Want to get your good old Director goodies running on the iPhone or iPad. It took awhile, but Director 12 has been released.
A 30 day trial is available.
More info on the Adobe Director 12 Site.
15 comments February 11th, 2013
Apple has released the latest version of their operating system which is commonly referred to as Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6). What does this mean to users that want to see Shockwave-based content? What does this mean to those that author with Director MX 2004 or newer? What does this mean for projectors from Director MX 2004, 11, or 11.5?
Here is the scoop based on my observations.
For Shockwave things will run fine if you run in 32-bit mode in Safari. To do that you can select the Safari icon and Get Info. Then select 32-bit mode. You can read that in greater detail on this ExploreLearning blog post.
Safari in 32-bit mode
For authoring I’ve tested Director 11.5 and have not noticed any problems. However, Director MX 2004 is a different story. For some strange reason it is one of just seven programs in the entire world that are restricted from opening by Apple and the new operating system (read the Apple Technote). Out of all the programs in the world, what on Earth does Director MX 2004 do on a computer that causes Apple to ban the app?
Director MX 2004 Restricted!
Somewhere Apple is storing information that causes this message to appear. If anyone knows where that is I’d love to know 🙂 I tried opening the Director MX 2004 package and changed the CFBundleIdentifier in the info.plist from 2004 to 2005 just to see what would happen. When I did that the program began to launch, the icon would bounce in the dock a few times, and then it would crash. I got the standard crash message at this point where I could report it to Apple or cancel. I canceled. I edited the info.plist once again and set it back to 2004. At this point it would always crash and I wouldn’t get the “restricted” message again. I’d say I broke something. Oh well…seems at this point it is impossible to run Dir MX 2004 on Snow Leopard.
For older projectors (that could run under 10.5 with Rosetta) things are both good and bad. The projectors will still run, but unfortunately Apple has decided that Rosetta is an optional installation now, so it doesn’t get installed by default. When I tried to launch a projector I got a message that Rosetta was needed.
Rosetta Needed Message
I agreed to install it and the 2 meg download took place. The next time I launched the projector it worked normally.
Rosetta Download
You must always remember that the first time you launch something that needs Rosetta it will take 15 or more seconds. On subsequent launches it will just take a few seconds.
Projectors created with Director 11+ will run as expected without Rosetta.
I’m still shocked that Director MX 2004 is one of just seven apps that are officially restricted by Apple. I basically use the older version of Director all the time to edit older content that I don’t want the files to have to be updated with the new unicode text. I guess I’ll now have to keep one computer running 10.5. I’m bummed. If anyone does find a way to get MX 2004 running on 10.6, please drop me a line.
Update: I forgot to mention the Shockwave installation issue. When I tried to install Shockwave I got the following message saying that it only works on 10.4 and 10.5. I clicked OK and then ran the installer. It properly installed the plugin. On the other hand, the uninstaller seemed to run for a long time and not really do anything. I waited about five minutes and then force quit it, so not entirely sure if it was doing anything or not.
Shockwave Install warning message on Snow Leopard.
12 comments September 2nd, 2009
When Director 11 was released last year it really didn’t seem to get mentioned anywhere. It wasn’t until a few months ago that it showed up on MacUpdate. Things are quite different this time.
Shockwave 11.5 has been in the top 5 of the MacUpdate Most Popular downloads since it came out. Director 11.5 got covered on MacNN, MacWorld, and Macsimum News. (Can you tell I’m a Mac guy?)
The screenshots from a few moments ago show the Director story was very popular on MacWorld, and Shockwave is currently #4 in the weekly downloads on MacUpdate.
It seems as if the Adobe PR department has been much busier with this version of Director than they were with the last. That seems to be a very good sign that Director is here to stay for a bit longer.
1 comment March 26th, 2009
A new version of Director was released today, along with a new version of Shockwave.
You can download Director, Shockwave, as well as many demos at this location (you’ll need to login with your Adobe ID).
Let the fun begin!
Update: Director 11.5 can also be found on Amazon.
Update 2: List of features:
- Enriched audio capabilities Make your games sound as real as they look with 5.1-channel surround sound, real-time mixing, audio effects, and DSP filters.
- Enhanced video capabilities Enhance your user’s multimedia experience using H.264-video integration that provides full-screen, high-definition video in multimedia applications and games.
- New 3D importer for SketchUp Rapidly create rich 3D environments using the many ready-made 3D models available through Google SketchUp.
- Streaming support Stream audio and video over the Internet using RTMP support.
- New data type Access and manipulate binary data using the ByteArray data type.
- Enhanced physics engine Support for dynamic concave rigid bodies.
- Enhanced productivity Support for multiple undo/redo operations.
- Cross domain policy
- Enhancements to the text engine
- Open Type Font (OTF) embedding support on Macintosh OS.
- Class-based kerning support.
- Hinting support at a member level.
- Enhancements to platform and browser support
- Macintosh OSX 10.5 (authoring and runtime) support.
- Firefox 3.0 support.
More information can be found on DirectorForum in this thread.
12 comments March 23rd, 2009
The 5th Director Live Online meeting will be taking place on Tuesday September 23, 2008 at 10am EST. If you have time, be sure to participate. I’ll be there for part of it… but have to attend some other meetings 🙁
For more information (including the URL to the meeting) you can view this post.
Topics include:
Director Hotfix 3 will most likely be the main topic and Allen Partridge will update us on what’s happening, what will be fixed and when it will be released.
We will then have another look at the Directorforum Collaboration Wiki, where I’ve seen quite a bit of activity over the past 2.5 weeks.
Also, I will try to get you guys updated on what Adobe CS4 will be like. Eventually September 23rd is the day, Adobe will announce CS4 and will share info on what’s new. And we will be among the first to share this info publicly.
If anyone of you guys wants to present something (an interesting current or past project, or maybe a short Director related workshop) please don’t hesitate to drop me a line and we’ll make it happen. Also if you have specific topics to be covered in a future Director Live Online Meeting, just tell me and we’ll see how we can do it.
Again, these Director Live Online Meetings are a community effort and everybody can actively participate and contribute.
Add comment September 22nd, 2008
I noticed a new build of Shockwave for Mac was released today. Wonder what is new?
Guess I’ll be playing with it tomorrow to see if anything broke 🙂
Update: Seems as if the Windows version has also been updated.
Add comment August 6th, 2008
For you Director users out there be sure to keep an hour free tomorrow for the 2nd online meeting related to the future of Director.
According to Macromartin, the organizer, the meeting will be held for 1 hour to discuss:
1. The current state of Director
2. The future of Director
3. Introducing the public Director Feature Request System & Poll
4. Q&A and community chat‘The future of Director’ is my most concern. But I doubt that the answer will be a negative one since participants are all Director users.
For more information and the location of the online meeting read this post on K-Director.
I’ll be there!
1 comment June 23rd, 2008
I’ve been rather quiet lately. My spare hours have been working on recovering from an attack of spambots attacking this site, and others. My poor little Mac Mini hosts a dozen sites while holding a martini glass for any visitors that may drop by. I’ve ignored security for the past N (where N > 10) on my blogs, but that has rapidly become a thing of the past. Hopefully I’m back up and running now, preferably without scissors 🙂
While I’ve been quiet I also noticed how quiet it was on the MXNA (Macromedia XML News Aggregator). They had some issues with their server, but the site is back up with a new and improved name of Adobe Feeds. Thanks to all of those at Adobe for the feeds. The site sure is faster than it used to be! Guess they now have a bit of power behind it. I know I’ll feel better now that I can browse through it in the morning.
Stay away hackbots…stay away…please!
Add comment May 6th, 2008
The official press release is out.
For immediate release
Major Product Upgrade Advances Multimedia Authoring Environment
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Feb. 19, 2008 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Director® 11 software, a major upgrade to the company’s powerful multimedia authoring tool for building interactive applications and rich content. The latest release contains a flexible and easy-to-use authoring environment enabling multimedia authors, animators and developers to create powerful interactive applications, games, e-learning and simulation products…
The Director product page has also been updated. I like the new box 🙂
18 comments February 19th, 2008
The new year has arrived. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to do much of anything lately other than watch Apple stock plummet. Hopefully I’ll have a bit more free time during this year to get posts up here, and to watch the stock go up. I even bought some Adobe stock today…I figure it will shoot up when Director gets released 🙂
So…where is that dreaded release. For those that have been paying attention to the Director FAQ it now says, “…However, our current planning assumption is that the next major release of Director will be announced in February 2008.” So it seems like we’ll hear about it next month.
This FAQ has changed quite a bit during 2007, but it continues to get narrowed down (a specified month is so much better than a ‘sometime in the 2nd half of the year’ statement). Back on January 10, 2006, Steve Jobs announced that the iMac would now be using an Intel CPU. It has been two years without a MacIntel version of the Shockwave plug-in (other than running in Rosetta…but please…that hurts). Can Director and/or Shockwave get back in the game after such a long absence? I guess we’ll find out this year.
Allen Partridge (the Adobe Director Evangelist) now has a blog up and running called Shockwaves that is all Director, all the time. Be sure to stop by to see it grow.
Looks like it will be a happy year for Director and my MacIntels.
5 comments January 23rd, 2008
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