DreamCard Review-PCPLUS

sanke at hrz.uni-kassel.de sanke at hrz.uni-kassel.de
Thu Dec 23 07:41:05 EST 2004


Paul Salyers wrote:

<I'm a formal VB user and will most likely switch to Revolution. The main 
<problem I'm having is to make a program web interactive it will cost 
<another $79. I wish Revolution would make a web page object like VB has. 
<Oh-well so far all else is better. I like the more English commands here.

<Paul Salyers

A number of other moderately priced multimedia authoring systems offer "web
objects". Runrev should indeed consider to integrate a web control, too.
Purchasing and adding Chipp's altBrowser would be one way to achieve this. It
would impair Chipp’s “earned” profit, but maybe he can strike a good deal.

Two examples, which also offer other features some of us would like to have in
Metacard/Revolution:


1. "Neobook" <www.neosoftware.com> 

"Neobook 4" - 199 US$ -   includes a web object.

"Neobook 5" - will be released in January - has improved web capabilities:

"The compiler now supports HTML files! Simply place an HTML file inside a Web
Browser object, and the compiler will parse the file and include any linked
images, other HTML files, etc. automatically. HTML content does not need to be
extracted for viewing."

2. "Multimedia Builder" <www.mediachance.com> includes a web object, too

Multimedia Builder sells for $ 60 US - including a MP3 license and
$ 45 US   without (but with the web object).

Additional features of  Multimedia Builder that would be nice to have in
Revolution (quotations from the website):

"From this version you can place any rectangular object over the Video object!
Video still plays OnTop, but it's now "masked" with the objects placed over the
video rectangle."

"Added "Web Archive (*.mht file) to HTML object and Browser function."

"Integrated macromedia Flash object - you can control MMB script from Macromedia
FLASH!"--

===========

Both programs have a very much usable IDE and a script language - which, for
that matter, of course do not compare to the potential of XTalk languages, but
offer  low-end alternatives for beginning programmers with a restricted budget.

I have licensed Multimedia Builder for use in my programming classes and use it
alongside with Revolution. Since Runrev has given up to offer a free "Starter
Edition", quite a number of students - who just want to have some more options
than with Power Point or Ezedia - choose Multimedia  Builder.

It should also be noted that MMB with its integrated web object and as a
full-fledged authoring system with its low price is a very affordable program –
and accompanied by a number of additional programs like “RealDraw Pro” (with
excellent features to produce transparent graphics) or Photo correction
utilities that are also low-priced. Check out their lively website and
discussion list.

Unfortunately both Neobook and MMB are only available for Windows.

--Wilhelm Sanke
<www.sanke.org/MetaMedia>





 				


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