Welcome to the new Lingoworkshop site.

The LingoWorkshop was MeccaMedialight's contribution to the Director and Shockwave developer community. Here you would find shockwave demos (many with source code), some articles, Director utilities and the occasional tutorial. Please note - all free source code available on this site is provided 'as is' without any express or implied warranty.

An Unofficial Brief History of Director

Packaging from the glory days (pre-ESD)

The Videoworks Years (1984–1988)

Videoworks Icon

Jay Fenton, Marc Canter and Mark Pierce had worked together at Bally Games in Chicago. In the spring of 1984 Marc got angel funding from his father-in-law and together they formed a company called MacroMind. As Marc puts it, MacroMind was "a software rock and roll band; a programmer, an artist and Marc, the musician and manager". This rock and roll band released a programme in 1985 called VideoWorks and in 1986, signed a licensing deal with Apple to put an "interactive guided tour" disc created with the VideoWorks run-time player into every Macintosh shipped.

VideoWorks required a "Macintosh with at least 128k" and "although VideoWorks will work satisfactorily with just the Macintosh's internal drive, a second (external) drive will help avoid a lot of disc swapping". VideoWorks also included some fantastic 1-bit 'canned artwork' by Marc Pierce and Mike Saenz, including walk cycles, city scape and (my favourite) a jumping mushroom. VideoWorks 'program design' is credited with Marc Canter, Jay Fenton and Mark Pierce and 'programming' credited to Jay and Dan Sadowski.

Videoworks box and disks

In 1987, when the first colour Macs started shipping (and hard drives were more common), Macromind released VideoWorks II (with colour!). VideoWorks developed into "VideoWorks Interactive" which had a language modelled after Basic. Although it never got out of "beta" status, it was licenced to various people, including Apple which continued to use it for their "Guided Tours" which were installed on all Macs that were sold. In 1987, Macromedia created the 2nd-ever Mac CD-ROM with VideoWorks animations (Apple had done the first).

Like all rock and roll bands (except perhaps the Rolling Stones), the MacroMind software rock and roll band broke up. Mark Pierce was gone within a year (he went on to do the legendary Macintosh game Dark Castle, released in 1986). Jay stayed on for almost two years before joining Alan Kay to work on an Apple-funded education research project called Vivarium. As Roger Jones puts it:

There was a lot of energy in the early days. Marc, despite his peccadilloes, had the ability to inspire us and instill a sense that what we were doing was ground breaking work, we were changing the world. The command hierarchy was pretty flat, we were all in it together... The office at 410 Townsend was one big room where everyone worked elbow to elbow on vinyl topped bingo tables laid end to end. I think the space had been a garment factory before MM. We rode up to the office in a scary freight elevator that made loud banging noises on the occasions when it functioned. But despite the oppressive conditions those 40 hours days seemed to fly by. It was always fun to go to work.

Macromind Director (1988–1992)

Macromind Director box and manuals

In 1988, 'VideoWorks Interactive Pro' becomes Director 1.0. John (JT) Thompson and Erik Neumann replaced the original Tiny Basic scripting language by Jamie Fenton with the Lingo Scripting engine. With the release of Director 2.0 (1990), JT said:

At that point I was researching object orientness in general - SmallTalk, Objective C - and I had background in LISP in terms of the kind of things that you can do interpretively, encapsulate data, recursion, that kind of stuff. So those ideas got synthesized into Lingo and XObjects.

Around this period, Videoworks/Director was being used to create the computer graphic displays for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the 'multimedia' boom was just about to take off.

Director 2

Director 2 Cast

In 1991 (or 92), Director 3 was released. Although Director 3.0 was still a Mac-only authoring environment, Macintosh Director movie files could be converted (using "Gaffer") for playback on Windows 3.1 with "DFW" (Director for Windows). There were also players for other operating systems such as:

OS/2 (a joint project with IBM who sent a group of engineers to MACR to work on it)
Personal IRIS
FM Towns
3DO player
OS9 David player (early set top box OS)

With the upgrade to version 3.1.3 (1993) — arguably Director's most stable release ever — Macromind Director became "Macromedia Director" and gained support for a new and exciting technology from Apple called QuickTime.

Director 3 About Box

A Near Death Experience

The original Windows player port of Director was done by an outside company and "was buggy as hell". It languished for months in QA and seemed to have stalled. This was in 1988–89, in the days of Win 3.0 and WFWG. Finally two programmers were brought in-house to get things moving: David Jennings and Greggy Yachuk. They squashed hundreds of bugs and were able to get the product into a shippable state. Meanwhile, Macromind founder Marc Canter was deposed, and new management came in just prior to Director 3.0 being shipped.

The new CEO called a company meeting and announced that 3.0 was the final version of Director and the company was dropping Mac development (because "Mac was dead") and shifting focus to Windows business presentation tools (Action!). Prevailing logic at the time was that Director was hopelessly Mac-centric and the DPW experience suggested that it would be impossible to port to Windows. Bolstered by his success with DPW, David Jennings went to management and against all odds convinced them that it was possible to put Director on Windows — effectively saving Director from its near death experience.

Macromedia Director (1993–2005)

Director 4 Icons

In 1992, Wolfenstein 3D was released. But this significant event was soon overshadowed by the release of Director 4.0 at the start of 1994. For the first time the authoring environment and files were cross-platform (Mac and Windows). Lingo was vastly improved and now featured lists and parent scripts (as a replacement for "factories"). XObjs and XCMDs provided further extensions. Updates to Director 4 included:

D4.01 — the PowerMac update (late April)
D4.03 — Win-only (August) and the first Director Authoring version to run under Windows
D4.04 — unifying release and the last floppy release (18 floppies!)

The "multimedia" hype was now in full swing. Myst was a big seller and 'multimedia CD-ROMs' were selling in shops. Bill Gates announced the licensing of the Director player.

Shockwave Arrives

In April 1995, Marc Canter made the prophetic observation that as broadband infrastructure got put in place:

It becomes increasingly more apparent that CD-ROM is not the only form for delivery for multimedia content. Various forms of broadband distribution will come into place throughout the world this century, and Director will form a bridge across these platforms to guarantee compatibility and scalability of your creative work.

In December 1995, Shockwave appeared for the first time when Macromedia made the "first public demonstration of technology that allows computer users to run video movies created using its Director animation program without the jerkiness typically associated with computer video". Shockwave files were made with a programme called "Afterburner".

Director 5 Icon

Director 5 (1996) introduced MOA and Xtras, as well as new features such as the debugger, watcher and multiple casts (previously, all movies had a single internal cast — assets were shared using a special movie called SHARED.DIR). There were a significant number of new Lingo commands and constructs (such as case statements).

Meanwhile, a company called FutureWave had developed a drawing application called "SmartSketch" for use on pen computers. This programme developed into "FutureSplash Animator", a vector-based animation programme designed for the Internet. This software had been offered to Adobe and Fractal Design without success, but eventually Macromedia purchased the company. In 1996, Flash 1.0 was released.

Director 6 Icon

Director 6 (1997) — "The Director Multimedia Studio" — vastly improved the 'sprite' construct and introduced 'behaviours' and integrated Shockwave support (the Afterburner Xtra was no longer required). Director 6.5 was a much-anticipated update to fix problems caused by the release of QuickTime 3.

Director 7 Icon

Director 7 (1998) was released as part of the "Shockwave Internet Studio" and was billed as having been "rebuilt from the ground up", the culmination of "five years of development". New features included RGB support, 1000 sprite channels, sprite rotation and skewing, embedded fonts and vector shapes. Director 7 also saw the introduction of dot syntax and the arrival of the Multiuser Server. As Buzz Kettles explained:

DPW (Director Player for Windows) was the original core code for all those 'other platform' playback engines (originally 'other' meant non-Mac). This playback-only code got fleshed out feature by feature until it was then used to build the Shockwave Player and then became a standalone playback engine that the Director Authoring UI could be grafted onto in order to create Director 7... So the so-called 'Director 7' rewrite actually began during Director 3.

Despite many new features, Director 7 was seen by some as a disappointment (bloated, buggy and slow compared to Director 6.5). About now, the 'multimedia' star began to dim as the Internet became the Next Big Thing. Flash, with its smaller ubiquitous plugin and cheaper authoring environment, seemed better suited to the Internet.

Director 8 Icon Director 8 and 8.5

Director 8 (2000) was a marked improvement over version 7 — much more stable and reliable, with enhancements such as linked scripts, lockable sprites, guides, and imaging lingo. A new audio engine was introduced, though sounds would now stutter and stop more easily.

Director 8.5 was a significant update introducing Flash 5 compatibility and interactive 3D asset support. The Multiuser Server was upgraded to version 3.0.

Director MX Icon Director MX

Director MX (2002) (aka version 9) featured OS X compatibility, Flash 6 compatibility and some authoring enhancements. Around this time, Macromedia announced the end of the Multiuser Server and Multiuser Xtra.

Director MX 2004

Director MX 2004 (aka version 10) was released in early 2004. Notable new features included a JavaScript syntax as an alternative to Lingo and the introduction of a new Document Object Model (DOM).

The new DOM meant that most scripting functionality could now be accessed via 'Core objects' that include the Director player engine, movie windows, sprites, sounds, and so on. In the old days you might write:

if the name of member of sprite 1 = "foo" then go to the frame

Whereas in the new DOM model you would write:

if (_movie.sprite(1).member.name = "foo") then _movie.go(_movie.frame)

Adobe Director (2005–)

On 18 April 2005, Adobe announced that it had acquired Macromedia (at US$3.4 billion). The sale was completed in December 2005 and Director became Adobe Director.

On March 14, 2006, Shockwave Player 10.1.1r16 was released. The main feature of this free update was a new Flash 8 Asset Xtra allowing use of Flash 8 authored SWF assets.

Adobe Director 11

Adobe Director 11

In late February 2008, Adobe released Director 11. The most significant change was that Director became Unicode compliant, requiring a significant rebuild with development moved to India where "40 engineers are actively working on Director".

Director 11 (and Shockwave 11) also became universal binaries on the Mac. This meant that non-Unicode-compliant Xtras and all Mac Xtras would no longer work correctly. A few popular Xtras — such as the OS Controls Xtra — announced they would not be updated.

Adobe Director 11.5

In March 2009, Adobe released Director 11.5, a vast improvement over Director 11. New features included:

New sound engine with a new 'mixer' object and filters
Streaming 5.1 audio
New byteArray member type and set of functions
Fixes to the new text engine

Adobe Director 12

Director 12 was released February 11, 2013.

The End

January 27, 2017 — Adobe announced that it "will no longer be selling and supporting Adobe Director. Sale of Adobe Director will stop on February 1, 2017. We will also stop ongoing updates and support for Adobe Shockwave on Mac devices on March 14th after the last release of the product."

First published 21/03/2005

Director v Flash - A neutral analysis and why Flash sucked

Few technology rivalries have been as ironically self-destructive as the one between Director/Shockwave and Flash — two products that, from 1996 onwards, were owned by the same company.

When Macromedia acquired FutureWave Software in December 1996, it inherited FutureSplash Animator and renamed it Flash. The logic was sound: Flash was vector-based, produced tiny files perfectly suited to dial-up internet, and had a simple authoring model. Director's Shockwave, by contrast, produced large files better suited to CD-ROMs than to the web. For a time, the two products occupied different enough niches that the tension was manageable.

But as broadband slowly arrived and web animation became more ambitious, Flash crept into territory Director had previously owned. Flash gained timeline-based animation, then ActionScript, then video support. Each release narrowed the gap between what the two tools could do. Macromedia found itself in the uncomfortable position of competing with itself, and the internal question of which product to invest in became increasingly fraught.

From the outside, the answer seemed obvious to many Director developers: Macromedia was funnelling resources into Flash. Support documentation improved for Flash far faster than for Director. Marketing emphasis shifted. Director's version cycles grew longer. When MX 2004 arrived with its JavaScript syntax, some read it as an attempt to lure Flash developers — who were familiar with ActionScript's JavaScript-like syntax — into the Director world. If so, it never really worked.

When Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005, Flash was clearly the prize. Director was part of the package, but Adobe's roadmap for it was never especially convincing. The engineers working on Director were talented, and Director 11's Unicode compliance was genuinely significant work, but the platform never regained the momentum it had lost to its younger sibling.

Lingo - English-inflected scripting language like no other (except perhaps small talk, hypertalk, Lisp...)

Lingo occupies a peculiar place in the history of programming languages. It was never influential in the way that, say, Smalltalk or Lisp were influential — it did not spawn successors or reshape how programmers thought about problems. But within its domain, it was remarkable: an interpreted, object-capable, English-inflected scripting language that let designers, artists, and educators write code that actually worked, at a time when that was not a common experience.

JT Thompson's design philosophy was to make Lingo readable by non-programmers. The result was a syntax that read almost like instructions written for a person rather than a machine:

go to frame "intro"
set the volume of sound 1 to 200
put the name of member of sprite 3 into myName

This was unusual enough in 1990 that it caused friction with "real" programmers, who found the verbosity grating. But it lowered the barrier to entry dramatically, and the Director community was full of people who had never written a line of code before picking up Lingo — and who went on to build genuinely sophisticated interactive work.

Over time, Lingo grew considerably more powerful. Director 4 brought lists and parent scripts — a form of object-oriented programming that, while not conforming neatly to any standard model, was expressive and practical. By Director 7, Lingo had dot syntax as an option alongside the traditional verbose forms. Director MX 2004 introduced a full JavaScript syntax layer alongside Lingo, meaning that for the first time developers could choose between two fundamentally different ways of scripting the same application.

The JavaScript implementation was never quite first-class. It was slower than Lingo, had some well-documented bugs (the setPref crash being a notorious example), and the documentation was thin compared to the wealth of Lingo resources accumulated over fifteen years. But it offered native regular expressions and a syntax familiar to a generation of web developers, and for certain tasks it was genuinely useful.

Lingo's legacy is perhaps best measured not in language design but in the careers it launched. Many developers who are now working in JavaScript, Python, or Swift first learned to think programmatically through Lingo — debugging a score that wouldn't loop correctly, or working out why a parent script was dropping its properties. It was not a perfect language, but it was an accessible one at a time when accessibility mattered enormously.

The Community

Director's community was, for its era, an unusually rich one. Before the web forum became the dominant model for developer discussion, the Director-L mailing list — hosted at Uarkom and later other providers — was where the conversation happened. At its peak it carried hundreds of messages a day, with a mix of beginner questions, advanced technical discussion, bug reports, job postings, and the occasional fierce argument about Macromedia's product decisions.

Director Online (directoronline.com), run by Zac Belado, became one of the primary web resources for tutorials, code samples, and news. UpdateStage followed a similar model. The Lingo Cookbook, the various editions of Gary Rosenzweig's books, and JT Thompson and Sam Gottlieb's Macromedia Director Lingo Workshop formed a de facto curriculum for anyone learning the platform seriously.

The LingoWorkshop itself — the site you are reading now — was part of this ecosystem, providing Shockwave demos, source code, and tools to a community that was hungry for practical examples. Sites like these were the Stack Overflow of their day: places where hard-won knowledge was shared freely, often by people doing it purely out of a sense of community obligation.

There were also in-person gatherings. The Macromedia User Conference (MUC) ran for several years in San Francisco and was the main annual gathering for Director developers. Smaller regional groups formed in major cities. Macromedia itself maintained a relationship with the community that, whatever its frustrations, was more direct and human than what most developers experience with large software companies today.

When Director's commercial decline became apparent in the early 2000s, the community did not dissolve — it contracted. The mailing lists kept running. The forums moved to new platforms. Some developers switched to Flash, others to Unity or HyperCard successors, others into web development. But a core group remained, partly out of loyalty, partly because Director still did things that nothing else did as well, and partly because communities, once formed, tend to persist even when the thing that formed them has moved on.

Notable Works Made in Director

Director left its fingerprints on an enormous range of cultural and commercial work across roughly two decades. Some highlights:

Totally Gorgeous (1995) - An interactive multimedia CD-Rom based on the best-selling book Real Gorgeous by Kaz Cooke developed here in Melbourne.

Myst (1993) — Cyan's atmospheric puzzle adventure was one of the best-selling computer games of the 1990s and became the defining example of what Director-authored CD-ROM entertainment could achieve. Its success accelerated the CD-ROM boom and demonstrated that Director could be the engine behind a genuinely mass-market product. Riven (1997) was similarly built in Director.

The Residents — Freak Show (1994) and Gingerbread Man (1994) — The avant-garde music group The Residents embraced Director early and produced some of the most artistically ambitious interactive CD-ROMs of the era. These titles demonstrated that Director was a legitimate creative medium, not just a business tool.

Puppet Motel (1995) — Laurie Anderson's collaboration with Hsin-Chien Huang is among the most significant artist-made interactive works of the decade, and was built in Director. It exemplified the medium's potential as an expressive platform for artists rather than simply a delivery mechanism for content.

Museum kiosks — Countless museums around the world installed Director-powered kiosks throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Many are still running, quietly, on hardware tucked behind display cases — a testament both to Director's stability as a runtime and to the institutional inertia that keeps working technology in place long past its expected lifespan.

Star Trek: The Next Generation okudagrams — As noted in the main text, Director-authored animations appeared on the LCARS display screens of the Enterprise. For many viewers, their first experience of "interactive computer graphics" was unknowingly a Director movie playing on a television set.

Shockwave games — During the peak Shockwave years (roughly 1997–2004), there was a significant ecosystem of browser-based games built in Director. Titles from studios like Blizzard (early web experiments), as well as countless independent developers, populated game portals and magazine websites. The quality ranged from rudimentary to genuinely impressive 3D experiences.