January 19, 2006
Director and QuickTime 7 for Windows
The release of QuickTime 7 for Windows (version 7.0.3 was the initial release version IIRC) towards the end of last year unfortunately brought up some serious issues for Director developers. The problem was that with this new player installed, Director's QuickTime Asset Xtra failed in a number of ways as discussed in the following Tech Note:
QuickTime VR playback fails on Windows when using the QuickTime 7 player
I'm just here to give folks a heads up that I'm sending off a request to update the above Tech Note as a result of finally obtaining some test results after installing the QuickTime 7.0.4 update. The behavior folks were experiencing with the 7.0.3 player were due to a combination of issues, some of which were found in the QuickTime player code and others that are found in our own QuickTime Asset Xtra. The issues brought about by the QuickTime player code changes seem to have been resolved.
When using QuickTime 7.0.3 on Windows (copy/pasted from the above tech note)
* Mouse interactivity may fail. QuickTime VR sprites must use the Direct to Stage playback option in order for standard mouse interactivity to work. The sprite must always be set to Direct to Stage and toggling or setting this property to false at any time will prevent later interactivity, even if the option is set again to Direct to Stage.
* The following QuickTime VR sprite and/or member properties return incorrect or erroneous values, and they fail to accept appropriate value set attempts: fieldOfView, hotSpotEnterCallback, hotSpotExitCallback, isVRMovie, node, nodeEnterCallback, nodeExitCallback, pan, tilt and triggerCallback.
* The following QuickTime VR sprite methods fail silently and without error: enableHotSpot(), getHotSpotRect(), nudge(), ptToHotSpotID() and swing().
The motionQuality and nodeType QuickTime VR sprite properties behave as expected. There are no issues for users on Mac OS X.
When using QuickTime 7.0.4 on Windows
* Mouse interactivity may fail. QuickTime VR sprites may use either Direct to Stage or non-Direct to Stage playback on sprite initialization, but toggling the Direct to Stage playback on or off will result in a loss of mouse interactivity. After toggling the directToStage property the user will not be able to pan or tilt the QTVR scene and there will be no cursor changes while over the QTVR sprite. The user will however still be able to click on hotspots within the scene and have those hotspots navigate between scene nodes.
* The properties and methods of QuickTime VR sprites are fully functional.
The remaining issues pertaining to the toggling of the directToStage property have been fixed in an internal test build of the QuickTime Asset Xtra. We'll soon be looking to make the updated Xtra available to not only the developer community but to the Shockwave user base as well (via inclusion in our installers and by posting Xtra packages for download/install in the Shockwave player).
Sorry, I don't yet have a specific date to offer for when we'll have the new Xtra available, but I can say it will be soon so stay tuned.
Posted by thiggins at 11:02 AM