Re: FLASH: new list for Authorware/Flash topics

[Warren 'The Howdy Man' Ockrassa]

John Monfort wrote:


> Excuse my ignorance, but what is 'Authorware'?


It's another authoring package offered by Macromedia, along with

Director and, of course, Flash.


AWare started out as an independent company, but got bought out by the

mothership a few years back.


Overall it's not too dissimilar from Director in terms of capability,

but its UI is vastly different -- it uses an icon-based flowchart model

rather than the linear Director Score for application layout, for

instance; it uses Pascal-like declarations rather than the HyperTalkish

Lingo; and it tracks decisions made by the user more effectively.


Ostensibly AWare was created to make CBT (Computer-Based Training) more

efficient, and overall it does a good job of that.


OTOH it is not as effective, I believe, at creating good

linear-animation packages such as the ones you can see in either Flash

or Director.


So if you are looking for a high-end application development

envoronment, both AWare and Director are worth a look, as they offer

similar power with very different approaches; you'll naturally gravitate

to the one which makes the most sense to you intuitively. (While you're

at it MetaCard may not be a bad one to look at either... It is HyperCard

on steroids and runs on virtually *any* GUI-capable computer, including

most flavors of UNIX, but is not a Macromedia product. ;)


-- 

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     http://www.beckerinc.com/

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