Choosing An Authoring Tool

CHOOSING AN AUTHORING TOOL
 Best case - choose the tool that best fits the job.
 Worst case - you must know which tools will at
least “get the job done.”
 Note : Authoring tools are constantly being

improved by their makers, who add new features
and increase performance with upgrade
development cycles of six months to a year.
 So, know each tools and then choose the best
one….
MAIN FEATURES OF AUTHORING TOOLS
 Editing Features
 Organizing Features
 Programming Features
 Interactivity Features
 Performance Tuning Features
 Playback Features
 Delivery Features
 Cross-Platform Features
 Internet Playability
Editing Features
 Should have editing features.
 Ie. The elements of multimedia—images,

animations, text, digital audio and MIDI music,
and video clips—need to be created, edited, and
converted to standard file formats.
Organizing Features
 The organization, design, and production process for
multimedia involves storyboarding and flowcharting.
 Some authoring tools provide a visual flowcharting
system or overview facility for illustrating your
project’s.
 Storyboards or navigation diagrams can also help
organize a project.
 Eg. Dreamweaver include tools that create helpful
diagrams and links among the pages of a web site.
Programming Features
 Multimedia authoring systems offer one or more of
the following approaches, as explained in the
following paragraphs:
1. Visual programming with icons, and
objects
2. Programming with a scripting language
3. Programming with traditional languages, such
as Basic or C
4. Document development tools
 Visual programming with icons or objects is perhaps
the simplest and easiest authoring process.
 E.g. If you want to play a sound or put a picture into
your project, just drag the element’s icon into the
playlist—or drag it away to delete it.
 Authoring tools that offer a very high level language
(VHLL) or interpreted scripting environment for
navigation control and for enabling user inputs
or goal-oriented programming languages—such as
Flash, LiveCode, Director, and ToolBook—are more
powerful by definition.
 The more commands and functions provided in the
scripting language, the more powerful the authoring
system.
 With scripts, you can perform computational tasks;
sense and respond to user input; create character,
icon, and motion animations; launch other
applications; and control external multimedia devices.
Interactivity Features
 Interactivity empowers the end users of your project
by letting them control the content and flow of
information.
 Authoring tools should provide one or more levels of
interactivity:
Simple branching, which offers the ability to go to another
section of the multimedia production (via an activity such as a
keypress, mouse click, or expiration of a timer)
Conditional branching, which supports a go-to based on the
results of IF-THEN decisions or events.
Performance Tuning Features
 Complex multimedia projects require exact
synchronization of events
I.e. for example, the animation of an exploding balloon with its
surround sound effect.
 Performance varies widely among the different
computers used for multimedia development and
delivery.
 In many cases, you will need to use the authoring
tool’s own scripting language or custom programming
facility to specify timing and sequence on systems
with different (faster or slower) processors.
Playback Features
 Your authoring system should let you build a
segment or part of your project and then quickly
test it as if the user were actually using it.
Delivery Features
 Delivering your project may require building a run-
time version of the project using the multimedia
authoring software.
 A run-time version or standalone allows your project
to play back without requiring the full authoring
software and all its tools and editors.
 Often, the run-time version does not allow users to
access or change the content, structure, and
programming of the project.
Cross-Platform Features
 It is also increasingly important to use tools that
make transfer across platforms easy.
 For many developers, the Macintosh remains the
multimedia authoring platform of choice, but 80
percent of that developer’s target market may be
Windows platforms.
 If you develop on a Macintosh, look for tools that
provide a compatible authoring system for Windows
or offer a run-time player for the other platform.
Internet Playability
 Because the Web has become a significant delivery
medium for multimedia, authoring systems typically
provide a means to convert their output so that it can
be delivered within the context of HTML or DHTML,
either with special plug-ins or by embedding Java,
JavaScript, or other code structures in the HTML
document.
 Test your authoring software for Internet delivery
before you build your project.
 Be sure it performs on the Web as you expect!
 Best example for Authoring Tools is
ADOBE FLASH
ADOBE
DREAMWEAVER

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CHOOSING AN AUTHORING TOOL

 Note : Authoring tools are constantly being

 Performance Tuning Features

 Ie. The elements of multimedia—images,

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