>At 2:45 PM +1100 3/15/2000, Russell Allen wrote:
>>AGREE at CarltonFields.com wrote:
>>>Squeak is an ultimately extensible mature development environment,
>>>providing pixel-for-pixel machine independence with full multi-media
>>>capability across ALL modern platforms.
>>
>>Almost :)
>>
>>Comparing Squeak to such multimedia authoring tools such as iShell, GLPro
>>and Director (and, yes, Hypercard :),  Squeak has some amazing abilities,
>>but also lacks some features which the other tools seem to take for granted.

<much justified praise of Squeak snipped>

>Such features it has lacked that I wanted, I have always been able to
>build for it.  That's part of what makes it such a fun
>object-de-hack.  If you find something missing, you might find it
>equally rewarding to provide yourself.

Umm, that's not really the point I was trying to make.

Certainly Squeak has some good point from a multimedia authoring point of
view, in particular:

* cross platform
* free (in $ terms)
* open and flexible

However, it also has some bad points, which I was trying to point out.

In the end, the opensource mantra "code it yourself" doesn't wash for
basics.  Those *must* be available without coding, otherwise only
programmers will be using Squeak.

I want to be able to use Squeak for those kinds of multimedia programs for
which I would otherwise use something such as iShell (which is also
freeish, though not open).  iShell, for example, has a drag-and-drop
interface and, through Quicktime, can display a wide variety of file types
and fades/transitions quickly and simply.  Setting up interactions between
buttons and movies and audio etc is very easy and completely without coding.

There are multimedia people on this list - I'm trying to get an idea of
what they think is necessary to move Squeak to the level where it can be
used by someone who uses an authoring tool for multimedia, where Squeak
doesn't require them to code functionality themselves, only tie the
existing functionality to their own content.

:)
Russell

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Russell Allen

russell.allen at firebirdmedia.com

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