.dcr (Director Shockwave) files?

[pemik]

Even though they're both Adobe products, there doesn't seem to be any obvious way to insert a .dcr file (created and compiled in Director) into Captivate(??)

If not, is there any workaround? Flash doesn't seem to take .dcr either, and there's no way to convert either the .dir or the .dcr to .fla or .swf. I'm thinking export from Director to QT, but if i import it as video or animation will it retain the interactivity? I don't want to re-author the content in Flash

[Captiv8r]

Hi pemik

Wow, I thought Director was dead as a product. It doesn't surprise me in the least that Captivate wouldn't understand Director files. Yours would bring the total count of users I've seen asking for this type of import to a total of 1. So I'm also guessing it's not a common thing folks want to do.

I'm not sure how director operates and am guessing that it works loosely similar to Captivate. By that, I mean you author content, then publish it out to a playable format? If so, maybe configure Captivate to record the playback of a Director file? Then you might build in interactivity from there?

Just thinking out loud... Rick

[pemik]

Shockwave is a well established platform, and the next version is in the pipeline. Have a look at Adobe's very much alive and kicking Director blog.

Director's more analogous to Flash than Captivate (tho' it's still deeper and more powerful than Flash). There's actually nothing to record in the particular movie i wanted to import, it's entirely interactive. It outputs the RGB values for pixels in an image as the mouse moves over it (and asks a few questions). At the time I did it, Flash/Actionscript did not provide that sort of imaging functionality. Captivate certainly doesn't. The Shockwave file even imports into WebCT - a particularly fussy VLE - and it doesn't seem all that remarkable to expect an ex-Macromedia application to import compiled files from ex-Macromedia's most mature product?! Hell, there's even a Shockwave ActiveX control tool in Powerpoint!!

Actually, it works in Powerpoint. So I'll try importing the ppt file into Captivate to see if it still works.

[pemik]

Just tried this, and it doesn't work.

Works fine at the Powerpoint stage, but not in Powerpoint in Captivate. As far as I know, Flash doesn't import .dcr files either (!), so importing the .cp into Flash then importing the .dcr isn't an option either.

[Newsgroup_User]

> Wow, I thought Director was dead as a product.

Director 11 is about to be released ...

:-)

Steve


--
Adobe Community Expert: eLearning, Mobile and Devices
My blog - http://stevehoward.blogspot.com/

[Captiv8r]

Hi Steve

Thanks for the info. I must have been confusing it with Authorware.

Wasn't Authorware discontinued?

Apologies to all for any concerns I may have raised with respect to Director!

Sincerely... Rick

[Newsgroup_User]

> Thanks for the info. I must have been confusing it with Authorware.
>
> Wasn't Authorware discontinued?

I think it was discontinued in 2004 ;-)

Steve


--
Adobe Community Expert: eLearning, Mobile and Devices
My blog - http://stevehoward.blogspot.com/

[Newsgroup_User]

> Works fine at the Powerpoint stage, but not in Powerpoint in Captivate. As
> far
> as I know, Flash doesn't import .dcr files either (!), so importing the
> .cp
> into Flash then importing the .dcr isn't an option either.
>

PowerPoint can play ActiveX content - neither Flash or Captivate can.
There's not going to be a way for you to import a DCR file into Captivate
any time soon. Who knows what the future might bring, though.

As you suggested, Flash never used to be able to do what your Director movie
is doing. Maybe your only choice is to look again at Flash 9 and see if it
can replicated your functionality - it certainly has at least some of the
bitmap manipulation features that Director has.

Steve


--
Adobe Community Expert: eLearning, Mobile and Devices
My blog - http://stevehoward.blogspot.com/

[pemik]

Yes, Authorware's dead and almost buried. But rumors of Director's death have been slightly exaggerated...

Steve - i'm pretty sure i could reproduce it in Actionscript. I'd just rather not! Having said that, it's on the to-do list now unfortunately...