Using Director > Navigation and User Interaction > Creating an animated color cursor cast member |  |

Creating an animated color cursor cast member

Before creating an animated color cursor cast member, make sure that the cast members you want to use in the cursor are stored in a cast linked to the movie. See Managing external casts.

To create an animated color cursor cast member:

1 | Choose Insert > Media Element > Cursor.
| Director opens the Cursor Properties Editor, which you use to set up the cursor.
2 | From the Cast pop-up menu, choose the cast that contains the cast member you want to add as a frame in your cursor.
| The cast members used for a single cursor can be stored in different casts.
3 | Use the < and > buttons to find the cast member you want.
| As you click the buttons, the preview shows a thumbnail of the selected cast member. If you do not see the cast member you want, the cast member probably isn't a bitmap or has a color depth greater than 8 bits (256 colors). The Cursor Properties Editor shows only bitmaps that can be used in an animated color cursor.
| You can also type a cast member number in the Member box and press Tab; Director will select the cast member that has that number or the cast member with the number closest to it.
4 | Select the cast member you want and click Add.
| You see the cast member in the Cursor Frames preview area. The Frame X of Y field shows where the cast member falls within an animated series of cursor frames.
5 | Repeat steps 2 through 4 until you have added all the cast members for the cursor.
| In the Cursor Frames area, you can use the < and > buttons to review the order of the cursor frames. Click the Remove button to delete the currently selected frame from the cursor (this deletes the cast member only from the cursor animation, not from the cast).
6 | In the Interval field, specify the number of milliseconds that elapse between each frame of the cursor animation.
| This interval affects all frames of the cursor and cannot vary for different frames. The cursor frame rate is independent of the frame rate set for the movie using the tempo channel or the `puppetTempo` Lingo command.
| Note: By inserting the same bitmap in multiple frames of the cursor, you can create the illusion of variable-rate cursor animation.
7 | In the Hotspot Position fields, specify the location of the mouse pointer's active point.
| Director uses this point to track the mouse pointer's position on the screen. For example, Director uses this point's location when it returns values for the `mouseH()` and `mouseV()` functions. The hotspot also determines the point where a rollover occurs.
| The first field specifies the horizontal (x) location, and the second field specifies the vertical (y) location. The upper left pixel is location 0,0. In a 16 x 16 pixel cursor, the lower right pixel is location 15,15. You can't enter a point that is beyond the bounds of the cursor.
8 | Click one of the Size options to specify the maximum size of the cursor.
| If a Size option is dimmed, your computer does not allow you to create cursors of that size.
9 | Select the Automask option if you want the white pixels of the cursor frames to be transparent.
| Note: The Automask option makes all white pixels transparent. If you want some white pixels to be opaque, you can't use white for those pixels, but you can achieve the same effect by instead using the lightest shade of gray available in the system palette.
10 | Click OK to close the Cursor Properties Editor.
| After you create a cursor cast member, use Lingo to switch to the cursor in a movie. See Using an animated color cursor in a movie.