Objectives

From the Course Objectives, recall that students should be able to:

• effectively author hypertext, hypermedia or multimedia works,
  
• critique software and hardware systems in this area, considering functionality, interface, quality of presentation, and other important criteria.

From the Outline we see that learning about authoring and virtual reality are the crucial points of focus. Students should:

• understand high level standards and frameworks for multimedia,
  
• know the history of development of presentation and authoring systems,
  
• be familiar with the capabilities of Virtus WalkThru,
  
• be familiar with the capabilities of Superscape,
  
• be familiar with the capabilities of Director,
  
• be able to program using Authorware
  
  
  1. To see how an authoring language like Authorware allows fairly rapid development of interactive multimedia software (in contrast to "traditional" programming languages like C).
     
  2. To be familiar with the "icon-based" programming paradigm employed in Authorware.
     
  3. To learn the functions of most of the icons in Authorware (you will also learn the functions of the icons in the demo.)
     
  4. To understand the "flowline" approach to program execution flow in Authorware (as opposed, to example, the "score" approach in Director.)
     
  5. To be familiar with the two "modes" provided in Authorware (Presentation and Design).
     
  6. To be understand how Authorware provides the ability to create user interactions.
     

Note: Since Authorware is such an important part of this unit, you should expect 2-3 questions on it in the Quiz.

Hierarchy

• Home: Table of Contents
• More General: Assignment 6
• Previous: Issues
• Next: Readings
• More Detail: ---