Chapter 13: Navigation And User Interaction; Creating Basic Navigation Controls With Behaviors - MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX 2004-USING DIRECTOR Use Manual

Adding interactivity lets you involve your audience in your Macromedia Director MX 2004
movies. Using the keyboard, the mouse, or both, your audience can download content from the
Internet, jump to different parts of movies, enter information, move objects, click buttons, and
perform many other interactive operations.
Unless made to do otherwise, a movie plays through every frame in the Score from start to finish.
Behaviors and Lingo or JavaScript syntax script can make the movie jump to a different frame,
movie, or URL when a specified event occurs. With script, you can include simple navigation
instructions as part of more complex handlers; you can also place navigation code in movie scripts
and scripts that are attached to cast members such as buttons.
There are several other interactive features that you can add to your movie:
•
Draggable sprites give your audience the ability to move sprites anywhere on the Stage. You can
also create boundaries beyond which sprites cannot move.
•
Editable fields are fields in which your audience can enter or edit information.
•
Rollovers make certain sprites change in appearance when the mouse pointer passes over them,
even if the user has not clicked the mouse. Using rollovers is an excellent way to give your
audience feedback based on their actions.
•
The mouse pointer (that is, the cursor) can be changed based on criteria you select. Using
script, you can provide animated cursors or specify one of the standard cursors or a bitmap cast
member as a cursor image. For more information, see the Scripting Reference topics in the
Director Help Panel.
•
Push buttons, radio buttons, and check boxes provide an easy to way to quickly create user
interfaces for forms or applications.

Creating basic navigation controls with behaviors

Director provides behaviors that let you create basic navigation controls without knowing Lingo
or JavaScript syntax. You can use behaviors to move the playhead to a frame number or marker.
You can also stop the playhead at any frame and wait for the user to act.
The following examples explain the basic use of the
behaviors. You can also create custom navigation behaviors or get them from third-party
Button
developers. For information about using behaviors, see
Navigation and User Interaction
Hold on Current Frame
CHAPTER 13
Chapter 12, "Behaviors," on page
and
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