Kurt,
> But, am I wrong that there are some MACR xtras (or updates)
> that dir 8 shockwaves can auto-download that were released
> after the first dir 8 release, and would require a manual
> update of the xtrainfo.txt file?
When you mark an Xtra as download if needed in Director, at that moment your movie is
"branded" with two pieces of information, the Xtra that is required and the version of
the Xtra as reported by the downloadable package on our (or a 3rd party's) server. Now
when that movie loads it needs to find not only that particular Xtra, but at least the
version number specified.
But how granular is that version number? Unfortunately it's only granular to the "dot
release" number. Example:
8.5.0
8 is the major version number
5 is the minor version number
0 is the dot-release number
Therefore, if there is a dot-release of the player or of particular Xtras (usually
it's a player dot-release) then you can "re-brand" your movie after the new
downloadable packages have been posted. You do this by opening the source file, going
to Modify>Movie>Xtras, deselect then reselect the "download if needed" option for all
Xtras, save and republish. This will re-brand your movie to require the new versions
of all Xtras. But again, the new release must be a _dot-release_.
Let's look at history: following the release of Shockwave 8, we discovered some bugs
that required immediate repair. We fixed those bugs then made a new release of the
player. The original release of Shockwave was version 8.0.0.r196 (r196 is a build
version), the updated release was version 8.0.0.r196a. Yikes! Remember what I said
about the granularity of the re-branding process? Trying to re-brand your movie will
not trigger an update here because both of those releases are seen as the same version
by the Xtras downloading mechanism, they are both version 8.0.0. Please, no need to
raise the troops for a festival of complaints about this. I'm already making a stink
in house about this as it would be ideal to get at the _build_numbers_ so that
incremental Xtras updating could be caught by the movie and the end user's player can
be updated.
There's a Tech Note in the Director Support Center that has a VB detection script that
you can use in Win/IE situations to look for the build version number of the Sound
Control Xtra in SW8.0 releases. I haven't tried it myself but maybe you could have a
look:
<http://www.macromedia.com/go/14575/>
So, if a dot-release of the player and Xtras becomes available, you can re-brand your
movie as described above and force a download of the new Xtras on an end user's
machine. None of this requires changes to the xtrainfo.txt file. Buzz already pointed
out that all updated Shockwave bits go into the same location as their predecessors
(example: if/when 8.5.1 is released those Xtras will go in the same location as the
8.5 Xtras are now).
All of the above applies to 3rd party Xtras just as much as it does MACR Xtras.
Does that sound like we've beaten this issue into the ground? :) Let me know if you
have more questions about this mechanism.
Cheers,
Tom Higgins
Product Specialist - Director Team
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Buzz Kettles [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 4:44 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: Kurt Griffin
> Subject: RE: RE: <lingo-l> zip xtra?
>
>
> When MACR updates Xtras within a release (it sounds like you are
> referring to updates to the original d8.0 Xtra set), they generally
> they go into the same 'xtrainfo locations' (in this case;
> /Shockwave8/), and so always get auto-downloaded without the need of
> revving existing projects.
>
> & if there were a d8.5.1, any new packages would get posted into the
> /Shockwave85/ locations used by the d8.5 package set.
>
> hth
>
> -Buzz
>
>
> At 1:06 AM -0400 9/6/01, Kurt Griffin wrote:
> > > I wasn't pretending to answer the question for anything
> but Macromedia
> >> delivered Xtras, hence that carefully chosen opening statement.
> >>Your point is
> >> quite valid for the world of 3rd party Xtras out there though.
> >
> >No problem. I missed your point - you didn't lead off by
> saying that the zip
> >xtra was a MACR xtra, so I missed the "MACR xtra" point. If
> I was in your
> >place, I'd probably assume that developers knew that that
> xtra was a MACR
> >xtra as well.
> >
> >Yes, my fault for not reading carefully, but as anyone who
> has done some
> >tech support knows, it's best to be as explicit as can be. I
> only meant to
> >expand on your post - if I missed the point, perhaps others
> did as well, so
> >maybe the clarification did some good.
> >
> >But, am I wrong that there are some MACR xtras (or updates)
> that dir 8
> >shockwaves can auto-download that were released after the first dir 8
> >release, and would require a manual update of the xtrainfo.txt file?
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Kurt
> >
> >
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