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Subject:	Re: FLASH: Director Plug-in
From:	John Dowdell
Date:	Thu, 14 Jan 1999 22:51:30 GMT

Summary: A bit OT, but I think Flash folks may be interested in this area, too.

At 2:38 AM 1/6/99, Andrew Vester wrote:
>Hi all, this might not be the most correct place for this but I know there
>are some MM people here. Please excuse this question if it has been asked
>before but I unsubscribed while on leave.
>I got the new Shockwave Director plug-in yesterday from www.macromedia.com
>and it had a size of about 300 Kb.
>I am pretty sure that the first time I got the plug-in it was about 900 Kb.
>Has the plug-in been re-worked, re-done and had all sorts of other goodies
>done to it to make it smaller or am I missing the boat completely.

Sorry for the delay, Andrew... I'm able to scan FLASHER each day, but I
only get the chance to work through the message base during the week. (Last
week MacWorld and flu threw me off.) This message didn't catch my eye
immediately, regrets.

The new Shockwave 7 plugin is very different. It's now a system component,
and one download can be used for many browsers. It can also update itself
with new components and extensions on the fly. The goal is to minimize big
downloads and to make it easier to guarantee that the total audience has
the most current engine.

When you first visit a Shockwave 7 page or visit the Shockwave Download
Center you will download a small "shim". This is the "~300K" download you
mention. This shim contains the information needed to manage auto-updates
and downloads for you. It also contains browser-specific connecting code.

Once the shim is installed it checks your system for which Shockwave
components are already installed. It then contacts the Macromedia site and
requests any needed components. This later system download is larger than
the initial browser download. Once the shim and the player are installed,
then (browser permitting) you'll automatically view the visited site.

After that, the browser shim contacts the Macromedia site about once a
month, asking if anything has changed. Any new components can then be

auto-installed, guaranteeing that the installed base out-in-the-world is
up-to-date. There's also a mechanism for auto-installation of Xtras on
demand, so that players can easily be extended by demanding sites.

Summary: The Shockwave 7 Player has many more abilities (controllable
vectors, hyperlinked antialiased text in designer fonts, realtime chat,
XML, much more) and so the overall size is larger. To make it easier for
users, this player code is downloaded once for the system, and can
auto-update itself after that. Each browser has a small "shim" download
that manages auto-updating.

People on this list and others have been submitting wishlist items about
how they want the multimedia players to change, and these requests are
*definitely* heeded. I don't yet know myself what future changes the Flash
Players may go through, but I hope that the new Shockwave 7 Player shows
some of the things that are being done to make it easier for the audience,
and better for the designer.

(btw, you really should download the Shockwave 7 Player... only a few sites
are using it yet, but the abilities are *radically* awesome! I think you'll
have a blast with what the Shockwave developers are starting to do...!!)

jd

John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US
Search technotes: http://www.macromedia.com/support/search/
Public discussions have first claim on support time; but private email
is available via Priority Access: http://www.macromedia.com/support/

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