Mihow

Flash/Director

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Mihow
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We’re on a lunch break.

A few things I have learned:

Director is very similar to Flash but not as buggy (not that I know much about this).

Lingo seems a bit weird or maybe it’s just foreign.

Director is able incorporate PDFs easily by way of 3rd party extentions something flash does not play nicely with.

Director uses video better than flash.

A few things that annoy me:

In order to create an .exe for PC you need to create the file on a PC using PC software. And the same goes for a Mac. There are ways around this by placing code within the opening of the .exe file which has to be written using the PC version of the software and then imported into the Mac file. I’m still trying to figure this out, but I think I get it.

Why can’t we all just get along? hehe

Comments

10 responses to “Flash/Director”

  1. andrea Avatar
    andrea

    director is fun.
    flash is stupid.

    me like jane.

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  2. arjen Avatar
    arjen

    are you sure about the exe export deal?, even in director mx? its odd especially since flash CAN do that from out of a mac version.

    but then, flash rules and director sux. hehe

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  3. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    I am pretty sure arjen. But I’ll double check again.

    I like both programs for different reasons. :]

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  4. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    Yes, that is correct, arjen. Even with MX. Seems unethical, but then again, how many times have we said that?

    So I guess we’ll have to buy two versions? Silly Macromedia.

    The instructor is going to bring in a file called main.dir for mac and PC solving this problem, I guess/hope. :]

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  5. Lana Avatar
    Lana

    Hey! They didn’t tell us about that Mac work-around when I did my Director class! I was robbed! Robbed!

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  6. tobyjoe Avatar
    tobyjoe

    i have a feeling the workaround just loads one version into another at runtime and makes the exe afterwards… but i don’t really know at all.

    i’m pretty sure you can at least build out the project on a mac then simply open it up on a pc and compile it. the one thing that doesn’t bother me about it is how heavy a platform-general versioin would be if it incorporated the runtime engine for both major operating systems into each file, instead of incorporating only (parts of?) one.

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  7. mihow Avatar
    mihow

    I hear ya, Tobyjoe. Makes sense.

    Thing is you’d have to have two versions and that’s pricey. Wish there was some way to only buy one (for whichever platform you prefer) and have the option of buying some sort of partial program in order to do this. Or something. :]

    Hell, that probably makes no sense. hehe

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  8. arjen Avatar
    arjen

    actually that makes total sense. lots of software comes out modular like that these days. can’t there be a utility that conversts a shockwave file to an exe? sounds solidly logical to me. wouldn’t be surprised if somebody has alread hacked something like that together.

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  9. arjen Avatar
    arjen

    by the way. I didnt mean to sound like a software-smarty-pants. I am actually pretty ignorant. %-)

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  10. grijn Avatar
    grijn

    While Flash makes cross platform dev. pretty easy, Director does not. eg. you can build a .fla on either Mac or PC then export a SWF. You then use the stand alone player (which is free) on either platform to save out an executable file.

    For Director you need 2 copies of the program. uhg. A solution to this is the “stub projector”. Which is really just an executable file (one for Mac one for PC that has a simple bit of lingo in it that just runs “main.dxr”. Since the main.dxr is essentially cross platform (with exception to directory paths, font sizing issues, and other stuff that can ususally be addressed in the code) you only need one platform version of the program to author in Director, just have a friend make the “stub projector” for you. then comes the testing…

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