forth between them. If you wish to move a section to a different location on the timeline, and you have linked to markers, you would move the marker, maintaining all links (see Image VI).

 

Sprites
As soon as a cast member is placed on the stage it becomes a sprite. A sprite is merely an instance of a cast member. Any changes that are made to a cast member are reflected in every instance. Should you modify the properties of the sprite, however, the cast member is not affected. The property inspector will display the cast and sprite properties. The cast properties will affect the cast member and all instances even if you have only the sprite selected.

If you wish to target any of the sprites, you will refer to them by the channel number in the score. You cannot give a sprite an instance name. This offers the benefit that you will never be in a situation where a sprite cannot be called because you have forgotten to name it. The disadvantage is that if you do refer to them by number you lose the freedom to move them up and down the scores' channels.

Behaviors
Behaviors are prewritten Lingo scripts that allow you to add interactivity and special effects to a movie. They are attached to either sprites or frames, are stored in the library under logical categories, and are attached by dragging them onto the target object. Behaviors respond to user actions or can respond to time-based events. Some behaviors may require parameters to be passed and will bring up a dialogue box that allows you to select from the various possible options. For example, if you wish to have rollover functionality you would use a rollover member change behavior, which will prompt you to select the cast member to display on rollover.

The property inspector has a behaviors tab that displays a list of behaviors and the associated parameters. These parameters can be modified if required and do not affect the other instances of the behavior. The behaviors are reusable throughout the Director movie and are stored in the cast. Should you wish to reuse a behavior, you can drag it from the cast onto the new object or use the menu in the behavior tab of property inspector. Additional behaviors can be downloaded from the Internet or created as needed (see Image VII)

 

Xtras
Xtras are components that extend Director. They are used, even without your knowledge, in the most basic project. For example, Director uses a Flash asset xtra to view Flash movies within Director. Additional xtras can be downloaded from Macromedia's Web site or from third-party vendors. It is also possible to create your own xtras. Xtras are located in the program directory under xtras. To install a new xtra you need to place it in this directory. Once Director has been relaunched the xtra will be available for use.

Should an xtra not be available during playback, an alert will appear when the movie starts playing and a red binding box will be displayed as a placeholder for the missing content. This placeholder will be displayed in all instances where the missing xtra is being used. Director knows which xtras are used in each movie. A list of the xtras can be viewed and controlled in the movie xtra dialogue found under Modify menu > Movie > xtras. All xtras that are used in a movie must be deployed with the project. They should either be placed in an xtras folder, added into the projector or available for download off the Internet.

Configure the Workspace
Due to the size of the Director interface, it is not always easy to know how to optimize the workspace (see Image VIII). One of the easiest ways of managing the workspace is to get to know the short keys, or quick links, for some of the more commonly used panels. The panels can be grouped together into tabbed view and then minimized and maximized on demand. The panels can be docked to each other and to the Director MX application window. Panel layouts can be created and saved for future use. Preferences can be set to control some of the default settings. Options range from the number of cast members that are viewable in one cast window to showing tool tips.

 

Time to Play
The best way to start is to jump straight in and get your hands dirty. Work through the sample movie that comes with Director to get comfortable with the workflow and reinforce the basic principles of Director. Work your way up from a simple project to more complex applications. The first step should always be to plan a project fully so that there is no confusion about the required functionality. Create as much content as possible before you begin. Most importantly, have fun.