| With the Portfolio project complete, it's time to make a projector specific to your own platform. Publishing, including cross platform, will be covered in detail in Lesson 10. We'll take a brief look now anyway so that you can see the portfolio outside of Director. A projector is a file that can be executed on a specific platform, whether it be Windows or Mac OS. When you create a projector, Director packages your movie filein this case the portfolioalong with a copy of the playback engine and any Xtras the movie may be using, into a single executable that can be played without Director needing to be present. 1. | With the portfolio project open select File > Publish Settings from the top menu. The Publish Settings dialog box opens, with the Formats tab active:
Within the Formats tab, check to make sure that Projector and Preview after Publishing are the only checked options. Director will name the projector according to the name of the movie, although you are free to change it. You can use the Select Output Path button, to the right of each format type, to tell Director where to save the Projector. The default path is the folder where the movie is located though, and will suffice for this example. Note that if you're on a Mac you'll see an option for Windows Projector in the dialog, instead of Macintosh Projector as shown in the image. | 2. | Click the Projector tab of the Publish Setting dialog and check to make sure that Player Type is set to Standard and Animate in Background is turned on. When you create a standard player, Director will package the playback libraries with your movie file. If you choose Shockwave for the player type, the playback libraries will not get packaged with your movie file; the application will rely on the Shockwave Web plug-in to be installed on the user's computer and use that play engine instead. This will result in a smaller executable, but you should only use this option if are sure the plug-in is installed on your users' machines.
The Animate in Background option allows the movie to keep running if a different application is brought to the foreground. In a multitasking OS there's always the possibility that the user will switch to a different application while projector is still running. If that happens and Animate in Background is turned off, your movie will pause, sound will stop, and other less-than-ideal things will result. I recommend leaving Animate in Background turned on at all times. Within the Projector tab you also have the option of having your movie play back full screen. You can leave this option off for now, which will create a projector that runs within a window. Because the movie doesn't contain an exit button, you can take advantage of the window's close box instead. Here, the movie is shown running as a Windows projector. Note the close box at upper right, which is a standard Windows feature:
If you want to look through the other tabs within the Publish Settings dialog, go ahead and do that now. You don't need them to publish the projector. | 3. | Click the Publish button in the dialog box to create the projector. When you click Publish, Director will package the player and any necessary Xtras along with the movie file into an executable. Once complete, the projector will launch, because Preview after publishing was checked on in the Formats tab. When you're ready, close the projector and click the OK button within the Publish Settings dialog to close it. The projector has been created and will be located within your project_one folder, unless you changed the location in Publish Settings. Note that if you place the projector on a CD, or move it to a new location on your machine, you will need to copy the QuickTime video along with it. Recall that video cast members remain linked, and are not fully imported to the cast like other types of media. |
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