Equivalent Cross-Platform Keys; Identifying Keys On Different Keyboards; About Animated Color Cursors - MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX 2004-USING DIRECTOR Use Manual

Equivalent cross-platform keys

Because of inherent differences between Windows and Macintosh keyboards, keys on Windows
and Macintosh computers don't always correspond directly.
This discrepancy can create confusion because script often uses the same term to refer to
corresponding keys on Windows and Macintosh computers, even though the key's name differs
on the two platforms.
The following table lists script elements that refer to specific keys and the keys they represent on
each platform.
Lingo term
RETURN
commandDown Control
optionDown
controlDown
ENTER
BACKSPACE

Identifying keys on different keyboards

Characters can vary on different keyboards. You can avoid possible confusion by identifying a
character by its ASCII value. For more information, see the Scripting Reference topics in the
Director Help Panel.
•
To obtain a character's ASCII value, use the
For example, the following statement finds the ASCII value for the letter A and displays it in
the Message window:
put charToNum("A")
-- 65
•
To find out which character corresponds to an ASCII value, use the
For example, the following statement finds the character that corresponds to the ASCII value
65. The result is the letter A:
put numToChar(65)
-- A

About animated color cursors

Director supports animated cursors. You can use any 8-bit bitmap source in your Director cast as
an image in the cursor animation, automatically scale images, and generate masks for 16 x16 pixel
and 32 x 32 pixel cursors. (Macintosh computers don't support 32 x 32 pixel cursors.)
An animated cursor consists of a series of bitmap cast members. Each bitmap cast member is a
frame of the cursor. You can control the rate at which Director plays the frames of an animated
cursor. Using the Cursor Properties Editor, you designate one or more bitmap cast members as
frames of a single cursor cast member.
298 Chapter 13: Navigation and User Interaction
Windows key
Enter
Alt
Control
Enter key on the numeric keypad
(during authoring, pressing Enter starts
playing the movie)
Backspace
Macintosh key
Return
Command
Option
Control
Enter key on the numeric keypad
(during authoring, pressing Enter starts
playing the movie)
Delete
method.
charToNum()
method.
numToChar()