Macromedia Director 8: Director continues to make the complex easy

For years, Macromedia Director has been the software tool of choice for presenters who need features beyond those in such programs as Microsoft PowerPoint. Director is famed for its strong media creation and editing tools, animation features, interactive capabilities and support of popular media formats, languages and architectures. As a result, it's an ideal choice for creating presentations, training programs, games, electroniccommerce environments and entertainment for the Web, CD-ROM, DVD or kiosks. Director 8 continues the trend of making the program easier to use and simultaneously more powerful and sophisticated. Director 8 especially solidifies the program's already powerful position as a leading tool for creating Web-based multimedia.

Although Director is not particularly difficult to team, new users are often intimidated by the sheer volume of its features. Director 8 strives to make the program more approachable while retaining its familiar timelinebased interface. To help firsttime users, Director includes excellent online tutorials, help files and reference materials, ith the program. These are far more useful than the printed manual, which covers the basics but not much more.

Better stage presence

Many of the features for controlling media and setting parameters for a project, which previously were scattered across Directors interface, have been combined in a new tabbed palette called the Properties Inspector. This makes working with the program much easier. Other interface changes also go a long way toward simplifying things - far instance, the ability to add guides to help align media and to scale Director's stage window (where a project is viewed while being developed). A work area around Director's stage helps control the animation of media on and off stage.

Director's...