Engagement without interactivity
Searching and being searchable
Technical interactivity
Engagement and interactivity using just one page
Interactivity with two or more pages
Forums, message boards, and chat
Shockwaave for Authorware
Jeff Williamson
Northern Virginia Community College
www.nvcc.edu/home/nvwillj/html-engagement/
nvwillj@nvcc.edu
Interactivity with Javascript
Shockwave is one name given to several flavors of plug-ins from Macromedia corporation, a long time industry leader in multimedia authoring software. The different types of Shockwave includeShockwave for Flash, a vector graphics-based animation application with some basic features for interactivity and a moderate learning curve
Shockwave for Director, a pre-web industry standard multimedia authoring application with extensive interactivity and a steep learning curve
Shockwave for Authorware, a pre-web industry standard educational authoring application with good interactivity and a moderate learning curve.
The ubiquitous "Get Shockwave" buttons on the net usually lead the eager to a general version of Shockwave that displays Flash and Director pieces but not Authorware pieces. Likewise, the Authorware Shockwave plug in does not support Flash and Director pieces.
Furthermore...they've gone through some upgrades so that early Shockwave plug-ins don't support later Shockwave pieces.
So Shockwave is nothing to use on a general site, even if there's some promise of a Java-based conversion or if Netscape pre-installs Shockwave on its 4-whatever browsers - both of these often-mentioned solutions are riddled with problems. Don't use Shockwave for general sites.
However if you have some sort of interactive delivery need that can only be done in Flash, Director, or Authorware, and/or if your web site will go to a very controlled audience, like an intranet, then Shockwave might be the thing for you.
What does what?
| Director | Multimedia authoring. Extensive control over all aspects of multimedia, particularly video, sound, and animation controls. Reportedly steep learning curve. Use this if you need the whole nine yards of interactive multimedia like you might get on a CD-ROM. |
| Flash | Vector-based graphics animation program. Optimized for the web. Use this if you really need to have something move and can't do it with standard web tools. |
| Authorware | Education and testing. More built-in interactions than Director, less control over multimedia elements, which are imported as-is. |
To deliver Shockwave pieces over the web, your users need to have the appropriate Shockwave plug-in installed (remember there are at least two versions) and your server needs to have Shockwave extensions installed. The NOVA server has these, and most of our browsers in this lab have the Shockwave for Authorware plug in installed, so the links below should work:
Authorware overview - This piece, an Authorware program exported in Shockwave, provides a general overview of basic display, animation, and interaction techniques. It is intended to generally show users how Authorware works; it is not a step-by-step tutorial.A partial mockup of a web site for the Department of Defense - school project using Shockwave for Authorware (requires Shockwave for Authorware plug-in)
Authorware information page - some links with Authorware information.