User Guide

Navigation and User Interaction 381
Identifying keys on different keyboards
Characters can vary on different keyboards. You can avoid possible confusion by identifying a
character by its ASCII value. See individual properties and functions in the Lingo Dictionary.
• To obtain a character’s ASCII value, use the charToNum() function.
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 numToChar() function.
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.
Xtra extensions that support animated cursors
The Director installation program places two animated color cursor files in the Media Support
folder within the Director application’s Xtras folder. The specific files depend on the platform
you are using.
optionDown Alt Option
controlDown Control Control
ENTER Enter key on the numeric keypad
(during authoring, pressing Enter
starts playing the movie)
Enter key on the numeric keypad
(during authoring, pressing Enter
starts playing the movie)
BACKSPACE Backspace Delete
Windows PowerPC Purpose
Cursor Options.x32 Cursor Options This file supports the creation of cursors while you author
movies in Director. Do not distribute this file with projectors; it
is not licensed for redistribution.
Cursor Asset.x32 Cursor Asset Distribute this file with any movies or projectors that you
create using the animated color cursors.
Lingo term Windows key Macintosh key