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What is it?
While working on Director 4, it occurred to me that there were not many tools available to help you "get under the hood" of Director and find out what was really going on in the titles that I was working on. After seeing what Jeff Buell had done with Movies in a Window, I created my first tool to monitor memory in Director, the Memmon. With the mindset of "make useful tools for developers without a lot of gratuitous glitz" and several years to burn, I had the opportunity to create more tools. Within those years, Director had come a long way, Shockwave had been created and there were many more "things" that need monitoring (or so I felt) to create a good director movie. There were many variables that really hurt the Director user. What is the speed of Lingo on my target machines? What is the realistic throughput off my CD? What data throughput rate can I set my Quicktimes to? Why can't I monitor and see all the properties within my objects?? Why don't I have a message window in Shockwave? While these questions and others bugged me, it became apparent that Lingo tools could be written to address these questions and with extra encouragement from Audio Images Jim Chen, the Director Developer Toolkit was under development.
The result is a cross platform set of movies in a window, sample code and Shockwave movies. The Movies In A Window are a very special part of the toolkit in that they rely on no global variables and therefore will not interfere with your stage movie. They also will work in projectors. Each one is a seperate entity that communicates back and forth to the stage movie as necessary to get the information it requires. An explanation of each follows:
Tool Opener
This MIAW is the area to select all the other MIAW tools from. By using this Tool Opener, the xtras menu does not get cluttered, all tools become available from one place.
Memory Monitor
This tool does much more that monitor memory usage in your Director movie. It also determines data throughput, lets you control the loaded state of your members and profile your cast members and more...
Object Property Inspector
Realtime object property browser/inspector with switchable recursion. English translation: Check out all the properties of your objects as they change.
Sound Inspector
Monitor the play state and volume of the first 4 sound channels and digital videos as they play. Sprite Inspector Returns vital sprite and member information for the specified sprites.
Font Previewer
Sick of Director's clunky font menus? Here is a window that lists all the installed fonts and what they look like. Just click and look. Mac only.
Script Inspector
When using the Projector Shell from the Code section on a .dir file, this tool will let you view your scripts while running in a projector. You can also make simple changes to your .dir and save those changes while the projector is running.
Script Outliner
Scan all movie and property scripts and create an outlined handler table of contents for reference. Debugger/Message Window
Here is a message window with simple debugging for use in Projectors. The output and input do not overwrite each other as in the standard message window and this window stores the input history.
A Grep Style Find All
Now you can perform a "Find all occurances" of your text string. Searches through all scripts in the movie for the desired text string and shows you them as it finds them.
MIAW Manager
Like the Windows task bar? Well, with so many MIAWS, I liked it too. This version takes the task bar concept and uses it to help you organize your MIAWS. Downloadable off this web site to registered users.
Global Watcher
Scan all your movie and property scripts for globals and monitor their values realtime. |
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The second section of the Toolkit is the Code folder. This section contains sample code to be used with the MIAWs, as well as test code and utilities.
Debuggable EQ
This is a set of sample movies to help you learn the debugger/message window.
Hypertext
A fast and simple hypertext engine for Director.
Lingo Performance Profiler
The performance profiler measures the speed of basic Lingo operations. By measuring the speed of basic operations such as allocations of the variable types used in your Director movie, you determine how fast your title will run on the target machines. After measuring the speed of the basics, you can then plug in the rest of Lingo and determine the amount of overhead required to use each command. Run these tests on each of your target machines to predict any performance problems before they happen. Graph templates downloadable to registered users from this web site.
Mac Windowtypes
A movie and MIAW that show off the undocumented mac window types.
Projector Shell
This shell is meant to be a large timesaver. With it, you do not have to create projector after projector during the development of your title. With it, you can have lingo.ini files on the Mac as well as the PC. With it, you have access to all the MIAW tools (except the font previewer) while running your title in a projector. Want a message window in your projector? OK. This shell reads two ini files, executes your startup lingo in one and then loads the .dir movie you specify in the second. All you have to do to update the file used in the projector is use that Save command in the file menu.
QT Updates Timer
The data returned from this utility indicates if your quicktime is likely to skip when played off the desired media by displaying the amount of times Director calls Quicktime per second and per tick. If you have a 30 fps quicktime and any value >= 30 is returned then your movie should display smoothly. Any value lower will indicate that Quicktime will not be able to keep up with the desired frame rate of your movie when played off the media you tested it on.
Repeat loop replacement object
When you have a looping condition and need the key events, mouse events or other events that repeat loops lock you out of, use this object. It has been optimized for speed with both integers and floating point values. Floating point values are emulated with a faster fixed point algorithm.
Sample Object
This movie is a good sample for those getting started with Object Oriented Lingo. However it's main purpose is to help you learn how to use the Object Property Browser MIAW. Throughput
When used with the Memmon MIAW, the throughput movie can tell you how many kps you can get off the media it resides on. Run the movie directly from the CD to figure out exactly what the throughput off of your CDROM drive is. How many K per second do you get off of an 8 x CD drive? a 2 x, a 12 x? Mac vs pc? Now you can find out.
The last section on the Toolkit is for Shockwave. The movies and descriptions follow:
Lingo Peformance Timer
As in Director, it is helpful to determine the speed of various lingo operations such as variable allocations, function and handler calls in Shockwave.
Pref File Reader
When using the setPref() and getPref() lingo commands, this movie runs in another browser window allowing you to verify that the correct data is written to the pref file.
Shockwave Message Window
Operating like the Debugger/Message window from the MIAW tools section, this is a message window you place inyour Shockwave movie to help you debug your Shockwave as it runs in the browser. Shockmon Like the Memmon, the Shockmon informs you about the memory usage of your Shockwave movies and the general browser memory heap. It runs in a seperate browser window, constantly monitoring memory.
Shockwave Intermovie Communication
With this library, you can have movie in a window style communication and sharing of data and scriptsbetween multiple shockwaves. Even Shockwaves on different sites. Tests have been run with fifteen seperate movies chatting back and forth at the same time. All low level file and data management routines are taken care of for you. Great for writing out Pref files for your Shockwaves. |
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