Lingo in a Nutshell

External Applications

Director does a lot of things well, but Xtras really enhance its ability to deal with external files. These are just some of the Xtras available that will open external applications, copy files, create folders, kill and manage processes, read and write to the Windows Registry and INI files, and much, much more. Consult the links in the Preface including http://www.macromedia.com/software/xtras/director as it is impossible to list all the Xtras that deal with external files.

Start with the free Xtras: FileIO, which is included with all versions of Director, and FileXtra (http://www.littleplanet.com/kent/kent.html), which is freeware and also ships with D6.5.

Zeus Productions (my company)

Sells Xtras that control external applications:

• http://www.zeusprod.com/products/

• zLaunch (Mac and Windows) launches and waits for external applications in low-memory situations and also covers the desktop.

• zOpen/zPrint (Windows) locates the application associated with an external document and uses it to open or print that document.

• zScript (Macintosh) adds ability to send and receive AppleEvents to and from Director via AppleScript.

UpdateStage

• Many Xtras that deal with external files, such as MasterApp by Glenn Picher and the Dialogs Xtra by Scott Kildall (Red Eye Software), previously sold at http://www.gmatter.com/, may now instead be found at http://www.updatestage.com/xtras/.

• Glenn Picher’s BinaryIO Xtra (currently in beta for both Macintosh and Windows) reads and writes binary ...