Director 7.0.2 Readme

Introduction
Installation Issues
New Features
Key Fixes
Known Issues
Known Incompatibilities

 

Introduction

This file contains information about Director 7 not available in the printed manuals. To get the most out of this release, please read this document.

For additions and changes to the documentation, including new features in Director 7.0.2, see the Documentation Changes readme next to this file .

For the most up to date information about Director please visit our web site at http://www.macromedia.com/support/director/.

 

Installation Issues

Macintosh

Installing on Macintosh System 8.1 or before
If you are running Macintosh System 8.1 or before on a non-English system, we recommend upgrading to System 8.5 or later before installing Director 7.0.2. If you do install Director on System 8.1 or before, the Appearance manager extension and control panel will be replaced with a later, English version. Upgrading to 8.5 will then replace this English component with a localized one.

Appearance on Macintosh System 7.0 and later
Installing Director on a machine running Macintosh System 7.6 or later converts the operating system's appearance to the 3-dimensional look of Macintosh System 8.0. To set the system to its previous appearance, open the Appearance control panel (also installed with Director 7), click the Options button, and deselect System-wide platinum appearance.

Peak LE requires AppleScript
If AppleScript is missing from the list of active extensions and you are installing Director 7 from the CD-ROM, Peak LE 2 fails to launch. Use the Extensions Manager to make AppleScript active and restart the machine.

Installing to an external drive on Macintosh
When you install to a drive that is not your main hard disk, you will be asked to enter your serial number twice, once when the installer loads and once when Director loads.

Memory Requirements
Director requires a machine with at least 32MB of memory to run. Not enough available memory can cause the application to slow down and function incorrectly, especially when using large media, such as compressed fonts, sounds, and images or large QuickTime movies. IMac users, with only 32MB of total memory built in, will be especially affected.

Windows

Uninstallers and file association
The Director 6 and Director 6.5 uninstallers delete the file association information for .dir and .dcr files, as well as hardware key information. If you uninstall these previous versions after you install Director 7, you must reinstall Director 7 to regain these attributes.

Temp folder required for installation
The Director installer requires that a temp folder exists on your system as defined in your system environment. If you receive an Internal Error when trying to launch the installer, be sure you have a temp folder defined. The name of the folder must match what is set in your temp environment variable. Get Properties on "My Computer" to verify the temp variable setting.

Updating from Director 7.0 or Director 7.0.1

The updater application will only update the files installed on the users system at the time of its execution.

The updater will rename certain user-editable files rather than deleting them in an effort to preserve any user edits. These include fontmap.txt, xtrainfo.txt, director.ini, lingo.ini, and the help data file.

Before creating projectors or Shockwave movies in Director 7.0.2 from movies created in Director 7.0 or 7.0.1, we advise applying Recompile All Scripts and Save and Compact to all movies and casts to ensure complete compatibility.

 

New Features

The following is a list of new features in Director 7.0.2 that were not in Director 7. For a full description of these features and how to use them, see the Documentation Changes readme next to this file.

 

Key Fixes

Here are some of the most important fixes for bugs and other issues in Director 7 provided by the 7.0.2 update. A fuller list may be found in the Director Developer's Center.

 

Known Issues

Aftershock

At the time of the release of Director 7.0.2, jar file updates of the Netscape plugin were not yet available on the Macromedia web site. These files enable Netscape to install Shockwave by means of the Smartupdate process. Since the files were not updated, selecting "Plug-in on Netscape Communicator" under "Installation" on the Scripting tab in Aftershock would cause users who did not have Shockwave to install Shockwave 6.0.1 into their browser. These files will be updated soon after the release of Director 7.0.2; in the meantime, you may divert users to the Macromedia site directly, http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download, to install Shockwave 7.

Alpha Channel Rendering

A cast member's alpha information is lost when there is not at least one non-white pixel in the cast member's paint area.

Animated GIF

Animated GIFs imported using the importFileInto command will actually be imported as bitmaps. Workaround: start with a linked animated gif cast member as a placeholder and then change its fileName to that of the animated GIF that you want to import.

Behaviors

Editing of some behaviors at 640x480 screen resolution will produce an error. Using a higher resolution will solve the problem.

Cursors

Custom Cursors created using the Cursor Xtra may flicker over Direct-To-Stage sprites.

Digital Video

QuickTime movies must be Direct to Stage in order to stream; on Macintosh, making a streaming QuickTime movie non-Direct to Stage may cause display problems, possibly leading to a crash.

If you are altering the movieRate, sound-only QuickTime cast members must be Direct to Stage.

Rotation of QuickTime sprites is not supported in Director 7, but cast member rotation is supported. You may get unexpected results if you attempt to rotate sprites through the sprite inspector, the rotation tool in the tool palette or through lingo. You can, however, rotate a QuickTime member (not sprite) with the lingo command "set the rotation of member (whichQuickTimeMember)". This will result in the rotation of the QuickTime content within the bounding box, leaving the bounding box stationary. Some of the image may move out of the viewable area, or be distorted to fit within the bounding rectangle, depending on how the sprite's crop property is set.

Sound for QTVR movies is not supported on Macintosh. If a QTVR movie is used in a Director movie, the movie will function as expected except the sound track will be ignored.

On Windows with the display set to 8-bit mode, QuickTime movies can exhibit palette flashing when a palette transition occurs. Any change in the palette channel will be reversed after a few frames when playing inside a projector. A constant cycling between the QuickTime movie's palette and the palette channel's palette will occur when played back inside Director. The only workaround available is to ensure that the correct palette is in effect before any QuickTime movie is made visible.

Export

Some tempo channels do not export as expected. If you have a "wait for cue" setting in your tempo channel during an export to QuickTime, an error message stating, "An unexpected error occurred. Score database exception" appears. This error should read, "Can't export tempo channel settings".

BMP files exported from Director may not open in some image editing applications. Director exports BMP files at the current monitor bit depth. Photoshop, Debabelizer, and some other image-editing applications do not read 16- or 32-bit BMP files. Be sure to check that your monitor is set to 8 or 24 bits before exporting BMP files from Director that you intend to edit in external image editing applications. Both Fireworks and MSPaint open without problems any BMP file exported from Director.

On Macintosh, it is not recommended to place a transition on the first frame of your movie if you plan to export the movie as a QuickTime file. If you must have a transition at the beginning of your movie, start the movie (both sprites and transition) on the second frame.

Exporting may cause sound distortion if you are playing an audio cd or other sound from your system. On the mac platform, your audio CD may temporarily pause while exporting from Director.

External Editors

In Windows using Fireworks 1.0 as an external media editor: When you launch Fireworks as an external editor for bitmap members, a copy of the image is saved in the Windows temp folder until the final changes are saved. When changes are saved, Director grabs the edited image and brings it back into Director. If you are editing an internal bitmap cast member whose file format is not PNG, you must export the file from Fireworks to the Windows temp folder so the changes are adopted by Director. This folder is typically located in your C:\windows\temp folder on Windows 95/98 and in your C:\temp folder on Windows NT but may also be set to a user-defined location on the latter. If you are using a linked cast member, simply export or save the edited image to the location of the linked file. If you are editing an image whose original file format is PNG, simply save the file when you are done editing the image in Fireworks. (These issues have been addressed in Fireworks 2.0)

On the Macintosh, we do not advise using Fireworks 1.0 as an external media editor for internal cast members. Members must be linked in order to use Fireworks as an external editor. To save changes made to the linked file, simply export or save the file to the linked file location. (These issues have been addressed in Fireworks 2.0)

Exporting GIF transparency from Fireworks to Director: When Director imports a Fireworks GIF with transparency, the transparent areas are designated with a single index color. In order to see the transparency on Stage, you need to set the ink mode of that sprite to background transparent and you must set the background color chip of the sprite to the same index color designated by Director as transparent. Another way to see this transparency is to import your bitmap as an animated GIF with its ink mode set to background transparent.

Fields

On the Macintosh using System 8.5, users can select an Appearance Theme setting that causes the system to anti-alias text throughout. Selecting this setting can cause on-stage field or button text to inadvertently become anti-aliased.

Setting the scrollTop of a scrolled field that has been edited will have no effect on the field. Workaround: set the scrollTop to 0 and then back to the original value.

Flash Asset Xtra

When a Flash sprite has its scaleMode property set to #autoSize (the default), it may not accurately render when rotated about a non-center regPoint.

When the lingo property eventPassMode is set to #passAlways (the default), events are not passed on in the message hierarchy as they should.

Making a Flash sprite invisible by setting its visible property to false may cause it to block mouse events. Workaround: Place the Flash movie off stage to hide it. Also, setting a Flash sprite's ink to background transparent allows mouse events to pass through in some places but not others.

Fonts

On the Macintosh, a small percentage of postscript fonts either fail to compress or render incorrectly.

In Windows, compressed fonts in a .dcr playing in a browser appear available to Director if Director is running at the same time.

On Macintosh, results may vary when embedding certain fonts with bitmaps when the text size is set to the bitmapped size AND the paragraph is set to justified. For instance, Geneva will not work correctly in this case.

An out-of-memory error may result when launching a Shockwave projector with a full-set embedded Japanese font. The user must manually allocate more memory to the projector to avoid the error.

If you encounter problems installing full-set Japanese fonts on Macintosh, be sure to check "Use System Temporary Memory" in General Preferences (it is on by default). Problems include occasional crashes, apparent hangs during font creation, corrupt font cast member thumbnails, or only a partial character set.

Import

Very small SWA files imported into Director (such as button clicks) sometimes don't play. Import the original versions of the sounds and let them get compressed by using Save as Shockwave or use the Insert:Media:Shockwave Audio command to place them as SWA assets instead.

Lingo

The internetConnected property of the environment may return "offline" on Macintosh immediately after a reboot even when the user is connected to the Internet.

Lingo UI

The watcher window might not evaluate expressions until the movie has run a significant amount of lingo or until the message window is used to evaluate lingo expressions.

Breakpoints in a script window that contains a parent script may not function as expected. The actual instance of the parent script only exists at runtime, while the breakpoint exists in the instance that is used for editing in the script window. Workaround: close the parent script window.

Linked Media

Editable field and text sprites are not editable in linked movies.

Memory

On Macintosh, Member preloading may fail even though the freeBlock indicates there is enough room.

Saving very large external casts may cause an out-of-memory error message on the Macintosh. Turning on virtual memory and making sure all other open applications are closed should alleviate the problem. It is advised that you test this out before doing any extensive work on very large casts to make sure you have enough memory to save them.

MIAWs

In the authoring environment on Windows, MIAWs are not drawn on the screen upon opening if the space that they are to be drawn into is completely obscured by an active editing window. For example: if the Message Window has been maximized to cover the entire screen and the MIAW is opened, then the Message Window is closed, the MIAW will not be where it was expected because it was not drawn.

If you move a MIAW of windowType 1 to the back, via the "moveToBack" command, the entire application will go to the back.

Clicking on the just the scrollbar of MIAW will not activate that window, although the scrollbar still functions as expected.

Paint Window

The paint bucket does not fill copied shapes correctly.

Palettes

The Director palette becomes confused when running simultaneously with Dreamweaver. Sprites on Stage draw in incorrect colors. Workaround: Quit Dreamweaver before authoring in Director.

Changing from 8- to 24-bit display mode may cause the palette to become distorted.

PowerPoint Import

The Import Xtra for PowerPoint requires the following files which are installed by Microsoft Office products:

Microsoft OLE Extension
Microsoft OLE Library

If you don't have a Microsoft Office product installed on your system, the Import Xtra for PowerPoint will not work. You can find these extensions on the Director 7 CD in the Drivers folder. To install, copy the extensions to your System:Extensions folder and restart your system.

Shape objects in PowerPoint source files will be imported as Flash assets. You will not be able to edit these shapes after importing into Director.

Projectors

If the system's Temp folder is missing, projectors on Windows NT will report a "cannot find dirdib.drv" error message upon launching.

Save As Java

Macintosh movies with 89 or more characters in the pathname may not convert properly to Java; some necessary classes may not be created.

Macintosh Java applets that contain 4-bit images may hang Netscape 3.

On the Macintosh, some applets fail with class not found errors in Netscape 4.5; in particular, sound fails to play. The problem is not limited to applets made with Director.

Director may freeze while trying to convert a movie with more than 700 channels to Java.

Save As Shockwave

If you have trouble creating Director 7 DCRs from movies created in previous versions of Director, try recompiling all scripts before creating the DCR.

Shapes

Using small point sizes for the text in checkbox or radio button sprites causes the checkbox or button itself to be truncated.

Shockwave

In Netscape on the Macintosh, you may occasionally encounter a "broken icon" instead of a movie when loading a movie locally. To repair this condition, try going into the browser preferences and examine the mime-type mapping. Examination (without actual editing) is sometimes enough to force the browser to refresh its mime-type mapping table. Also try rebuilding the desktop.

On the Macintosh, if the MacromediaRuntimeLib extension is turned off in the Extensions Manager, Shockwave generates a "One or more Shockwave files are missing" error message on loading.

In Netscape 3.x on the Macintosh, the logo and progress bar remain painted on the screen while playing a movie "full screen" (not wrapped in html).

On Macintosh, files may appear to load slowly into browsers from local disks. For example, if you use preloadNetThing to cache a .dcr and then use gotoNetPage to load it, the movie will take a few moments to appear, almost as if it were downloading from the net. This behavior does not affect playback on the internet.

Sound

Setting the soundDevice in an "on startMovie" handler may produce unpredictable results, such as sounds not mixing properly or not playing from sound channels. This occurs because by the time the startMovie handler is executed, sounds may have already started to play. Workaround: set the soundDevice in the "on prepareMovie" handler.

Stage

When you create a projector without checking the "centered" box in the projector options dialog, the projector tries to display the stage at its original coordinates. This was true in Director 6, except that when the projector was played on a system that did not contain those coordinates, it automatically centered the Stage to the main monitor. Director 7 projectors attempt to display the stage outside the screen boundaries; for example, if the projector was set to play on second monitor, it would not appear on a one-monitor system. Workaround: always select "centered" in the projector options dialog.

Streaming

Attempting to preload a movie from an invalid url does not invoke an error message in the authoring environment.

Changing the netThrottleTicks property has no affect on background streaming.

Using Vector shapes or bitmaps as progress bars with the included Progress Bar Behaviors) will result in the progress bar animating outward in both directions from the middle. Use QD shapes as progress bars for best results. Use the patterns in the Tool Palette to add visual effects to the QD shape, without adding any size to the cast member

Text (General)

Applying bold to text using an embedded font can result in different text widths on Macintosh and Windows. The text will be wider on Windows, which may cause lines to be wrapped differently, or text to be truncated. As a workaround, you should include a bold version of the font when you create it.

On-stage editable Text and Field members that have mouse behaviors on them need to include a pass at the bottom of these behaviors in order to let the Text or Field member respond to standard mouse gestures such as placing an insertion cursor and dragging over a range of text to set a selection.

Editable text always displays with copy ink.

RTF text files do not split into separate members at page breaks when imported.

In Internet Explorer on the Macintosh, it is difficult to type or delete text within a text block in field cast members (text members function correctly) during Shockwave playback.

Moveable text sprites with hyperlinks do not show themselves moving to the new location until you release the mouse. Then they snap to the new location.

Text (HTML Import)

Ordered lists are bulletted instead of numbered.

Nested tables not supported. Trying to import them causes unpredictable results.

Table width is not supported, but cell width is. If no explicit cell widths are specified, you can use the margins to adjust left and right sides. Changing the width of the text member adjusts the width of the table.

JavaScript is not supported.

Text (International Issues)

Windows, Japanese:The Japanese font "MS P Gothic" cannot be previewed in the font dialog. This font should still display properly.

Windows, Hebrew: Anti-aliased text is rendered backwards, from left to right.

Transitions

On the Macintosh, dissolve bits, dissolve bits fast, and dissolve pixels fast transitions are much slower in Movies in a Window than on Stage. Workaround: set your MIAW to a window type that doesn't have a grow box.

UI--Authoring

When authoring on Multiple monitors, it is recommended that the main monitor be the leftmost monitor for most consistent performance.

On the Macintosh, while a movie is running under System 8.5, the Stage may get layered over any floating windows. Workaround: close and open the Stage or close and reopen the windows.

Update Movies

Update movie updates locked (read-only) files.

Vector Shapes

Undoing the creation of a vector shape leaves a trace of a vector shape in the window. Simply select and delete the trace to erase it.

Scaling in the vector window may not effect vector shape sprites that have been scaled or skewed on the Stage.

Vector shapes may have inaccurate loc properties relative to their regPoints when rotated.

Xtra Downloading

You must be connected to the Internet before you can successfully employ "Download if Needed" for an Xtra in the Modify:Movie:Xtras dialog. If you are not connected to the network, clicking "download if needed" for an Xtra pauses the system for some time while the computer searches for a network connection.

Xtras--Miscellaneous

Windows ActiveX Xtra: keypress events may not work correctly when an ActiveX sprite is on Stage.

Windows Web Design Effects: Natural Effect does not function on gradient bitmaps.

 
Known Incompatibilities

If you use the third party utility FinderPop on the Macintosh, you see context menus in the Library palette when you click items (normally you should only get a menu by holding down the control key). You should disable this utility's control free context menus within Director. You can do this by selecting the menu item that this utility places at the bottom of the Help menu.

There are minor incompatibilities when the Macintosh utility Kaleidoscope is installed. Some of Director's custom pop-up menus (the ones with small fonts, such as the inks at the bottom of the Paint window) can display slightly flattened.

Windows Intel Xtras are not supported when running under any emulator, such as Virtual PC 2.1.1.

In Windows 16-bit display, NVidia video cards create distortion when bitmaps are zoomed in the paint window.

 

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