- Introduction
- Working with Shockwave
- Creating a Shockwave Movie
- Playing a Shockwave Movie
Playing a Shockwave Movie
If you don't already have the latest Shockwave 8 Player installed, go to Macromedia's Web site and download it before proceeding. The Shockwave 8 Player can play Shockwave movies back to version 5. The Shockwave 8 Player is implemented either as a browser plug-in or an ActiveX control, depending on your platform.
The Shockwave Player works with Netscape Navigator 3 and later on both Mac and Windows computers. It works with Internet Explorer 3 and later in Windows and with IE 4.01 and later on the Mac. It also works with browsers that are compatible with Netscape Navigator 3's plug-in architecture, such as America Online.
To play a Shockwave movie that's local to your system:
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Launch your Web browser.
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From the Web browser, choose File > Open File, and select the HTML document that runs the Shockwave movie (Figure 10).
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Click Open.
The Shockwave movie opens and plays in the browser window.
From your Web browser, choose File > Open File and select the HTML document for the Shockwave movie.
To play a Shockwave movie on the Web:
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Connect to the Internet and launch your Web browser.
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In the Web browser, enter the URL of the HTML document that runs the Shockwave movie you want to view (Figure 11).
Enter the URL of the HTML document for your Shockwave movie.
The Shockwave movie opens and plays in the browser (Figure 12) unless it's been set to pause until the user takes some action.
The Shockwave movie opens and plays in the browser window. (Dungeon, created by Noisecrime)
Shockwave movies are set to loop by default. Before creating your Shockwave movie, use the following procedure to set it to play through only once in the browser.
To set a Shockwave movie to play through once:
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Open the Director movie.
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Choose Window > Library Palette to open the Library Palette window.
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Click the Library List button to display a pop-up menu of behavior categories.
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Choose Navigation from the pop-up menu.
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Drag the Hold on Current Frame behavior to the script channel of the last frame of your movie in the score (Figure 13).
Drag the Hold on Current Frame behavior to the last frame of your movie in the script channel.
If you are in the design-and-testing stage, you can preview your Shockwave movie by using the Preview in Browser command instead of the Publish command. The difference is that Preview in Browser creates temporary versions of the .DCR and HTML files.
To preview a Shockwave movie in a browser from Director:
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Open the Director movie that you want to preview in a browser.
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Choose File > Preview in Browser. Director launches the default browser to preview your movie.
Note: Certain features, such as the context menu and being able to resize a Shockwave movie window, may not work when you preview a Shockwave movie with the Preview in Browser command as opposed to the Publish command.
To specify a browser for previewing a movie:
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Choose File > Preferences > Network to display the Network Preferences dialog box.
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Click Browse. The Select Browser dialog box appears.
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Choose the browser program file you want Director to use for previewing your movie (Figure 14).
Use the Network Preferences dialog box to select the browser that Director uses to preview your Shockwave movie.
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Click Open.
Tip
You can download a free application called Shockmachine (Figure 15) from the Shockwave.com Web site. You can use this application to play Shockwave movies, as well as organize and keep track of them.
You can play back and organize Shockwave movies by using Shockmachine.