This community has been exceedingly generous over the years. The folks on this list alone remind me on a daily basis why I choose Director as my authoring tool of choice. While I can't offer as much in the way of Lingo expertise as some of the others, being only "experienced" and not "geek/genius", I have always looked for an opportunity to return the favor, in some way.
I guess today is that day. I've taken a little time to write a utility that should be of assistance to any Director developer who creates CDs (and maybe other projects.) I know that other utilities of the same nature as this one have cropped up over the years, but I don't know of any freely available current version - so I made one.
Xtra Xporter examines your movie for required xtras (those listed in your Movie/xtras panel), and makes copies of them into your movie's distribution folder - supporting "fast start" projector distribution. I've always found this part of development to be a PITA, so I figured others might as well. Here are some notes on usage-
- Requires DMX, running on OSX or Windows (OSX will also compile your OS9 xtras for distribution)
- Requires BuddyAPI (Uses 4 or 5 Buddy functions)
- Runs as an MIAW from your xtras menu
- Allows inclusion of Xtras not in your movie's list
- Allows removal of Xtras in your movie's list for the purposes of Xport
- Recursively searches within your Xtras folder (or in the case of Classic, your Classic Xtras folder)
- Creates an Xtras folder alongside your movie file and copies your xtras to it
- Saves you time, and reduces the distribution PITA
- Is something many of you could obviously write for yourself, but this saves you the time and effort
- Is distributed as a DXR, but a DIR will be available for anyone seriously willing to improve and return (without copyright statements added)
- It ain't FileXtra4 (a truly generous and inspiring "Give back"), but it is pretty cool
- Has the Zav stamp of approval and is compatible with his ToolOpener thingie, in fact, Zav will have a version made available with his tools which has been "sexed up" with his cool Asset Generator, providing much more stylish buttons.
Xtra Xporter is available for a limited time for just $49.95... (kidding)... Xtra Xporter is free (as in beer.) I'll probably post this thing for download somewhere, but for now, email me offlist if you would like a copy. I'll put a bow on it, and send it right over (all 32k.)
Thanks again for a great list, folks!
-- Troy RPSystems, Ltd. http://www.rpsystems.net
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