Managing external casts

An external cast is a separate file that must be explicitly linked to a movie for the movie to use its cast members.

If you link an external cast to a movie, Director opens the cast every time it opens the movie. If you don't link an external cast to a movie, you must open and save the file separately. You can use unlinked external casts as libraries to store commonly used elements for authoring, such as scripts, buttons, and so on. For more information, see Creating libraries.

When you distribute a movie that uses an external cast, you must include the external cast file. For disk-based movies, the cast must be in the same relative path in your files as it was when the movie was created. For Shockwave movies on the web, the cast must be at the specified URL.

To create an external cast:

  1. Select File > New > Cast.
  2. Type a name for the new cast.
  3. Specify that the cast be stored as an external cast.

    If you don't want to use the cast in the current movie, deselect the Use in Current Movie option.

  4. Click Create.

    The cast is created, and a Cast window for the cast appears in List view. For more information, see Using the Cast window.

  5. Select File > Save while the Cast window is active, and save the cast in the desired directory.

To link an external cast to a movie:

  1. Select Modify > Movie > Casts.
  2. In the Movie Casts dialog box, click Link.
  3. Locate and select the external cast you want, and click Open.

    You can link to casts on your local disk or to casts that are stored at any URL. Click Internet and enter a URL (in the Find URL text box) for a linked external cast. Click OK.

To unlink a cast from a movie:

  1. Select Modify > Movie > Casts.
  2. In the Movie Casts dialog box, select the external cast.
  3. Click Remove.

To save a movie and all open casts, linked or unlinked: