AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 Standard Edition - Last Minute Notes
Copyright © 2005 Indigo Rose Corporation.
All rights reserved. AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 is a trademark of Indigo Rose
Corporation.
| Product Name: |
AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 Standard Edition |
| Version: |
5.0.5.0 - (what has changed?) |
| Release Date: |
October 3, 2005 |
| Distribution: |
Unauthorized distribution prohibited. See License.txt for licensing details. |
Table Of Contents
Getting Started
About AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0
What's New?
Release History
Contact Information
Microsoft HTML Help Requirements
Copyright & Trademark Notice
Thank you for using AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0! The best way to get
started quickly is to read the Getting Started user's guide. A shortcut
to the user's guide is located in the Start menu under Start ->
Programs -> Indigo Rose Corporation -> AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0
Standard.
You can also access the Getting Started guide from within AutoPlay itself, by choosing Help > Getting Started from the program menu.
If you have any questions, or need help with this product, please visit http://www.indigorose.com.
AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 is the state of the art in CD-autoplay
multimedia tools. With its intuitive workflow and drag-and-drop
objects, even absolute beginners can quickly achieve impressive
results. But despite its world-renown ease of use, AutoPlay Media
Studio is a serious development tool. In fact, it's used by thousands
of people to create everything from AutoRun/AutoPlay menus and CD
business cards, to fully interactive training applications. With
AutoPlay, your imagination is your only limit!
AutoPlay Media Studio excels at integrating diverse media types such as images, sounds, videos, text, and Flash into a single cohesive presentation. In fact, AutoPlay has been trusted to deliver rock-solid multimedia experiences to millions of people around the world. Users just like you have chosen AutoPlay Media Studio for:
- Multimedia Authoring & Application Development
- Computer Based Training (CBT) Applications
- CD-ROM AutoPlay/AutoRun Menu Systems
- Interactive Marketing Presentations
- CD Business Cards
- Much more
There are hundreds of new features and improvements - all of which were designed to make your job easier. Quite simply, there is no other multimedia authoring tool available that gives you the freedom to create fully interactive, custom software applications as quickly or as easily as AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0.
Whether you're a long-time user of our AutoPlay products or you're coming to us for the first time, get ready to be amazed. Just some of the new features in store for you include: as-you-type spell checking, integrated CD-R burning, real-time multi-channel sound mixing, text rotation, "skinable" objects, PNG image support with full alpha transparency/blending, image translucency, automatic file management and impressive "bare metal" DirectX video playback.
Behind the scenes, we completely rewrote our design environment with the input of top graphic designers, video professionals and software developers. We wanted it to work the way you do - fast, efficient and totally easy to use. It's still completely visual - point, click, drag, drop and you're ready to go. But when you want to get in there and tinker… Wow! Our new runtime engine is simply incomparable to anything else out there. With the addition of an incredibly powerful free-form "scripting" engine, there's pretty much nothing it can't handle. With over 120 high-level actions (all accessible from our new Action Wizard), creating visually impressive custom software applications is a snap.
More than ever before, AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 empowers you to
create. Use it to build jaw-dropping AutoRun Menus and CD Business
Cards, or use it for Computer Based Training, Application Development,
Demos, Walkthroughs, Presentations and just about
any other multimedia task you can dream up. Don't be held back by your
choice of tools - if you can dream it, you can do it with AutoPlay
Media Studio 5.0.
5.0.5.0 - October 3, 2005
New Features:
Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where Autoplay was not recognizing files created with AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 Professional Edition.
5.0.4.0 - September 12, 2005
New Features:
Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where the On Stop event was being fired when a video completed.
- Fixed a bug where the program would sometimes hang at runtime when the background music looped.
- Fixed some problems with the button editor when exporting 8-bit images.
- Fixed a bug that could cause crashes both at design-time and runtime when using 8 bit images.
- Fixed a bug where using the keyboard to select items in the File Browse dialog resulted in more then one item being selected.
5.0.3.0 - May 26, 2005
New Features:
- New Action: Application.ExitScript - Breaks out of the current block of script being executed.
- New Action: String.AbbreviateFilePath - Returns an abbreviated file path given a maximum number of characters.
- New Action: String.GetFormattedSize - Given a number of bytes, returns a formatted string that converts to bytes, KB, MB or GB and optionally inserts commas.
- Made it so that function errors in callback functions would be reported in the same manner as all other functional errors.
- Made it so that if jumping or navigating to the current page, that page would not be added to the page history. This means that in the page history you should not have two of the same pages in a row.
Fixes:
- Made it so that File.OpenURL uses the default shell verb for the URL instead of forcing it to use "open".
- Made it so that if File.Open fails with the "open" shell verb it drops through and tries the default shell verb for that file type.
- Made it so that if File.OpenEmail fails with the "open" shell verb, it will drop through and try using the default shell verb to open the email message.
- Fixed a bug where when using the browse for folder option in the Action Wizard, if you selected CD_ROOT the returned folder value was incorrect.
- Fixed a bug where a Video Object's mouse click sound would not be heard until the second time you clicked on the object.
- Fixed a bug where no confirmation dialog would be shown if you opened another project file while there were unsaved changes in the current project.
- Fixed a bug where the undo/redo feature would not work in some areas under the Project menu.
- Fixed a bug where if the control panel style for a video object was missing at design time, its properties would display incorrectly.
- Fixed a bug where dragging and dropping an audio file onto an object would create the Audio.Load action, but leave out the escaping backslashes in the file's path.
- Fixed a bug in the Grid Preferences where if you specified zero as either the cell size or block size, AutoPlay Media Studio would crash when the grid was enabled.
- Fixed a bug relating to page inheritance and objects where if you renamed a parent page, its objects would not be found on the child pages.
- Made it so that the working folder argument in the File.Run action is expanded for relative paths.
- Fixed a bug where the runtime would not work on systems without IE 4.0 installed. Typically this only affected old Windows 95 systems. Now it delays loading WININET.DLL which will cause it to run properly.
- Made the no progress option on the self-extracting launcher work properly.
- Fixed a bug where the Label object's custom sounds would not work if the "Rename Resource Files" option was used at build time.
- Fixed a bug where the save state was not being updated properly after undoing or redoing project actions.
- Fixed a bug where double-clicking on a project file to open it would sometimes cause the "up one folder" icon to not be created in the gallery tab of the Select File Dialog.
5.0.2.0 - December 7, 2004
New Features:
- Added a new variable called "_NoExitScriptOnPageJump". If true, script in an event will continue to be executed after a Page.Jump or Page.Navigate action is called. If false, the execution of the script in the event will halt after Page.Jump or Page.Navigate is called. This variable is false by default. This variable has been put in to provide a way for applications created before version 5.0.1.0 to maintain compatibility with the new changes made to the runtime engine. As a rule, this variable should be false for all new projects.
Fixes:
5.0.1.0 - December 2, 2004
New Features:
- Added GIF image support. Supports GIF transparency. Does NOT support animated GIFs.
- Added LZW-compressed TIF (TIFF) image support.
- NEW ACTION: Application.ExitScript. This action causes the script to return from the current block. For example, once Application.ExitScript is called any script in the same event after that call will not be executed. See the Help file for more details.
- Added an optional argument to Application.Exit that allows you to specify a process return code.
- Added a return value to File.Run. You can now get the process return code of the application that was run.
- Changed SW_NORMAL to SW_SHOWNORMAL in the scripting environment. Both values will work, but it is better to use SW_SHOWNORMAL for future compatibility.
- Made it so that the actions Application.Exit, Page.Jump and Page.Navigate will cause the script engine to return from the current block of script. For example, once Page.Jump is called any script in the same event after that call will not be executed. See the Help file for more details.
- Made it so that INIFile.SetValue will create the INI file if it does not already exist.
- Made it so that script code is now printed without a border.
- Made it so that the file "thumbs.db" is automatically removed from the CD_ROOT folder if it exists when publishing to a CD or an ISO file. Leaving this file in place could cause a very limited number of systems to browse the CD as an image CD instead of starting the AutoPlay application.
- Added a new built-in variable _IR_ProductID that is the ID string of the current Indigo Rose product. For AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 Professional is will be "AMS50P", for the Standard version it is "AMS50S".
- Made it so that the CHANNEL_BACKGROUND audio channel fires the "Finish" event when each background audio file finishes.
- Added the build-in variable _SourceFilename which is the name of the executable that was launched to start the AutoPlay application at runtime. For example "autorun.exe".
- Added a Syntax Check option to the script editor's Advanced menu. This command will perform an immediate syntax check of the script.
- Enhanced the level and detail of the script tracing in debug mode. That is, the information that is sent to the debug window if it is displayed and Debug.SetTraceMode(true) has been called.
Fixes:
- Fixed a problem in the script editor where it would sometimes not display tooltips and drop-down lists properly when displayed on a second monitor.
- Fixed a problem in the script editor with non-Western character sets. You can now choose any character set for script editing.
- Fixed a bug that would cause some fonts not to display properly at runtime if the user did not already have them installed. It was related to fonts that are implemented in multiple ttf files instead of just one.
- Fixed a bug where self-extracting AutoPlay applications would occasionally incorrectly remove the temporary folder from the system.
- Fixed a bug where tooltips would still be displayed for disabled objects.
- Fixed a bug that could cause AutoPlay Media Studio to crash if displaying or working with files that have file dates beyond 2038. Usually such files have corrupted file headers but now it will not crash.
- Fixed a bug in the Dialog.Message() action where MB_ICONSTOP was not displaying.
5.0.0.5 - June 7, 2004
New Features:
- Added support for WMA and ASF audio files.
- Made it so that files that exist anywhere off of the CD_ROOT folder will not be duplicated when selected in a select file dialog.
Fixes:
- Fixed a bug in the code editor where the wrong argument was being highlighted in the codetip when working on actions which were being called from within another actions's arguments.
- Fixed a bug where AutoPlay would crash if the startup preference was set to "last project" and AutoPlay was launched by double-clicking on a project file.
- Fixed a bug where the File | Save As command would sometimes strip characters from the end of the file name.
- Made it so that if the CD burning control cannot not be initialized you will still be able to build to a hard drive folder or create a self-extracting executable.
- Fixed a bug that could cause problems with displaying certain fonts on non-English systems.
- Fixed a bug in the String.MakePath action which incorrectly caused it to return a blank string.
- Fixed a bug where applications that used the "Always on Top" window settings would crash when running on systems with 256 color displays.
5.0.0.4 - February 27, 2004
New Features:
- Added a project importer for AutoPlay Menu Studio 3.0 projects. This feature is accessed by opening the .am3 file from File > Open. Read the section of the help file entitled "Importing AutoPlay Media Studio 3.0 Projects" for more details about the conversion process.
- Added an option to the publish to hard drive folder called "Rename Resource Files" that obscures ("hides") the filenames of your resource files during publishing. This option also allows you to rename the "AutoPlay" folder to something else during publish. See the Help file in the "Hard Drive Folder" topic for details.
- Added a feature to the Button Maker application that allows you to flip button images on the horizontal and vertical axis. This feature can be accessed from Button > Image Manipulation menu item.
- Changed the menu item Help > Technical Support > Contact Support to jump to new online ticket submission site instead of the client-side form.
- Added an "Enable AutoPlay Feature" option to the Compressed Executable publish method.
- Made it so that the _DoFlashCheck variable is initially set to false if there are no flash objects being used in the project. See the help file topic "Flash Detection in the Standard Edition" for details.
- Added in the ability to get the common Application Data folder via the Shell.GetFolder action.
Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where fonts would not appear anti-aliased on Windows 95, 98, and ME for the label, paragraph, and button objects.
- Fixed a bug where the name for buttons created by the AutoPlay Media Studio 4.0 to 5.0 project converter would sometimes not be formed properly.
- Made it so that you can rename an object to the same name with a different case. For example, you can now rename an object from "Name" to "NAme" without a data validation error.
- Fixed a bug where changing the Scroll Style of a Paragraph object using the Properties Inspector to a skin and then back to "Standard" would not properly set the style back to standard properly.
- Fixed a bug where Text objects imported from AutoPlay Media Studio 4.0 projects were not retaining their actions, as commented out script in version 5.0.
- Fixed a bug where the project size meter would sometimes not update properly after the resources were optimized.
- Fixed a bug where project specific settings for publishing were not being reset when a new document was started or opened
- Fixed a bug where disabling an object on it's On Click event would set the object state to the incorrect value. This only affected objects with the On Click event.
- Fixed a bug where the cursor would sometimes not update properly when an object's visibility state or enabled state was changed.
- Fixed a bug where hidden files or folders would not be "picked up" when publishing to a compressed executable.
- Fixed a bug where the de-selection order of objects did not match the selection order in the design environment.
- Fixed a bug where the System.GetDate function did not work (Standard Edition only).
- Fixed a bug where calling Application.Exit on a Page's On Close event or the project's On Shutdown event would cause the run time to hang.
- Fixed a resource leak that would occur when page transitions were used.
- Fixed a bug where reading very large values from the Registry (using actions) would sometimes return -99 in error.
- Fixed a bug in System.GetUserInfo where it would incorrectly return false as the IsAdmin value on some systems.
- Fixed a bug where System.GetTime() would return the incorrect time from 12:00am - 12:59am and 12:00pm - 12:59pm if the format specified was TIME_FMT_AMPM.
- Fixed a bug where tooltips would occasionally be displayed even if the object was not visible.
- Fixed a bug where the Paragraph.SetText() action would incorrectly interpret "\\n" as a newline.
5.0.0.3 - December 19, 2003
New Features:
Fixes:
- Fixed several problems introduced in 5.0.0.2 that could cause the program to crash and the runtime not to work properly.
5.0.0.2 - December 18, 2003
New Features:
- Made it so that pressing the Esc key while a video is running in full screen mode causes it to return to normal size.
- Added the ability to set the Volume Identifier when doing an ISO image build.
- Added a checkbox to the Advanced tab of the Window Settings dialog that allows you to disable the audio engine at run time if the application is run on a Windows NT 4.0 system. This enables your embedded videos to have sound at runtime. This is due to a limitation of Windows NT 4.0.
- Made it so that if you do an Application.Exit action on the project's "On Startup" event, it will immediately exit the application and not draw the page for the first time.
- Added an option to the Resource Preview page of Preferences that allows you to disable the live preview for Flash objects.
Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where double clicking a project file (.am5) to open it would sometimes not initiate the Project pane properly.
- Fixed a bug where cleaning resource folders would not work properly if the project path contained a folder named "Plugins" or "Scripts"
- Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause the design environment to crash when doing an undo or redo
- Fixed a bug in the shell control where it monitored the entire folder structure under the folder that was being displayed. This would cause it to update much to frequently. Now it just monitors the folder being displayed.
- Fixed a bug where the background music would reset the volume level when it started the next song.
- Fixed a bug where the Label Object would sometimes calculate the wrong bounding rectangle size at runtime if: a) the end user did not have the font installed or b) the label object was center or the right aligned.
- Fixed a bug where the script editor would sometimes display the wrong function in the quick help area.
- Fixed a bug where tooltips would be displayed for Button and Image objects even if they were hidden.
- Fixed a bug where objects inherited from other pages were merged with reversed Z-ordering.
- Fixed up the way the Video object's "On Finish" event is fired to better allow you to do a Video.Load action on that event.
- Fixed a bug where renaming objects at design time would sometimes not replace their references in other actions. This applied to certain Page actions.
- Fixed a bug where Application.Minimize and Application.Restore did not work as expected when running the application in the System Tray.
- Fixed a bug where performing a Window.Minimize action on the application did not work as expected when running the application in the System Tray.
- Fixed a bug where executing an Audio.Load action from the "On Audio" event when e_State = "Finish" would cause the program to hang.
- Fixed several inconsistencies in the arguments presented for actions at design time.
- Fixed a bug where a paragraph object would show the horizontal scrollbar if the horizontal scrollbar mode was set to Auto and there was no text specified for the object.
- Fixed several documentation errors.
5.0.0.1 - November 20, 2003
New Features:
- Made it so the sort-by column persists throughout the session in the built-in file browsers, if the view is in "Details" mode.
- The built-in file browsers now sort in ascending alphabetical order if the view is not in "Details" mode.
Fixes:
- Fixed a bug that would cause the design environment to crash if the page's background image was smaller then the actual page size, and it was not being stretched.
- Fixed a bug where duplicating a page and editing its actions would sometimes cause the edited actions to appear in the first page's objects.
- Fixed a bug where renaming an object would change all references to that object name, even on other pages. Now only references to that object name on the same page will be changed.
- Fixed a bug that could occur when browsing for folders.
- Fixed a bug that could cause AutoPlay applications to not work on systems that had Norton SystemWorks installed.
- Fixed a bug where applications created with AutoPlay Media Studio could show a message saying that the user had to have administrative privilidges to run it.
- Fixed a bug where new projects would strip off the characters "a", "m" and "5" from the end of the new project name.
5.0.0.0 - November 14, 2003
New Features:
Indigo Rose Corporation
123 Bannatyne Ave., Suite 200
Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3B 0R3
Web Address: http://www.indigorose.com
Sales Phone: (204) 946-0263
Sales Fax: (204) 942-3421
Sales Email: sales@indigorose.com
Technical Support:
http://support.indigorose.com
AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 uses Microsoft HTML Help as its online help system. All
the components necessary to display HTML Help are installed with any of the following:
- Microsoft Office 2000
- Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.0 or later
- Microsoft Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP
If you are having trouble accessing the help system, either install one of the
applications noted above, or run the hhupd.exe program. The hhupd.exe program
can be found on the AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 CD-ROM in the "UTILS" folder, or it can be
downloaded from the Microsoft web site at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/htmlhelp/html/hwMicrosoftHTMLHelpDownloads.asp
AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0, the AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 logo and all related
files and documentation are Copyright © 2003-2005 Indigo Rose Software Design
Corporation. All rights reserved.
AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0 is a trademark of Indigo Rose Software Design Corporation. All
other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned are the property of their
respective owners.