Information Gift

DiMX Packages & Bundles

With the release of Director MX, developers wishing to deliver Mac titles can finally deliver true OS X-native projectors. However, most are also going to continue targeting the "Classic" MacOS platforms that DiMX supports (MacOS 8.6 - 9.x). Developers may choose to deliver separate CDs for each platform, or CDs with both Mac OS X and "Classic" projectors included, but must employ measures to prevent a projector made for one platform to be inadvertently played on another.

If you are able to exclude OS 8.6 users from your target audience, then Macromedia has a technote on creating a single executable that runs on both OS X and OS 9: Considerations for creating a Macintosh projecter bundle.

Creating a bundled package requires a little bit of somewhat specialized knowledge, though nothing outside the experience of the relatively seasoned Director developer; you need to know how to create disk images & "Shockwave" projectors (see "How to create a fast-start projector"), understand the use of stub projectors, and do a little light editing of the info.plist xml file.

On the plus side, the tech note is really well presented, easy to follow and provides a link to a downloadable sample .dir and bundle to examine and refer to as you work on your very own.

In an ideal world, Director MX would publish bundled packages for you, but the development schedule didn't allow it to happen this time around. Till then, I'll keep this tech note handy -- it's great stuff and I personally appreciate the effort that went into its making.