New - Director 8 and Fireworks 4
If you have Director 8 and Fireworks 4, we recommend that you install the new Fireworks 4.0.2 updater .

For Director specific items concerning Fireworks 4, please read the Known issues list below. For more information about the fixes in the updater, please read the Fireworks 4.02 release notes.

Known issues

	Error on launching External Editor To correct the problem do one or more of the following: 1 Delete Director preference file.   Or 2 Choose > File > Preferences > Editors. Edit the external editor for each file type so that Fireworks 4 would be the preferred choice as external editor.
	Macintosh Only If after the compression has been set to JPEG in the Property inspector Bitmap tab for a Director image that is NOT already a JPEG and the "Optimize in Fireworks" window does not default to format=JPEG, then select JPEG as the format option in "Optimize in Fireworks" window.

Director 8
This document addresses issues that are not discussed in the Director documentation.

	Introduction
	Additions to the Documentation
	Known Issues and Bugs
	Submitting Bug Reports

Introduction  
Welcome to the Director 8 Shockwave Studio Release Notes. This document supplements the information provided in the Director documentation, as well as listing known issues and bugs. For additional information pertaining to Shockwave Multiuser Server 2.1, please see the Shockwave Multiuser Server 2.1 Release Notes. Important note: Some features of Director 8, such as Publish, require that you have Shockwave 8 installed on your system. Shockwave 8 is available at the Macromedia Web Player Download Center.

For customers who purchased the downloadable version of Director 8, the Save As Java components can be downloaded separately. If you plan to use this functionality, download the Save As Java installers for Macintosh and Windows. You do not need this download if you installed Director 8 from the Director 8 Shockwave Studio CD. Director 7 users should not use this version and should use the "Save as Java Files" provided with Director 7.

Additions to the Documentation  
Creating Projectors, Xtras
Director has reduced the number of default Xtras included in new movies. Director will add Xtras as new media types are used. Lingo authors may need to manually add appropriate Xtras for runtime access to media or functionality that requires those Xtras.

Imaging Lingo
Runtime imaging Lingo using (the stage).image auto-compensates for stage zooming and scrolling. All operations work in stage-relative coordinates and work independently of the stage being zoomed or scrolled. Getting the image of the stage always returns the image as if the stage was zoomed 100% and no pasteboard space was visible. If the stage is scrolled off the edge of the stage window, white appears for the non-visible portions. If you want to disable these auto transformations, set the disableImagingTransformation = 1.

The image of the stage, or of a MIAW, by default returns the image contained in the window's sourceRect. To capture the image of the window's rect instead, disable the imaging transformation, by setting the disableImagingTransformation = 1.

Lingo, Debugging
There are several new settings available within the Director.ini file, some of which are also available for projector and Shockwave environments. These allow you to override many of the settings specified within the Create Projector > Options dialog, thereby reducing repeated projector creation. One of these is a setting to display a message window so you can query the running projector. There is also a message window equivalent in Shockwave for help in debugging projects in that environment. There is another new setting that allows more robust Lingo errors to be displayed by a projector or by Shockwave. More information is provided in the Director.ini file, located in the top level of the Director 8 folder.

Lingo
The alerthook handler is now called with an additional (fourth) argument. It has the following possible values:

#alert -- alert hook triggered by alert command
#movie -- alert hook triggered by file not found doing a go to movie
#script -- alert hook triggered by script error
#safeplayer -- alert hook triggered by safe play check

Memory Management
When authoring on the Macintosh, it is recommended that you turn on the "Use System Temporary Memory" option in the General Preferences dialog. This option is on by default. Director's low-memory handling is more robust if system temporary memory is available. Crashes may occur under extreme low-memory conditions if "Use System Temporary Memory" is turned off.

NetLingo
A subtle change has been made to the algorithm used to decide not to place CGI queries (e.g. from getNetText) in Director's or Shockwave's cache. There could be unusual servers for which cgi queries are now placed in our cache, even though they were not cached in previous releases. Please let us know if you notice any inappropriate caching.

GetStreamStatus (and calls to on streamStatus handlers) may report 0 total length -- meaning the total length is unknown -- for in-progress retrievals on AOL (Windows, using Internet Explorer). In previous releases the correct length was reported. This change is also in Shockwave 7.0.3; it is a workaround for larger issues retrieving data through AOL.

If you use getStreamStatus or an on streamStatus handler, be sure to accept 0 total bytes as a possible return value. If you do not account for this value, you may see divide-by-zero errors when calculating progress indicator positions.

QuickTime
For best results when using QuickTime in Director, use QuickTime version 4.1.

Director now supports playback of sound in QTVR movies.

Save As Java
In order to use Save As Java or the Java behavior library, please run "Install Save As Java" from the Director 8 Shockwave Studio CD. This will install these components into your copy of Director 8.

Shockwave Audio
When publishing Shockwave movies, you can now compress the audio by up to one half the size of previous releases. The Compression tab of the Publish dialog offers new options that allow internal sound cast members to be compressed to a bitrate of 24 or 16 kbps. If the original sound cast member was a CD-quality stereo sample to begin with, this equates to an 88 to 1 compression ratio.

SWA compression settings have been removed from the Xtras menu; they now appear in the Publish Settings dialog.

Sound
The documentation refers to a text file called "Readme Windows Sound Loop-Cue". This file has been incorporated into a TechNote on the Macromedia Web site. Please see Adding cue and loop points on Windows (TechNote 14332).

In order to Save MP3 files from PEAK LE, you need to install the SWA Export Xtra into the PEAK plugins folder.

In previous releases, the channelCount value of a sound channel -- e.g., sound(1).channelcount -- would return 1 when a mono sound was playing in that channel. In an effort to increase performance, all sound channels in Director are now stereo. Therefore, mono sounds are converted to 2-channel mono and stereo sounds will remain unchanged, and consequently, the channelCount function now returns 2.

In the Lingo Dictionary, the Lingo by Feature for Sound page is missing some important links: Play() (sound), startTime, currentTime, and duration. These terms can be found in the Dictionary by searching alphabetically.

When MP3 or SWA files are imported, you no longer need to add the appropriate Import Export Xtra, Mix Services and Sound Import Export Xtras to a movie's Xtra list (in the Modify > Movie > Xtras dialog) in order to use them in a Projector or Shockwave.

Text, Lingo
You can determine the character range of a text chunk expression like this:

put member(1).word[10].range
-- [24, 28]

Update Movies
Director 8 officially allows opening Director movies as old as Director 6. It is possible to open Director 5 movies and we expect them to work, but this technique is not supported. The official upgrade path from Director 5 is to update the movie first using Director 6 or 7 and then update again into Director 8.

Xtras, Installation
In Director 7.x and Director 6.5, the File Xtra was included in a standard Director installation. The Director 8 installer no longer installs this file. However, the Save As Java installer does.

Known Issues and Bugs 
Behaviors/Scripts
Linked scripts do not support custom script coloring. If you create a new script that is not linked, apply custom coloring and then link the script, then the color formatting will be lost.

Within the Script Window, after copy/pasting script text, be sure to autoformat (press the TAB key) before typing or newly typed text may not appear where you expect.

Setting the filename of a linked script to 0 converts the script cast member to a text cast member with a cast member script. (Only for linked .txt files). Using an extension of .ls instead of .txt as the extension prevents this from happening.

When a linked script contains high-ASCII characters, these characters may be changed if the linked script file is moved from one operating system platform to another.

On Windows, linked scripts (*Ls) are not associated with Director. Therefore, Windows asks users what program you would like to use as an editor the first time you try to open the file. Since these are text files, choose your preferred text editing application.

In the Sprite Transition > Slide Behavior, the "Top right to bottom left" and "Top left to bottom right" options, result in animations that move in a direction that is opposite to the direction that is indicated by the option's name. (such as "Top right to bottom left" behaves as "Top left to bottom right").

The Text > Password Entry behavior behaves inconsistently.

Bitmaps
Setting the image of a bitmap to the image of a text cast member shows up in the Paint Window as a solid rectangle rather than as text. This is because the Paint Window does not support alpha channels. In the case of the image of text, the text itself is the alpha channel that is applied to what is being viewed in the Paint Window. You can edit the colored block, apply inks, etc. The changes appear in the sprite on stage.

Setting the image of a bitmap to the image of a Flash or Vector cast member fills the background with Black.

alphathreshold works only on sprites that have a Matte ink effect.

Bitmaps, Compression
When a movie's image compression settings are changed using the Publish dialog, the user should always save his or her file immediately. In a low memory situation, there is no guarantee that the file can be saved if the movie's image compression settings have changed from standard to JPEG, or vice-versa.

It is required that Fireworks be installed to take advantage of bitmap cast member optimizations. To take advantage of this functionality, ensure that Fireworks is installed and click the "Optimize in Fireworks..." button in the Property Inspector, after having selected a bitmap cast member or sprite.

Bitmaps, Filters
Using Photoshop 4.0 and 5.0 filters (and autofilters) on the Macintosh may result in a crash without the option to save your file.

Bitmaps, Paint Window
In millions of colors, color switching does not work properly when there are two shapes drawn in the Paint window.

Smoothing a selection shifts the selected image to the left and cuts out lighter areas of the image.

If 'Trim White Space' is turned off for a bitmap cast member, selections made with the selection tool get added as part of the image. This affects registration points and the image on stage.

Bitmaps, Property Inspector
autohilite in the list view of the bitmap cast member property inspector tab appears to be settable, but it is not (not here or through Lingo) it is only settable through the graphical view of the bitmap cast member Property Inspector tab, as the "Highlight When Clicked" checkbox.

Compatibility, Operating Systems
Director 8 does not support large or extra large text sizes on both Macintosh and Windows. If Operating System text is set to a large size, some of the items in the Director authoring menus may be truncated. User-defined menus created with lingo might also be impacted in these circumstances.

Field, Sprite
When setting the text of a field cast member via Lingo, the scrollTop of cast member is no longer set to 0. In Director 7, it was set to 0 but scrollbars would stay in a indeterminate state. Now the scrollTop value stays the same as it was before setting the text. In some cases, especially when setting a smaller amount of text, the user might need to reset the scrollTop value back to 0 to get the new text visible in the field.

Guides / Grids
Snapping has rounding errors when you have a zoomed out view of the stage, which can result in the snapping to grids and guides being slightly inaccurate.

Imaging Lingo
On the Macintosh, the draw method, when used on a 32-bit alpha image, draws the line with a zero alpha channel value. The result is that the area where the line was drawn becomes transparent.

Keyboard Shortcuts
On the Macintosh, keyboard shortcuts that use the function keys (F6, F11, for example) are not listed in the authoring menus. Although the keyboard shortcuts are not listed in the menus, they are still functional.

Line Tool, Property Inspector
If you change line width with the tool palette while the Property Inspector is in list view, the sprite on stage does not immediately update. Either change line widths while the Property Inspector is in standard view, or drag the line cast member on to the stage to see the proper update.

Lingo
File corruption can occur if using pasteClipboardInto to paste into a nonexistent cast member specified by name.

Rewinding while at a breakpoint in the Lingo debugger may crash Director if the script is referenced by a film loop.

In a film loop, a behavior that sends the playback head to a marker, on an on new me handler, can result in a crash.

mouseUpOutside does not work unless there is also a mouseUp handler present in the same behavior script.

NetLingo
When issuing a gotoNetPage from the authoring environment, there is no error message when no browser is selected in authoring or when there is not sufficient memory to launch a browser.

Palette
Color Cycling does not work when used in the first frame of a movie and make a movie appear to freeze.

Preview in Browser
Preview in Browser does not work on Macintosh with Internet Explorer 4.5 on Macintosh OS9, if the mime-type setting in IE's Preferences > File Helpers is 'Save to File' and not 'View with Plugin'. You can either change the File Helper preference to Use Plugin, or try switching to a later version of the browser.

Printing
On Macintosh, browsers may crash after printing a page containing Shockwave and then returning to another page containing Shockwave.

Property Inspector
When moving the stage window on screen, the drawRect values do not get updated in the Property Inspector in list view mode. There are no tabs for OLE, palette and transition cast members.

Publish
Choosing Edit Favorite Colors from the color chip pop-down menus does not work in the Publish Settings dialog.

Avoid publishing movies, using filename's containing greater than 26 characters. Type - 50 errors are invoked if you attempt to publish files with more than 26 characters.

The Simple Progress Bar loader movie 'progbar_w_bkgnd_image', image may appear to 'jump' at target movie transition. The workaround is to not use the first frame of your movie as your poster image and to customize the loader movie to be the same size as your movie, with the correct sized image.

Publish, Bitmap Compression
When creating a dcr, Director will sometimes alter the compression settings for bitmap cast members. Specifically, when a bitmap cast member is compressed using JPEG compression, Director compares the size of the resulting compressed cast member to the same cast member compressed with standard compression, and uses whichever method produces the smaller file.

If using JPEG compression on a sprite that uses background transparent ink, you may find some compression artifacts around the edges of the sprite. These will show up when viewing the DCR file. To clean this up, either turn background transparent ink off, or use standard compression for that sprite and re-save the DCR.

Using an ink effect other than Copy on a JPEG compressed bitmap cast member may result in degradation of the image during playback of the DCR.

QuickTime
After dragging a QTVR movie and some QuickTime movies to the stage, the movie's sound may play for several seconds and then stop.

QuickTime movies do not appear or run when Direct to Stage is off and Trails is on.

When using QuickTime on a zoomed stage, the QuickTime slider might not function properly.

QuickTime, MIDI
In previous versions of Director, you could use the QuickTime Asset Xtra to import MIDI files into Director. In Director 8, you can no longer do this. To incorporate MIDI into Director, first use QuickTime to convert MIDI tracks, and then import the QuickTime file with Director.

Save as Java
If you get a divide by zero crash when exporting, check your casts for bitmap cast members that are 0, 0 in size.

Score
When you copy and paste score between Director movies, Director doesn't warn you if the destination score does not have as many channels as the source. Director silently truncates the other score channels during paste.

When copying sprites from one movie that has external casts to another (that also has external casts), the casts are appended to the destination movie, but the sprites pasted still reference their original castLibNum.

Score Recording
After a score recording session, the playback head may end up one frame greater than expected but the score is written properly.

Sound
Pan doesn't work when the soundDevice is "macromix". Setting the pan to the right (sound().pan = 100) causes the volume on both sides to go to zero, and setting the pan to the left has no effect.

If the stage movie and a MIAW movie try to both address the same sound channel, unexpected results can occur. For example, if the stage movie queues a sound into a channel and a MIAW then queues a sound into the same channel, the sound specified by the MIAW will be played when the stage movie issues a play() command. Note: there are eight sound channels available to Director.

On the Macintosh, sound playback may be staggered when all eight sound channels play simultaneously. Performance improves if virtual memory is turned OFF.

Sounds do not use a duration value of 0 when using the fadeTo() function. Crashes can occur if using 0. Use 1 or greater or use the volume of sound property to turn sounds off abruptly.

While looping a sound, if the LoopStartTime and the LoopEndTime both contain cue points, the cuePointName of the loopEndTime is favored as the return value.

When using setPlayList, setPlayList is passed a cast member rather than a list, Director will create a new copy of that cast member. EXAMPLE: sound(1).setplayList(member "me") -- this is incorrect and will display the behavior described above.

Inserted SWA files that are in state 5 (completed) cause the authoring environment to become sluggish. (Menus are slow to open and the screen redraws slowly). Stop the cast member using Lingo in the message window. Example: member("swa").stop().

Using pause(member memberName) while referring to a cast member that is not an inserted (streaming) SWA cast member does not issue an error and passes the pause command over to the movie. This pauses the movie.

Using the fadeTo() function with QT3Mix set as the soundDevice can sometimes result in the fades happening too quickly or too slowly.

When attempting to import a System 7 (Macintosh) sound file on Windows, the operating system may report a Director Out of Memory error. This error is caused by Windows interpreting the resource file as a zero-length file.

The Sound Control Xtra does not recognize externally streaming (and inserted) SWA or MP3 files. Although you can still control properties of the sound channel (i.e. volume and pan) while the SWA file is streaming, in order to get state information about the sound channel, check the state of the cast member, rather than the channel.

Stage, Zoom/Stretch
The stretchable Shockwave feature can cause a system hang when using older video drivers. For the following family of ATI video display adapters, you may need to update to newer drivers: RAGE 128 Products: RAGE FURY, RAGE MAGNUM, XPERT 2000, XPERT 128, XPERT 99, ALL-IN-WONDER 128 , and other products based on Rage 128 chips. Current driver versions (as of 2/14/2000) are 4.11.6216 for Win9x, and 4.3.40 for NT40.

Note: It is always recommended to have current drivers installed for sound and video devices in order to employ all of Director's and Shockwave's powerful multimedia features.

Text
When using text cast members in a projector, make sure that both Text Asset Xtra and Text Xtra are present. The projector will crash if Text Asset Xtra is present but the Text Xtra is not.

Moving text cast members with scrollbars offstage can sometimes leave artifacts of the scrollbar on the stage.

When doing onstage editing of text with a zoomed stage, the text is not zoomed. The zoom of the text will resolve itself after the editing.

linePosToLocV can return slightly incorrect results when used with text cast members imported as HTML that contain HTML table information.

Importing text as HTML from remote servers does not work when using importFileInto at runtime.

Vector shapes
Setting the regPointVertex of a vertex shape cast member to 0 can have unexpected results. If you use CenterRegPoint or Regpoint to determine the registration point of your shape, the value of regPointVertex will be equal to 0, but manually setting it to this value can result in oddities, including the creation of vertex points and handles that are not attached to the shape and free floating in space. An extraordinarily large vector shape can sometimes not be edited. Edit the vector shape in these rare cases by making the vector shape a little smaller. You can do this either by making the vertex shape smaller in the Vector Shape window or through Lingo using the VertexList cast member property.

Xtra Downloading
If you are updating a Director 7 movie that used Xtra Downloading, update the download requirements to the Director 8 versions of the Xtras by deselecting and reselecting the Download If Necessary check boxes in the Movie Xtras dialog.

Xtras dialog
The INFO button in the Modify > Movie > Xtras dialog does not function unless the check box named Launch When Needed in the File -> Preferences > Network dialog has been checked.

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Additionally, please be sure to put Bug Report: [very brief summary of problem] in the Subject line, so we can quickly distinguish bug reports from feature requests. For example, "Bug Report: Font looks incorrect".

Including