ODD open stack behavior

[Thomas J McGrath III]

Ken,

I put together an interactive CD for a company for their new product 
launch. In the CD is 14 chapters that each have multiple pages in them. 
On each page there are around 10 to 15 links, each link is to an area 
of content supplied by that links author. Since I had no prior way of 
knowing what content was to be provided by each person I set up a 
series of windows(substacks) to handle the content. Some people 
provided the content for multiple areas. Some provided Excel charts, 
some word docs and still others powerpoint files. There were also a 
couple of movies and links to web sites, etc. Some of the content 
turned out to be hundreds of slides but the engine was able to handle 
all of the content.

The main stack with chapters and pages has voiceovers and can be 
navigated sequentially or via a chapter menu. The links are set up 
before hand to a corresponding substack which then each substack is 
handled by replacing or adding to the contents of a corresponding 
folder and the type of content for that link is handled accordingly.

I spent my first few weeks learning Rev and then spent a month writing 
and designing the 'engine' to handle all of this expected content (it 
didn't come in until Christmas). I then had to wait for content to come 
in so I tested and cleaned up the CD. The engine done, I then only had 
to do some conversions(powerpoint to pngs, etc) on content and pop them 
in the right folders. This way the engine could be tested and changed 
and I was not concerned with what the content was or when it arrived.

The final CD is 300 megs. and has hundreds of links plus a downloadable 
set of emulator demos for the new product. It runs on Windows 98, 2000, 
XP home, XP Pro, Macintosh OS9 and Macintosh OSX.

Not bad for only just buying REV (October) and learning it and putting 
out a multiple platform interactive CD. In the end I think there were 
over a couple thousand chunks of content that had to fit together 
seamlessly into an engine that would know how to handle them regardless 
of what or how many there were.

Since the start I now feel a little bit comfortable with REV and enjoy 
my REV coffee mug and long sleeve t-shirt. But most of all I have 
really enjoyed this list. I recognize some of the names here from my 
old Supercard days and everyone has been very patient with me and has 
helped me beyond knowing. I only hope I can give back what was given so 
freely to me.

Thanks to you all,


Tom




On Jan 11, 2004, at 2:54 AM, Ken Ray wrote:

>> I have a stack with hundreds of substacks.
>
> Just curious... why do you have hundreds of substacks?
>
> Ken Ray
> Sons of Thunder Software
> Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
> Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
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>
>

Macintosh PowerBook G-4 OSX 10.3.1, OS 9.2.2, 1.25 GHz, 512MB RAM, Rev 
2.1.2


Advanced Media Group
Thomas J McGrath III	• 2003 •	3mcgrath at adelphia.net
220 Drake Road, Bethel Park, PA 15102