Director® 7 and Lingo Bible [Paperback]

Jonathan Bacon (Author), Robert Martin (Author), John R. Nyquist (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764533487 | ISBN-13: 978-0764533488 | Publication Date: August 24, 1999

Whether you're trying to create compelling content for Web-based Shockwave projects, spice up your company's marketing pieces with animation, or develop interactive training modules for the classroom, you'll find all the tips and techniques you need in this authoritative Director 7 reference. Written by a top team of Director developers, Director 7 and Lingo Bible covers it all -- from Director 7's easy-to-use drag-and-drop capabilities to its powerful object-oriented scripting language, Lingo.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When a book calls itself a "bible," it usually raises skeptical eyebrows. However, the Director 7 and Lingo Bible, written by a trio of experienced and notable multimedia developers, fulfills its promise and shows an enlightened path to getting the most from Macromedia's multimedia development environment.

The book shows you everything from the basics of Director (starting with installation, setting preferences, and the user interface) through making finished Director movies for CD-ROM and Web delivery. Along the way, it demonstrates all of the features available in Director 7, including Lingo, OOP programming, Behaviors, and of course all the Director basics.

The book is more than a tutorial for Director. The most important chapters may be 9 and 10, which cover multimedia presentation and production methodologies from a Director developer's point of view. In chapter 9, "Creating an Interactive Presentation," the book explains the reasons and methods for creating a handsome and accessible interface. And in chapter 10, "Designing a Production Process," it discusses strategies for evaluating the scope of a project such as laying it out as a flowchart to help determine the amount of work involved. These are important issues that all developers face and beginners often overcome only after stumbling.

One of the best things about this book is that its entire contents are included on an accompanying CD-ROM in Adobe Acrobat format. Think about it: a huge reference volume like this, online, and at your fingertips. You can even copy and paste the Lingo examples from the PDF pages right into your project.

Overall, the book is a good value for beginners and intermediate users alike with its real-world examples and practical advice on making the most of Director 7. --Mike Caputo

From the Back Cover

If Director can do it, you can do it too… Whether you're trying to create compelling content for Web-based Shockwave projects, spice up your company's marketing pieces with animation, or develop interactive training modules for the classroom, you'll find all the tips and techniques you need in this authoritative Director 7 reference. Written by a top team of Director developers, Director^® 7 and Lingo^™ Bible covers it all — from Director 7's easy-to-use drag-and-drop capabilities to its powerful object-oriented scripting language, Lingo. Inside, you'll find complete coverage of Director 7 and Lingo

• Master the fundamentals of Director movies — cast members, sprites, and scores
• Discover the new text capabilities of Director 7
• Incorporate digital audio and video into your projects
• Use built-in behaviors to quickly add interactivity and animation to movies
• Explore new techniques for streamlining production processes
• Learn to program using Director's scripting language, Lingo
• Create reusable, custom sprite behaviors using Lingo
• Learn how to efficiently handle text, sound, and video with Lingo
• Understand the opportunities and constraints related to Web delivery
• Create applications, Shockwave movies, and Java applets

8-page color section shows projects created in Director 7 Sample movies, storyboards, clip media, and Xtras included on CD-ROM, plus cool demos and full-featured utilities, including: Dreamweaver Flash Fireworks DeBabelizer Media Cleaner Pro Paint Shop Pro Adobe Acrobat Reader QuickTime 3.01 HotDog SmartDraw Shareware programs are fully functional, free trial versions of copyrighted programs. If you like particular programs, register with their authors for a nominal fee and receive licenses, enhanced versions, and technical support. Freeware programs are free, copyrighted games, applications, and utilities. You can copy them to as many PCs as you like—free—but they have no technical support. www.idgbooks.com System Requirements: Pentium PC running Windows 95/98/NT 4.0 or later, or Power PC Macintosh running system 7.6.1 or later, 32MB RAM, 20MB free disk space, 2X CD-ROM drive, QuickTime 3.0.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 964 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (August 24, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764533487
• ISBN-13: 978-0764533488
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,534,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I reach for this book whenever I code myself into a corner., August 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Director® 7 and Lingo Bible (Paperback)

When I began reading this book, I had been a user of Director for about three years. While my experience producing multimedia CD-ROMs using Director had been good, it always took forever to work out the bugs in my Lingo code. I knew there was a better way to write the Lingo scripts using object-oriented programming techniques, but I didn't understand the concepts or how to do it very well. I was also reluctant to change from my tried-and-true style of programming that had worked for me since beginning with Director 3.

I'd read other books about Director and tried a few things to push my personal envelope, without a lot of success. But as I began to read in this book about how to use OOP structures in behaviors, it was like a light turned on. This book made it very understandable. I kept (figuratively) slapping my forehead and saying "of course!" as I tried the examples in the chapters. I can't remember the last time I've become so excited about learning something new as I have with this book. It has really empowered me to become a better multimedia developer. With the new understanding this book gave me, I'm more confident that I can build any interface feature I want into my Director projects. Before, when a client would ask for some feature, I would be hesitant to agree or promise it. Now I don't have to "kludge" things together...and I can implement it fast and with high reliability so that works consistently in cross-platform projects. My turn-around time on projects is also a lot faster now.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clear, practical guide to Director 7, October 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Director® 7 and Lingo Bible (Paperback)

I turned to this book after making the mistake of buying Lingo Sorcery to learn object-oriented programming in Director. It was a great relief to find (at last) a coherent introduction to OOP in Lingo, with lots of examples in the text and code on the CD. The rest of the book is terrific, too.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, October 13, 1999

By 

Marcelo Rocha de Souza - See all my reviews

This review is from: Director® 7 and Lingo Bible (Paperback)

I'm a graphic designer and I always felt like reading a book about Lingo programming like this! It's straightforward and full of practical examples. If you want to improve your jobs and reach another level as a good professional, I think you must acquire this book! Congratulations!!