Using Director > Packaging Movies for Distribution > Creating projectors |  |

Creating projectors

When creating a projector, place the starting movie at the top of the list of files in the Create Projector dialog box. If the Play Every Movie option is selected in the Projector Options dialog box, movies play in the order they appear in the list. If this option is off, only the first movie plays. If your movie contains Lingo that switches between movies, the order of the other movies may not be important.

You can include only Director 8 movies in projectors. Use the Update Movies command to convert older movies to the latest version of Director. For more information, see Processing movies with Update Movies.

To create a standard projector:

1 | Choose File > Create Projector.
2 | Double-click the movies and external casts to include in the projector. Click Add All to include all the movies in the open folder.
| Director transfers the name of the movies or casts to the file list.
3 | Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to arrange the movies in the proper order.
4 | Click Options.
| Director retains the options settings once you define them; you don't have to set them every time.
5 | To control how movies interact with the user's system, select Playback options:
| Play Every Movie specifies that the projector play all movies in the play list. Otherwise, the projector plays only the first movie in the play list (unless other movies are called by Lingo from the first movie). In a projector with Play Every Movie selected, pressing Control + period (Windows) or Command + period (Macintosh) will branch to the next movie, and Control + Q (Windows) or Command + Q (Macintosh) will quit.
| Animate in Background allows the movie to continue playing if a user switches to another application. This is useful if you want the movie to continue running in the background when its window is not active. If this option is not selected, the movie pauses when the user switches to another application and resumes when the user switches back.
| Reset Monitor to Match Movie's Color Depth (Macintosh only) automatically changes the color depth of your monitor to the color depth of each movie in the projector play list. For example, if you are working on a color monitor set to 256 colors and a movie in the play list was created in thousands of colors, the monitor will automatically switch to thousands of colors.
6 | To determine how the projector appears on the screen, make an Options selection:
| Full Screen displays the movie in the entire screen, placing the menu bar (if there is one) at the top of the screen and hiding all of the desktop. If there's a menu, it overlays the top of the Stage.
| In a Window displays the movie in a normal window, without taking over the screen. The window cannot be resized.
| Show Title Bar is available only if In a Window is selected. If this option is selected, the window where the movie appears has a title bar. The window can be moved only if it has a title bar.
7 | To specify how the Stage size of multiple movies in the projector can be adjusted, choose a Stage Size option:
| Use Movie Settings uses the Stage size of the new movie or matches the size of the current movie.
| Match First Movie repositions and resizes the movie based on the first movie in the projector.
| Center centers the Stage on the screen, which is useful if the Stage size is smaller than the screen size. Otherwise, the movie plays using its original Stage position. In Windows, projectors are always centered.
8 | To compress the projector's movie data in the Shockwave format, choose Compress (Shockwave Format).
| This makes the projector smaller, but it may increase the load time as the movies are decompressed.
9 | To determine how the player code is included in the projector, choose an option for Player.
| For more about these options, see About distribution formats.
| Standard includes the uncompressed player code in the projector file. This option starts the movie faster than other options but creates the largest projector file.
| Compressed includes a compressed version of the player code in the projector file. This substantially reduces the projector file size, but decompressing the player code adds a few seconds to the startup time of a movie.
| Shockwave makes the projector use the Shockwave player installed in a user's system instead of including the player code in the projector file. If the Shockwave player is not available when the movie runs, the movie prompts the user to download it.
10 | (Macintosh only) To make Director use available system memory when its own partition is full, choose Use System Temporary Memory.
11 | Once all projector options are set, click OK.
12 | Click Create in the Projector dialog box and then enter a name and location for the projector.
| To avoid problems with linked media, create the new projector in its final folder location and do not move it to a different folder.
| Director turns the movies, casts, and included Xtras into a single projector.

To create a fast-start projector:

1 | Create a new folder on your computer desktop.
| It does not matter what you name the folder.
2 | In Director, choose Modify > Movie: Xtras.
| The Xtras dialog box appears.
3 | Select the name of each Xtra and deselect Include in Projector for each, then click OK.
4 | Choose File > Save and Compact.
| If you are adding multiple movies to the package, repeat steps 2 through 4 for each of the movies.
5 | Choose File > Create Projector.
6 | In the Create Projector dialog box, select the movies to include in the projector and click Add.
7 | Click Options and do one of the following:
| Select Shockwave (Windows) and click OK.
| Select Standard (Macintosh) and click OK.
8 | In the Create Projector dialog box, click Create.
9 | In the dialog box that appears, type a name for the projector. If necessary, use the pop-up menu to browse to the desktop folder you created in step 1, and then click Save.
10 | Exit Director and return to your computer desktop.
11 | Open the folder you created in step 1. Create a subfolder within this folder and name it Xtras.
12 | In your Director application folder, copy the Xtras required to play your movie into the Xtras folder you just created.
| You must also include external movies, external casts, and linked media with your projector. If the external files are in the folder that contains the projector, the projector can automatically link to the files.
13 | (Windows only) In your Director application folder, copy the files dirapi.dll, iml32.dll, proj.dll, and msvcrt.dll into the Xtras folder.
14 | Launch your projector to see it open quickly and play your movies.

For more information about creating a fast-start projector, visit the Director Support Center.