Summary

This has been a relatively short but important chapter. Its intent was twofold: to explain the differences and similarities between Director MX and Flash MX 2004 and to show you how simple it is to have Director communicate with ColdFusion MX through Flash Remoting.

We looked at how each addresses accessibility issues. The consensus is that Flash is just now starting to address this important issue. We then showed you how to use the Director Speech Xtra to turn a Director movie into a screen reader.

The next topic for examination was video integration and extensibility. When it comes to video integration, it is a draw, thanks to the new video handling capabilities of Flash MX 2004. Though Director can manage an extensive list of video formats, Flash's video format, FLV, is now an output option on high-end digital video editing platforms. The capability to extend either application through the use of plugins and Xtras is still Director's advantage. We did point out, though, that the capability to add third party components (which is new to Flash MX 2004) might make this a dead heat in the not-too- distant future.

From there, we showed you how to use Director MX as a "wrapper" for the Flash MX 2004 Booking application constructed in the previous chapter. The key here was to link the .swf file to the Director movie, rather than embed it in the Director movie.

We finished the chapter by showing you how to create a Director Shockwave Player for web playback and offered a couple of tips for optimizing the movie, prior to it being "shocked."

Next up, if you thought adding video to a Flash movie was something else in Flash MX, see what Macromedia has done with video in the latest release of Flash.