The companion book to "Director in a Nutshell", this title provides a complete definition of the Lingo language, including syntax, structure, and comparisons with other programming languages. Detailed chapters describe messages, events, scripts, handlers, variables, lists, file I/O, behaviors, and child objects.

The companion CD includes special effects and music files, Director movies, and try-it-yourself software.

Director in a Nutshell is the most concise and complete guide available for Macromedia Director 7, the premier multimedia authoring tool. It addresses new features in Director 7 and Shockwave 7, but also covers earlier versions for those still working with Director 5, 6, and 6.5. Director in a Nutshell condenses hundreds of Director tips and techniques into a desktop quick reference that is a must-have addition to every Director developer's library. It covers Director's core components (the Cast, Score, Stage, sprites, and animation), delivery and optimization (Projectors, Shockwave, and the new System Player and ShockMachine), and media elements (video, audio, SWA, bitmaps, JPEG, GIFs, animated GIFs, texts, fonts, fields, buttons, menus, cursors, dialog boxes, film loops, Flash, and vector shapes). Director in a Nutshell is the only book to integrate Director's multiple facets into a comprehensive discussion of each topic, including all related Lingo commands. The reader gets both the nitty-gritty details and the bigger context in which to use them. It highlights cross-platform differences for developers under both Windows (3.1/95/98/NT) and the Macintosh. It includes details on optimizing performance, memory usage, productivity tips, keyboard shortcuts, coordinate systems, palettes, the Paint window, Movies-in-a-Window, Xtras, Shockwave audio, QuickTime 3, and Director 7's new features, including dot notation, vector shapes, compressed fonts, sprite transformations (rotation, skew, quad, flip), new Lingo, and the Multiuser and XML Xtras. Director in a Nutshell is a high-end handbook, at a low-end price-an indispensable desktop reference for every Director user.

A primer for C programmers transitioning to C++ and designed to get users up to speed quickly, this book tells users just what they need to learn first. Covering a subset of the features of C++, the user can actually use this subset to get familiar with the basics of the language. The book includes sidebars that give overviews of advanced features not covered.

A guide for beginners offers an overview of JavaScript basics and explains how to create Web pages, identify browsers, and integrate sound, graphics, and animation into Web applications.

Many Microsoft Word users and VBA programmers don't realize the extensive opportunities that exist when Word's object model is accessed using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). By creating what is commonly called a "Word macro," you can automate many features available in Word. Writing Word Macros (previously titled Learning Word Programming) is the introduction to Word VBA that allows you to do these things and more. Book jacket.