Using Director > Getting Started > What's new in Director 8 |  |

What's new in Director 8

One of the most important changes in Director 8 is a Property Inspector that automatically switches context to match the current selection. The Property Inspector is referred to throughout this book. For basic information about it, see The Property Inspector.

Other new authoring features in Director 8 include the following:

Zoomable stage allows shrinking or expanding of the Stage window during authoring without affecting logical sprite sizes and positions. See Increasing or decreasing your view of the Stage.

Cast window List view provides a new way to display cast members, and provides the ability to sort and change member properties. See Using Cast List view.

Asset management fields on the Cast window, including a comments field and source control fields, are customizable for each cast member. Using Cast List view

Linked scripts let you store scripts in external text files that can be edited separately from a Director movie. See Using linked scripts.

Bitmap compression allows JPEG compression for bitmap members in a DCR. You can specify compression for individual bitmaps, or at the movie level for all bitmaps in your DCR. An optimize in fireworks option lets you preview the JPEG image at various quality settings. Bitmap compression offers a compression strategy for 32-bit cast members with alpha channel data. Compressing bitmaps.

Lockable sprites help prevent unintentional modifications during authoring. See Locking and unlocking sprites.

Guides on the Stage (in addition to the existing grid) help you place elements precisely. See Positioning sprites using guides, the grid, or the Align window.

Publish command lets you create a Shockwave movie, in your choice of HTML templates, by simply choosing File > Publish. A Publish Settings dialog box lets you configure how your want your Shockwave movie to appear in a browser. See Creating Shockwave movies.

Scalable Shockwave lets Shockwave movies stretch to fit the browser window while (optionally) preserving the original aspect ratio. See Changing Publish settings.

Multiple curve vectors offers the ability to create and edit vector cast members with more than one curve segment. See Drawing vector shapes.

Inline IME, available for Japanese operating systems, supports direct entry of double-byte Japanese text in Shockwave and projectors.

Enhanced Lingo performance and new parent-child scripting functionality. See Parent script and child object basics.

Imaging Lingo lets you create and manipulate bitmap images entirely in Lingo. See Controlling bitmap images with Lingo.

Sound control Lingo allows precise, professional quality control of sound playback. See Playing sounds with Lingo.