Director Tutorials

 

Types of Scripts

Scripts are a way you can give Director specific instructions to execute tasks. They can be as simple as making your computer beep or as complex as creating a flight simulator game.

There are 4 types of scripts:
Behaviors are scripts that exists as their own cast member and can be placed directly in the Score's scripting channel (frame script) or linked to a sprite (sprite scripts). Director has a library of prewritten behaviors for both frames and sprites.
Cast member scripts are scripts that are always attached to a cast member. They will always be linked to sprites whenever the cast member is placed in the Score.
Movie scripts are scripts that are not assigned to a specific frame or sprite. They can be initiated from events such as the start or end of a movie or can be 'called' from another script.
Parent scripts create objects, called child objects, that may control physical objects on the Stage. They require a strong understanding of Object Oriented Programming and are more complex to use for non-programmers.

Tutorial 11: Writing a Script - Scripting basic

If you're using Director MX 2004, the Tool Palette can be viewed in 3 modes - classic, default and flashcomponent, as seen to the left. For this tutorial, we will use the classic mode. I will explain why later.

  1. Open a new movie.
  2. Turn the looping on in the control panel.
  3. Open the tool palette.
  4. Click the push button icon.
  5. Draw a button on the stage, and type in button (a very original name).
  6. Right click the button in the cast window and choose cast member script.
  7. Director writes the first and last line for us, add a beep command so the script look like this:
    on mouseUp
      beep
    end
  8. Close the window.
  9. Rewind and play the movie.
  10. Click the button a few times.
    You do not need to save this tutorial.

In the above tutorial, you created a cast member script. Open your cast window and make sure it is in icon view mode. Note that the cast member now shows a scripting icon in the bottom left corner of the cast, representing the script is linked to the cast member.

You could easily have created a sprite script by choosing this option instead of cast member script. This would create a separate cast member for the script.

Writing another script

  1. Reopen the cast member script.
  2. Change the text so it now reads.
    on mouseUp
      beep
      alert "Multimedia in Design is the greatest subject!"
    end
  3. Close the window.
  4. Play the movie and click the button.
    You do not need to save this tut.

You are on your way to create masterpiece interactive multimedia presentations.

I mentioned at the start that you should use Classic mode buttons. The reason is that the other modes create Flash Component buttons, which work in a slightly different way.

If you try the above tut with a Flash Component button, the behaviors may not work. This is because the default setting for these button types is to have their behaviors inactive. This can be changed in the Property Inpector. Aftter creating a Flash Component button, select it and open the Property inpector and click on the Flash Component tab as shown to the left. At the bottom is the eventPassMode property. The default setting is #passNever, which basically means behaviors attched to this sprite will be inactive. Change it to #passAlways to make them active.