S e p t e m b e r 2 2

Strategies and Techniques for Designers, Developers, and Managers of eLearning

A publication of

THIS WEEK — DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES

2003

An Overview of Authorware 7 —and Its EvolutionBY JOSEPH GANCI

W hen I first started using Authorware in May, 1990, it

was almost a brand new product, available only for

the Apple Macintosh, sporting a Version 1.0 sticker

and delivered on several floppy disks with a few manuals in a

faux leather briefcase. I had been programming computers for

quite a while by then, having started at the age of 14 in 1974.

I had worked on the then ancient TICCIT training system for

several years; if you remember that system, you’re no spring

chicken! I had used TenCore for a yearand I had been a hardcore C and Pascalhound. So you might believe I was wellprepared to be an Authorware developer.

Not so. Having been a “scripter” didnot necessarily prepare me to be anAuthorware developer. In fact, whenAuthorware was created, it was with theintention that anyone should be able tocreate computer-based training (which we now more often call e-Learning, ofcourse). The whole point to developing inAuthorware was to use an icon and flow-line approach, with dialog boxes thatwould help the developer quickly andeasily create an event-driven application

with interactivity and some data tracking.It was the ultimate prototyper’s dream;but it would also take you beyond theprototype stage to a finished product.

This summer Macromedia releasedVersion 7 of Authorware — and a verygood version it is. Before we talk aboutthis new release, though, more history isin order. Only by seeing what has led up tothis version can one get a proper appreci-ation of Authorware 7’s true offerings.

Ancient historyBack in 1963, the National Science

Foundation provided a grant that ulti-

Continued on next page

W W W. E L E A R N I N G G U I L D . C O M

It seems as ifAuthorware hasbeen around almostas long as the e-Learning field itself,and for nearly thatlong, industry gossiphas been that thethen-current versionof Authorware wouldbe the last. But after thirteen years,Authorware is stillgoing strong. Readthis article to learnwhy you shouldn’tbet the farm onVersion 7.0 beingthe end of the line!

mately spawned two main authoring sys-tems for the creation of computer-basedtraining. One was the aforementionedTICCIT, which stood for Time-SharedInteractive Computer-Controlled InformationTelevision (whew!). The other, whichbecame much more popular, was calledPlato (Programmed Logic for AutomaticTeaching Operations). Both of these prod-ucts spawned many others, but Platoproved to be the more successful in itsprogeny.

One of those Plato descendents wasAuthorware, although the line of descentwas a little complicated. The Universityof Illinois and Control Data Corporation(CDC) developed Plato. CDC was fortu-nate enough to have Dr. Michael Allen asone of its employees. At the time, main-frame and minicomputer-based e-Learn-ing was starting to make way for micro-computers and Dr. Allen was working ona PC version of Plato, codenamedPCD03.

However, Plato was very much script-based and Dr. Allen had a vision for analternative approach that was more visu-

al. He headed up a team of three peopleat CDC to create a visual Plato product,which he called Course of Action. As thestory goes, CDC did not express muchinterest in the product once done, soMichael made an offer for it, and productin hand, left CDC to start a companycalled Authorware Inc., headquartered inMinneapolis. The product changed itsname once slightly to Best Course ofAction, and then to Authorware. In fact,for several versions of Authorware, if youwere to look at Authorware’s file type inthe Macintosh’s resource editor, youwould see it was COA (for Course ofAction). Now you know what that meant(and all these years you’ve been wonder-ing, haven’t you?).

The visual approach Dr. Allen hadanticipated found a home in Author-ware’s icons and flowline. We’ll discusseach of the icons in just a moment. Theflowline method allows a developer todrag icons one at a time from an iconpalette onto a flowline. (See Figure 1,below.) The developer can place iconsabove or below other icons, and in some

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The eLearning Developers’ Journal™ is design-ed to serve the industry as a catalyst for inno-vation and as a vehicle for the dissemination ofnew and practical strategies and techniques fore-Learning designers, developers and man-agers. The Journal is not intended to be thedefinitive authority. Rather, it is intended to be a medium through which e-Learning practi-tioners can share their knowledge, expertiseand experience with others for the general betterment of the industry.

As in any profession, there are many differ-ent perspectives about the best strategies,techniques and tools one can employ to accom-plish a specific objective. This Journal will sharethese different perspectives and does not posi-tion any one as “the right way,” but rather weposition each article as “one of the right ways”for accomplishing a goal. We assume thatreaders will evaluate the merits of each articleand use the ideas they contain in a mannerappropriate for their specific situation. Weencourage discussion and debate about articlesand provide an Online Discussion board foreach article.

The articles contained in the Journal are allwritten by people who are actively engaged inthis profession at one level or another — not by paid journalists or writers. Submissions arealways welcome at any time, as are sugges-tions for articles and future topics. To learnmore about how to submit articles and/orideas, please refer to the directions in the boxon page 9 or visit www.eLearningGuild.com.

Publisher David Holcombe

Editorial Director Heidi FiskEditor Bill Brandon

Copy Editor Charles Holcombe

Design Director Nancy Marland

The eLearning Guild™ Advisory BoardRuth Clark, Conrad Gottfredson, John Hartnett,

Bill Horton, Kevin Moore, Eric Parks, Brenda PfausMarc Rosenberg, Allison Rossett

Copyright 2003. The eLearning Developers’ Journal™.Compilation copyright by The eLearning Guild 2003. Allrights reserved. Please contact The eLearning Guild forreprint permission.

The eLearning Developers’ Journal is published weeklyby The eLearning Guild, 525 College Avenue, Suite215, Santa Rosa, CA 95404. Phone: 707.566.8990.The eLearning Guild is an operating unit of FocuszoneMedia, Inc., 1030 Beatrice Street, Eagan, MN 55121.

The Journal is included as part of Guild membership.To join the Guild go to www.eLearningGuild.com.

FIGURE 1 (above) In Authorware, programming is done visually, using iconsand a flowline.

FIGURE 2 (right) The Authorware icon palette, Version 1.

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DEVELOPMENT / s t r a t e g i e s

instances to the left or right of othericons. This forms relationships betweenthe icons, in much the same way that youwould create a decision tree flowchart,so commonly used in business circles.

After you drag an icon to the flowline,you title it with its purpose. For instance,if the icon will play a song, you mightgive the icon the song’s title. This helpsto document your work as well. By look-ing at the flowline, you can get an over-view of what the file does and the orderin which it does it.

The Windows version had been project-ed for publication in 1990, but it finallyarrived in 1992. It had been a muchharder undertaking than first expected.

The price for Version 1 was a cooleight thousand dollars. By that standard,today’s price, less than three thousanddollars, is positively a steal. The Version1 developer toolkit consisted of the iconpalette you see in Figure 2 on page 2. Inorder from top to bottom, the iconsincluded were the Display icon, used forshowing text and images on the screen,the Motion icon, used for moving objectson the screen, and the Erase icon, withwhich you could remove objects at theappropriate time. The Wait icon could beused for waiting a certain number of sec-onds or waiting for the user to click themouse or press a key.

The Decision icon, shaped like a dia-mond, was very important in that itallowed paging mechanisms to be setup, albeit in a bit of a roundabout way,as Dr. Allen was never a big fan of pageturners (good for him!) and I believe hewas trying to avoid having developersfall back on these types of lessons tooeasily.

The Interaction icon, shaped on the leftlike a Display icon and on the right like aDecision icon to form an icon that lookedlike an arrow with a question mark in-side, was and still is arguably the mostimportant. With it, you could set up anyof the response types you see in the dia-log box in Figure 3, right.

The little equal sign icon was calledthe Calculation icon and with it you couldwrite small scripts, using Authorware’sown scripting language (which has re-mained unnamed to this day). How-ever,the scripting language was very limitedfor someone used to real programminglanguages in which you could write yourown functions, set up subroutines, and

the like. Again, the point was drivenhome: this was not a development pack-age for scripters as much as somethingnew: a way for nonscripters to developpowerful e-Learning.

Despite this, no development packagecan be complete without giving the devel-oper some ability to script. To have everyoption possible for every situation as afield in a dialog box would result in aplethora of large dialog boxes, unwieldyat best. Authorware’s first scripting lan-guage may have been limited, but it wasnecessary to allow for those options notavailable in dialog boxes.

The Map icon was used to group twoor more icons into one icon. This wasnot only a nicety but also a necessity.The flowline could only be as long as thescreen resolution allowed in height, soyou could quickly run out of room as youstrung these icons together on the flow-line. This proved an excellent way toforce people to organize their code. For instance, once the code for theIntroduction to the course was complet-ed, it could be grouped into one Mapicon and be titled Introduction, so that inessence it became compartmentalized.

The two flag icons, Start and Stop,could be used to section off parts of thecode so that when running the applica-tion during testing, only the partsbetween the start and stop flags would execute.

The last three icons were called themedia icons and they were, in order, theMovie, Sound, and Video icons. TheMovie icon could be used to run a num-ber of types of animation and movie files(eventually it would come to supportQuickTime, AVI, and others). The Soundicon could import external sounds andplay them at various speeds and theVideo icon was used to connect and playexternal video devices, primarily video-disc players.

Time marches on, new versionsappear

In 1992, Authorware Inc. merged withMacromind Paracomp to form Macro-media, Inc. and Bud Colligan, at the timeCEO of Authorware Inc. (having arrivedthere from Apple), was chosen to headup the new company. The headquartersmoved to San Francisco, where Macro-mind Paracomp was already well estab-lished.

Version 2A year later, the next major release of

Authorware was brought to market. Itadded some nifty new features. Themost important of these was libraries,which for the first time allowed develop-ers to place icons in separate libraryfiles which could then be shared bet-ween Authorware files and developers.This meant that a company logo, forinstance, could be placed in a library fileand then linked to hundreds of Author-ware lesson files. If the library file iconwas updated to contain a new logo, thatchange could be permutated to all thelesson files. This was a huge timesaver!Sounds, images, and other media couldnow be more easily updated.

In addition, for the first time text couldbe scrolled on the screen. While this isnot necessarily a boon for design, itcould be useful when long referencematerials that were not necessarily cru-cial to lesson plans needed to be madeavailable.

FIGURE 3 (above) TheAuthorware Response Types,Version 1.

FIGURE 4 (left) The newAuthorware icon palette inVersion 3.

Among other new features, the hotobject response should at least be men-tioned here. This was another cool ele-ment, in that this meant that authors nolonger had to keep screen elements thatusers needed to click from moving onthe screen. This means you could nowenhance an exercise in which you showthe parts of a machine in pieces. SinceVersion 1, you could allow students toclick each part and have that part animate to its proper position in themachine. However, starting with this version, that part, though moved to anew location on the screen, could still be clicked. At that point, you mightchoose to have the part move out of themachine back to its original location orperform any other event you wish.

Version 3Before Version 3 was released in

1995, I attended the Macromedia confer-ence. During the Authorware SneakPeeks session, the engineers showedthe new icon palette. On it were two newicons that had all us all abuzz. (SeeFigure 4 on page 3.) When someoneasked the inevitable question, “What arethose two new icons?” the answer was,“Yes, interesting, aren’t they?”

Eventually, we came to learn that thenew icons were called the Frameworkicon (which looks like a frame on theicon palette — the sixth icon from thetop of the palette) and the Navigate icon(which is right above the Framework andlooks like a triangle) and they were usednot only to easily create paging mecha-nisms, but also many other options,

such as automated searches for stu-dents, roundtrip navigation which alloweda form of subroutine previously not avail-able, and more. This didn’t mean thatwe were now all forced to create page-turners (though, alas, this did becomeeasier) but it freed us up to createalmost any design approach in a fasterway.

The new six-color palette at the bottomof the icon palette could now be used tocolor icons, which allowed developers toset up team development a little moreeasily (“If I color icons red, don’t touchthem!”). Other features were added,including a spell checker, the ability toset up text styles, a button editor to cre-ate custom buttons, a trace window toassist in debugging applications, RichText Format importing, and more.

Oh, and Version 3 was now beingdelivered on CD-ROM.

By now, the World Wide Web was fullycoming into its own. No longer consid-ered a cute fad, investors and otherswere jumping onto the WWW bandwagon.Even companies like Microsoft andAmerica Online were seeing the Web asan inevitable, ever-growing phenomenon.This fact was not lost on Macromedia,which not too long thereafter startedpositioning itself more and more as anInternet company.

Version 3.5A year later, in 1996, an important dot

version was released. The most impor-tant new feature in this release was theability for Authorware files to be dis-played in Web browsers using a plug-in,

as Macromedia Director (anotherMacromedia product) was already doingat the time. Authorware also startedusing Xtras, which were external filesthat could be used to extend Author-ware’s abilities more easily. With them,third party companies could create newtransitions and small applications thatcould be used in Authorware, Director, or both.

Version 4The first three versions of Authorware

had sometimes been criticized by com-petitors for not allowing content to belinked externally, meaning that imagefiles, for instance, could not be kept inan external folder and be used at runtime. In 1997, the next major version ofAuthorware was released. It was obviousthat the engineers had been hard atwork. Version 4 brought an end to thelinking limitation. Content could now beimported or kept external on an individ-ual basis. There were, and still are tothis day, advantages and disadvantagesto both these methods, but now authorshad a choice for almost every media filethey were given.

The scripting language also got amajor boost with the advent of linear listsand property lists, which already hadbeen a part of Lingo, Director’s scriptinglanguage. The same benefits of listscould now be had by Authorware devel-opers, principally the ability to organizelarge amounts of data inside of thedevelopment package itself.

Using linear and property lists meantthat developers who read in data fromdatabases or text files had an excellentplace to store that data in Authorware. Alist could hold up to 30,000 locations,and each location could hold up to30,000 characters, which meant thatone list could hold almost a gigabyte ofdata, as long as computer memory per-mitted.

For instance, a list of student namesor customer records could be read andsorted, along with each student’s pasthistory and contact information.

It didn’t stop there, though. As eachlist could have up to 10 dimensions,meaning that a location in a list could beanother list, and each location in that listcould be another list, and so on, up to10 permutations, a multidimensional listcould in reality hold more data than you

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FIGURE 5 The wizard interface allows novice authors to set up a full application.

could probably ever throw at it. In fact, tothis day, most advanced authors haven’tused more than four dimensions(30,000 x 30,000 x 30,000 x 30,000characters).

This added to Authorware’s ability towork with live data, such as today’s stu-dent or patient data, at run time, makingit much more dynamic. You no longerhad to use “canned” data.

Other new features included the abilityto link to Flash files (it was already pos-sible to link to Director files) and to inter-act with ActiveX controls.

Version 5Promptly on schedule, Version 5 was

released in 1998. With this release,Authorware no longer provided a sepa-rate Macintosh version for developers.Up until Version 5, you could develop les-sons on either the Macintosh or inWindows and deliver to students on bothplatforms. Now, you could develop les-sons only in Windows, though you couldstill deliver them to students on bothplatforms. This continues to be truetoday. This allowed for much better integration between Authorware andWindows, once Windows had, for all

intents and purposes, won the operatingsystem war.

A major part of this release was theinclusion of Knowledge Objects. Thesewizard interfaces would allow new devel-opers to create new applications andquizzes more easily. Version 5 alsoallowed experienced developers to devel-op new Knowledge Objects for noviceAuthorware users. Organizations thatwere creating large projects with manylesson files could use high-end develop-ers to create Knowledge Objects to beused by lower paid novice and intermedi-ate level developers.

For example, the wizard interfaceshown in Figure 5, on page 4, allowednovices to set up much of the work for afull application. Once done, the wizardwould then automatically create thestructure and place it on the flowline forthe developer.

Anti-aliased text was also introducedin this version, along with the use of thealpha channel in those image files thatwould support it. Another timesaving fea-ture, batch changes, was added as well.

Scripting got a further boost becausethe Authorware engineers started toopen up more icon properties to

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About 80% ofPowerPoint features can

currently be converted

to Authorware icons

automatically. Even if a

PowerPoint file uses fea-

tures that are not possible

to convert automatically,

the converter will still

bring Authorware develop-

ers much closer to the

final conversion, saving

many hours of time.

DEVELOPMENT / s t r a t e g i e s

scripters. Recall that almost all of theicons had associated dialog boxes wheredevelopers could set options, such as inthe dialog box shown in Figure 6, above,for the Sound icon.

Each of these options, and some thatcannot be seen in any dialog box, areexamples of properties. In previous ver-sions, an option set in any dialog box(such as the Concurrency setting above)could not be changed on the fly fromwithin the Authorware file at run time.Changes that began in this versionmeant that developers could do that verything with a simple script. No longerwere they constrained by the choice theymade while setting up the file. If thesound should Wait Until Done in one casebut the same sound play Concurrently inanother case, the same sound iconcould now be used in both cases just by making a change in a script.

The Calculation icon itself got its firstmajor upgrade in interim Version 5.2,released a year later. It now sported its owntool bar, shown in Figure 7 below, with sev-eral new features, such as multiple undolevels.

Version 6It would be 2001 before Version 6 was

made available to developers. A lot ofwork led up to this release.

Until this version, Authorware develop-ers would package files to make themready for students. This created exe-cutable files that users could run justlike any other application on their sys-tems. Packaging was never a fun part ofthe development process, especiallyafter Xtras had been introduced inVersion 3.5, because the proper Xtrashad to be included with the packagedfiles, and you were left to your owndevices to remember to include all theproper Xtras. Since Version 4 the sameheld true for external content files.

Something had to be done to simplifythe process and so the One ButtonPublisher feature was born. By using theOBP, developers were freed from muchof the fuss and bother of publishing theirstudent files for both local and Webdelivery.

Commands were another new featureof AW 6. Acting somewhat like Know-ledge Objects, but in a freer form,

Commands could be created by develop-ers both in Authorware and in BorlandDelphi to extend Authorware’s abilities.Commands could be shared with otherdevelopers, further easing the team ori-ented approach to developing large-scaleprojects. In fact, some key features ofthis release were written as Commands,including the One Button Publisher.

Here’s an example of how powerfulthe Commands feature proved to be. To practice my programming skills inBorland Delphi and because I was on the Authorware beta team, I decided towrite a Command in Delphi for the AW 6release that would dive through anAuthorware file and make a list of usefulinformation about every media assetfound — images, video clips, and audioclips. I never thought it would prove allthat useful as a Command, but shortlyafter the release of Version 6, a client ofours asked us to upgrade a large set oflessons that had been developed inAuthorware, and one of the first thingswe had to do was to compile a list ofmedia assets! Using this Command,work that might have taken many dayswas accomplished in less than a minute.That’s the power of a well-writtenCommand!

Another Command that was includedin Version 6 was an RTF Objects Editor,which now made it easy for developersto create and use RTF objects. Rich TextFormat objects give designers and devel-opers a good deal of power, especially toupdate text content and attributes (fontsize and shape, for instance) after les-sons have been delivered.

Improvements were made to Author-ware’s interface. Performance tracking,always a hallmark of Authorware, wasextended in this version. This alloweddevelopers to integrate their Authorwarefiles with Learning Management Systemswith a degree of ease not possible previ-ously.

More properties and further exten-sions to Authorware’s scripting languagewere also introduced. While Authorwarecontinued to remain relatively easy touse for nonscripters, hardcore program-

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FIGURE 6 Dialog boxes allow setting options in order to change icon properties.

FIGURE 7 The new tool bar in Version 5.

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mers felt more and more at home in it,because scripts could now be writtenthat allowed unprecedented control overhow Authorware files would behave atrun time.

Version 6.5In 2002, Version 6.5 was released.

Far from being just an interim dotrelease, this proved a major boon forthose of us who had long missed theability to create our own true script func-tions in Authorware. Script functionswere now allowed in Authorware, whichallowed developers to cut down furtheron the number of icons that were nor-mally needed in previous versions. Askany programmer about the ability to writefunctions and he or she will say that thejob would not be possible without thiscapability. While Authorware has alwaysallowed workarounds to the lack of thisfeature, giving developers this ability sud-denly freed them to an unprecedenteddegree.

The other big new feature of this ver-

sion was the Accessibility Kit, a newCommand that allowed developers whowere creating new lesson files to makethem easier to use for students with dis-abilities. Using the Kit, developers coulduse a text-to-speech feature to readscreen text out loud for those who arevision impaired, set up overall keyboardshortcuts, and more. It also included atutorial on how to make lessons moreaccessible from every angle.

Even more properties were opened up in this release and the One ButtonPublisher was further improved.

At last: Version 7 arrivesNow Version 7 has come to market.

Several changes and additions areincluded with this release that makes ita must-have for Authorware developers.

The user interfaceThe user interface got its first major

overhaul, making it closer to the lookand feel of Macromedia’s other prod-ucts. Those using Flash, DreamWeaver,

and other Macromedia products will beable to come up to speed more quicklyin Authorware now.

The new Property Inspector makes iteasier to change icon options. In pastversions, once you opened an icon dia-log box to make changes to the icon’soptions, it would have to be closedbefore you could continue to other partsof your file. However, now the optionsappear in the Property Inspector at thebottom of the screen. This leaves youfree to move about to other parts of yourfile. Every time you click an icon, theProperty Inspector will show the optionsfor that icon.

The toolbar is now movable, asopposed to past versions where it wasalways fixed to the left side of thescreen. (See Figure 8 below) You caneven move it outside of the Authorwareapplication window — it is completelyindependent.

On the right side of the screen is aspecial docking section where you cankeep several features organized togeth-

FIGURE 8 The user interface has been improved in Version 7 and now more closely matchesother Macromedia products.

DEVELOPMENT / s t r a t e g i e s

er. This leaves the screen less clutteredthan in the past.

The PowerPoint ImporterThis is the feature that business own-

ers and managers will probably find mostappealing. For the first time, MicrosoftPowerPoint files can be converted toAuthorware files. This means that thePowerPoint pages become AuthorwareMap icons attached to a Frameworkicon. This icon structure can then be fur-ther enhanced inside Authorware. Manyinstructional designers use PowerPointto create their storyboards. In addition,company presentations or other Power-Point files that had been created forother purposes can now be convertedquickly. Previously, images and textwould have to be copied and pasted oneby one, a very laborious and time-con-suming process.

About 80% of PowerPoint features cancurrently be converted to Authorwareicons automatically. Even if a PowerPointfile uses features that are not possibleto convert automatically, the converterwill still bring Authorware developersmuch closer to the final conversion, saving many hours of time.

Learning management system(LMS) commands

Talking to SCORM compliant LearningManagement Systems has become amuch easier process with the inclusionof three LMS commands:• Authorware Learning Object Content

Packager• Authorware Learning Object Metadata

Editor• LMS Emulator

Using these commands means thatdevelopers can now set up communica-tions with LMSs from within Authorwarewith simple wizards that hold their handsstep-by-step. Anyone who has struggledwith LMS connections in the past willappreciate these new commands greatly.

Accessibility improvementsIt’s much easier now to use screen

readers, develop accessible user inter-faces, synchronize captions with videoframes, and more. When creating newapplications in Authorware 7, those withdisabilities can now be served tounprecedented levels, helping to meetthe American Disabilities Act, Section508 requirements.

DVD video useThe old Video icon, used in the early

days to talk to videodisc players, butunused by the vast majority of develop-ers in many years, has now been con-verted to a DVD icon, which lets develop-ers use a dialog box to show DVD videoon the screen in any size while retainingall of a DVDs interactivity, such as click-able menu options. This is a great boonfor those organizations that have devel-oped a good deal of video; now they candeliver their Authorware applications onthe DVD itself (or alternatively, on theirhard drives or through a Web browser)and access the high quality video resi-dent on the DVD discs.

JavaScript UseCalculation icons can now accept

scripts written in either the traditionalAuthorware scripting language itself or inJavaScript 1.5. This is a fantastic optionfor all those who already know how towrite in that language, and also becausea plethora of JavaScript scripts canalready be found all over the Web. Infact, JavaScript is a native language of

Web browsers and is widespread in useso this makes it easier for other pro-grammers to feel comfortable when coming to Authorware.

PropertiesAlmost all icon options are now avail-

able to the scripter to help create trulydynamic files for students. Dynamic filesare also highly maintainable, which cutsdown on the amount of revision that nor-mally would have to be done to fileswhen the content has to change forexternal reasons — such as when acompany process that is being taughthas undergone modifications.

Other ImprovementsVariables are a feature common to

every programming language. Each vari-able can hold one data item, whether it’sa simple number or a long text passage.In past versions, variables in Authorwarehave always been limited to holding32,000 characters of data, which at onetime may have seemed enormous buthas felt rather constraining in the lastfew years. Version 7 increases theamount of data a variable can hold bysixteen times, to half a megabyte.

The Help system is now a compiledHelp file. The last several versions ofAuthorware used HTML-based non-com-piled Help. While this may not seem abig deal, it meant that hundreds of smallHTML files were being used, which great-ly lengthened the installation of Author-ware as well as taking up much moreroom on the hard drive. Help runs moresmoothly and faster now, which meansmore users can take advantage of it.

Mac OS X delivery is now possiblewith this version as well, which will makeMacintosh users very happy. Thisincludes a stand-alone runtime player,publishing tool, and a Web player.

Overall, it is apparent that the engi-neers at Macromedia have worked veryhard to keep Authorware a product thatis easy to use by nonprogrammers whileat the same time allowing programmersto be much more at ease in the product.This is not an easy balance, and yet it ispulled off more cleanly in Authorwarethan in any other product I’ve seen. It isnot perfect, but it’s getting closer to per-fection with every release!

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SIDEBAR Authorware 7.0 top features checklist

1. The user interface has beenmodernized.

2. PowerPoint files can now beconverted to Authorware files.

3. Learning Management Systemscan now be accessed muchmore easily through dialogboxes.

4. Creating accessible lessonshas become even easier.

5. Any section of a DVD video cannow be used in Authorware anddisplayed at any size.

6. JavaScript 1.5 scripts can nowbe written in Authorware.

7. Almost all icon properties havebeen opened to Authorwarescripters.

8. Variables can now hold half amegabyte of data each.

9. The Help system has beenstreamlined.

10. You can now deliver to Mac OS X systems.

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AUTHOR CONTACTJoseph Ganci is President of Dazzle

Technologies Corp., located in Sterling, VA,just outside Washington, D.C. He has beeninvolved in every aspect of multimedia andlearning development with an emphasis indevelopment since 1983. Joe has taughtclasses and seminars at leading universitiesand in many government facilities, commer-cial firms, and educational institutions, andhas spoken at several industry conferences.He is also a published author, having writtenseveral books and articles about e-Learningand Authorware, and is widely considered aguru for his expertise in e-Learning develop-ment. Joe has consulted worldwide on awide range of multimedia and learning appli-cations for many organizations. Joe receivedhis Bachelor of Science degree in ComputerScience from Brigham Young University.Contact Joe at jganci@dazzletech.com.

NOTE: Joe Ganci will be teaching a one-dayworkshop, “From Soup to Nuts: A PracticalGuide to e-Learning Project Management” onNovember 11, 2003 at the upcomingeLearning Producer Conference & Expo. Formore information on this workshop, visithttp://www.elearningguild.com/pbuild/linkbuilder.cfm?selection=doc.401. Joe will also beleading concurrent sessions on the new fea-tures in Authorware (Session 205, 1:15 pmon November 12) and on selecting tools andgetting them to work together (Session 705,2:40 pm on November 13). Seehttp://www.elearningguild.com/pbuild/linkbuilder.cfm?selection=doc.425 for details onthese sessions.

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Cyclone Intera-ctive is an inter-active media and web development

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