Shockwave

Shockwave is a technology developed by Macromedia, Inc, that allows the user to view Web pages with multimedia objects.

Macromedia Shockwave is for the creation and playback of fully interactive multimedia on the World Wide Web and corporate intranets.

Shockwave supports audio, animation, video and processes user actions such as mouse clicks. It runs on all Windows platforms as well as the Macintosh.

To create a shockwave object, you use Macromedia's multimedia authoring tool called Director, a Windows/Mac platform tool that allows you to create multimedia movies by creating "cast members" who move and interact on a "stage".

Director uses a scripting language, called "Lingo". Lingo is a high level scripting language that is actually quite sophisticated and easy to use.

You then compress the object with a program called Afterburner, and insert a reference to the "shocked" file in your Web page.

To see a Shockwave object, you need the Shockwave plug-in, a program that integrates seamlessly with your Web browser. The plug-in is freely available from Macromedia's Web site as either a Netscape Navigator plug-in or an ActiveX control.

Macromedia has added support to call web pages interactively and other network activities. All this adds up to a potent multimedia platform combining sound, animation, "live" objects, and real-time interactivity that can be displayed on the web. "Shocked" sites, as web sites that display Shockwave movies are called, now include Apple, CNN, Sony and MTV.

Macromedia software tools Director, Flash, Authorware, FreeHand, SoundEdit 16, and xRes empower you to create the most dynamic, responsive, and professional web experience available online:

• Zoomable vector graphics
• Fully interactive multimedia
• Streaming intranet applications
• Small & fast vector-based animations
• CD-quality streaming audio

Macromedia Shockwave players are free and available from www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download.