Archive for February, 2006
A question was brought up in the Macromedia forums related to menus with submenus, and how would one could make one that functioned similar to the ones at the top of the forums.
I would like to create a sub-navigation that looks something like this:
Nav1 | Nav2 | Nav3
sub1 | sub2 | sub3
Is it possible to hide the sub-navigation until one of the main navigation(Nav2) links is rolled over? Can I have it stay there until another main navigation link is hit or when the user is taken to another frame?
There are a lot of ways to create menus, ranging from using Flash, imaging lingo, and dynamically generated sprites. In the forum JB basically answered the question with the very basic approach that allows for very quick development of this sort of thing with just a few lines of code.
You can download a sample file that was done in DirMX 2004.
Source for menu_demo.dir
There is also an article on Director Online related to menus, and using One Sprite Widgets at LingoWorkshop can make complex menus.
February 15th, 2006
Still many things to get done on the site. I added some cute little icons for various types of links/files that go up in the future. Have played with the RSS feeder plug-in so I can pull in headlines from a few places (going live later this week). I got the Akismet plug-in running to deal with comment spam. I still have a bunch of links to add. I also need to put up my email address or a contact form up. Getting email up sounds like the easiest thing to do so I bet I go with that option.
After all that maybe I’ll have time to actually start getting a few posts up on occasion. And maybe getting a little contest for fun (see prior Sudoku post).
February 14th, 2006
There is currently a good ongoing discussion on Direct-L mailing list related to the massively popular game called Sudoku. From Wikipedia:
Sudoku, sometimes spelled Su Doku, is a logic-based placement puzzle, also known as Number Place in the United States. The aim of the canonical puzzle is to enter a numerical digit from 1 through 9 in each cell of a 9×9 grid made up of 3×3 subgrids (called “regions”), starting with various digits given in some cells (the “givens”). Each row, column, and region must contain only one instance of each numeral.
Several on the list have presented ways to solve and create these puzzles in Lingo. There are already many other solutions (open source, shareware, commercial) that let you do such things (see Wikipedia link).
One thing that might be fun is trying to see who could create the “fastest” code for both creating and solving a puzzle. Anyone up for this challenge? We’d have to set up some rules for this contest of course…something to think about in the near future.
I’ve never been much of a puzzle solver, but thinking about the math/coding behind such things is often fun.
February 14th, 2006
MacRumors.com had a link to a job on Monster. Apple is looking for a Mac OS X Visual Interface Designer. Among the required experience items it lists Must have demonstrated experience with prototyping tools and environments such as Director and Lingo.
Full job listing
February 13th, 2006
Integration New Media (makers of well known Xtras and more) has written a great white paper outlining the transition to Intel-based Macs for Director users and multimedia developers in general.
In the paper, in addition to an overview of the situation, we offer some suggestions and strategic solutions to help you jump onboard the Intel-Apple train!
To further help developers and publishers who wish to support this new standard, we have put together a new service package to assist with the transition process.
Full white paper.
February 11th, 2006
Google link. Google amazes me. Or scares me. I’m not yet sure.
February 9th, 2006
I got a chance to play on a new Intel Mac the other day. If you want to run Shockwave content on these you’ll have to do an apple-i on the Safari app (get info) and choose the Open in Rosetta option. It will slow things down, but the Shockwave content seems to run at a pretty good pace. On the Direct-L mailing list it was stated that Adobe will work on a native version of the plug-in (more about this in later days).
February 9th, 2006
OK, the site is just starting. The first thing on my list of things to do is start getting lots of links put in on the sidebar, since there are so many great Director sites out there (some since 1994 like Director Web…where I first started learning Lingo). After that I’ll work on the next thing for my list of things.
February 8th, 2006
Welcome to my new blog related to Macromedia Director. When I have time I’ll post a few odds and ends here that I notice while playing with Director.
I tried to get a blog of this sort started about a year ago or so and my HD crashed about a month after that. Needless to say, I didn’t have a backup, so it fell by the wayside as my workload took over, but I’m now trying to make time for a bit of this, and a bit of that.
Stay tuned for thoughts, tips, tricks, and babbling of most anything related to Macromedia Director (oops…I mean Adobe Director) and other geeky things.
February 6th, 2006
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