Page 158 - DCAP303_MULTIMEDIA_SYSTEMS

Multimedia Systems

notes the Visual Screen and sized it for use as a Back control button to return to previous screens. In
the Attributes window, we name it, set the bitmap used for pressed and released, and assigned
it an “event code”—in this case, 33—that it would generate when pressed and we did all this
simply with drag-and-drop, point-and-click, and fill-in-the-blank. Then comes the fun part. In
the Attributes Window, we set save as object to true. On the next screen, we dragged in another
button off the Toolset. With one simple choice of a pull-down menu in the Attributes window,
we made this new button an instance of the Back button that we saved as object, and the newly
created button inherited all its properties. Once the screen design satisfies the user, Everest has
provided an easy method of scripting navigation and control flow.
Overall, Everest offers a charming environment in which to create CBT applications. Additional
modules from third-party vendors can infuse Everest with data handling facilities to access
databases and utilize rich text format. The base product can access only its proprietary database,
which can read to and write text files.
icon author

Icon Author, an authoring tool requires the use of an icon-based flowchart for building an
application. It still maintains a strict separation between an application’s structure and the
actual content and still ships with a number of ancillary programs that help to edit and manage
content.
The role of Smart Object Editor has become central to the creation of Icon Author applications.
Smart Object Editor assembles individual object such as imported pictures, sound files, video clips,
animations, database links, text push buttons, tables and list boxes into coherent pages layouts.
The appearance and behaviour of these objects can be controlled by changing the properties
associated with each one.
Icon Author handles multimedia objects with aplomb. The sound, movie and animation files are
not only easy to be imported but it also takes less effort to control them. For example, adding
VCR start and stop buttons to a movie object requires just activating the control bar property in
Smart Object Editor.
Creation of CBT application or authoring a CD/Kiosk presentation requires importing and
manipulation of data. Icon Author has the ability to access databases via Microsoft ODBC drivers.
Once the connection to a database is established externally (via the ODBC Administrator), the
database object is simply inserted into a Smart Object Page.

imageQ
The ImageQ is another multimedia authoring software package. Although, it is a Windows 3.1
application but it can also play back on Windows 95, create slide show presentations well and
provides a way to distribute them easily. It lacks the intuitive programming language and strong
interface necessary for truly productive multimedia applications development. The ImageQ
presentations comprise a series of background images and associated control scripts that add user
interface controls, overlay images and underlying programming to each slide. It uses a multiple-
document interface to manage one or more presentations simultaneously.
The slide strip windows for each presentation contains either thumb nails or files information for
each slide image and provide the means of navigating through the presentation at design time.
Although the images in the slide strip are miniature versions of the background images, they do
not show any of the users interface element that the user has added such as button and list boxes.
The user must create these through code, which ImageQ will interpret only at runtime-a major
deficiency that other authoring system (such as Icon Author and Director) avoids by offering
design tools to arrange interface controls visually without code.

152 LoveLy professionaL University