User Guide

5
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
This reference provides conceptual and how-to information about scripting in Macromedia
Director MX 2004, and also provides reference descriptions and examples for the scripting
application programming interfaces (APIs) that you use to write scripts.
The scripting APIs are the means by which you access the functionality of Director through
script to add interactivity to a movie. By using these APIs, you can create interactive functionality
that is identical to that provided by the prewritten behaviors that are shipped with Director, in
addition to functionality that is more powerful and more varied than that provided by the
prewritten behaviors.
The prewritten behaviors enable you to add basic interactive functionality to a movie, such as
moving the playhead to a frame number or marker, or zooming in when a user clicks a sprite.
They also enable non-interactive functionality such as sprite animation, media loading, and frame
navigation. The scripting APIs enable you to extend and customize these types of functionality.
Intended audience
This reference is intended for you if you want to do any of the following:
• Extend the existing functionality of prewritten behaviors by using script.
• Add functionality to a movie by using script instead of prewritten behaviors.
• Add more powerful, varied, and custom functionality to a movie than that provided by
prewritten behaviors.
This reference is intended to provide all the information, from basic to advanced, you need to add
interactivity to your movies by using script. Therefore, you do not need to have any prior
scripting experience to write effective scripts in Director.
Regardless of your experience level with Director, Lingo, or JavaScript syntax, take a few moments
to browse Chapter 2, “Director Scripting Essentials,” on page 9 and Chapter 3, “Writing Scripts
in Director,” on page 49 before you begin writing scripts. Like any product, Director has its own
unique set of scripting conventions, types of data, and so on. You will need to be comfortable
with these unique characteristics of Director before you can write effective scripts.