Upgrading to Director 11

(note: this information is also valid for Director 11.5)

Adobe released Director 11 update on March 25th, 2008. This new version includes support for Windows Vista and Macintosh computers with Intel processors, as well as thousands of bug fixes and dozens of new features.

Director 11 is the first major release of Director in more than 4 years, and the first release by Adobe. Several changes were made under the hood. Movies authored in previous versions of Director need to be converted in order to be used with Director 11. As far as Xtras are concerned, the new version uses Unicode strings internally and no longer supports older programming interfaces, so existing Xtras need to be adapted to work correctly with Director 11, Vista and MacOSX Tiger and Leopard. In the case of Macintosh Xtras it is not even possible to use Xtras authored for Director MX 2004 and earlier in Director 11, as the new version uses Universal Binary bundles and XCode, and will not load older plugins compiled with CodeWarrior and PowerPC/CFM code format.

The release of a new version of Director made it necessary for us to port, adapt and retest all functions of every Xtra extensively, to make sure compatibility issues have not been introduced. Xtras released before March/2008 were not certified for operation in this version of Director, and will not work correctly with it. Some of our Xtras include a version number checking and will not operate under Director 11 automatically. Others (like ShapeShifter3D 1.7) will not operate correctly, generating an error when the Xtra is started.

Tabuleiro worked with Adobe and pre-release versions of Director 11 for the past 6 months in order to upgrade our products to work with Director 11 where technically possible, and new versions of our Xtras are available immediately. ShapeShifter3D has been discontinued, as it relies on w3D export libraries previously supplied by Macromedia and no longer available for Mac Universal Binaries and Windows Vista. For the other products, the appropriate minimum versions to work with Director 11 are:

Mpeg Advance Xtra 2.0

WebXtra 5.0

Arca Database Xtra 3.0

Audio Xtra 6.0

vList Xtra 2.0

ShockFiler Xtra 2.0

TreeView Xtra 4.0

TextCruncher Xtra 5.0

The latest releases also include in the download package versions certified for operation with Director 8.5.1, MX and MX 2004. In Windows the Xtra will detect the version of Director automatically, and will handle Unicode/non-Unicode data accordingly. This procedure guarantees a smoother transition for existing customers that are not updating to Director 11 immediately, or still need to deliver projects for older platforms using older versions of Director. The Windows installers also include the files necessary to cross publish Mac projectors and revised instructions for installation. Please notice that a new serial number is needed. Upgrades cost EUR €49 per Xtra and are valid for both Mac and Windows.

The recommended upgrade procedure for Director 11 is:

a) Check the KNOW LIMITATIONS and UPGRADE technote for each Xtra you plan to upgrade, to verify current restrictions that may apply to your movies. Technotes can be found at our SUPPORT center: choose the Xtra you are planning to upgrade in the VIEW TECHNOTES selector.

b) Install Director 11.

c) Download current versions of the Xtras you need, according to the table above.

d) Please follow the instructions in the installation page of the documentation for each Xtra carefully. The instructions have been revised for Director 11, and include the proper installation paths to enable cross platform publishing using the Universal Binary Xtras on Windows.

e) Include information about each new Xtra to the xtrainfo.txt file, according to instructions in the installation docs.

f) Open your movies in Director 11 and go through the "Upgrade Movies" process that will convert strings to the new UTF8 format. Mpeg Advance Xtra castmembers will convert cuepoint data the first time they are loaded, and vList will do on-the-fly conversion of string data if necessary.

g) If your movie is available for Shockwave, follow the instructions on the documentation for each Xtra to update your Shockwave packages and download locations. Update the DOWNLOAD IF NEEDED information to point to the new Xtra, as mentioned in this technote.