What's New

Timed Text Entry with Random Audio AW71 (12,549K) An author recently asked about developing a timed text entry interaction where users would type in lyrics from audio files played concurrently with the interaction. This example also reports the user's name, email, time score, and the text entry value that they enter. Three WAV file snippets make this example a fairly large (12.5MB) download. - Mike (1/20/07)

Time Savers & Development Tools

Fast Form Maker 1.0 AW4/AW5/AW60/AW65 (70K) Updated: New Versions! A more comprehensive example of code I use to develop text entry form interactions quickly. This file creates a multi-field form interaction that includes tab and shift-tab as well as clickable field navigation. The development interface is also extremely fast and flexible, allowing the developer to create new fields by simply drawing rectangles in display icons. - Mike (4.17.03)

PixelMetrics AW4/AW5 (23K) This is one of my all-time favorite utilities. It's very simple, but very handy. PixelMetrics creates a small, movable dialog box that displays the current cursor position as well as the length and width of a selected area. It may not sound like much, but its very handy for developing complicated user interfaces and measuring the pixel dimensions of images.

Examples, Tips & Tricks

ANSI Character Set AW4 (5K) I got tired of losing my printed ANSI Character Map, and a question related to the ANSI character set recently came up on the AWARE list recently. This application is really nothing more than a single calc icon, that creates a "Character Map" of the ANSI character set, and formats it as an HTML table and opens the doucment in your default browser. Useless? Maybe...but it's kinda fun. - Mike (5.25.00)

Capturing Double-Clicks AW4 (9K) Demonstrates how to evaluate whether a user single-clicks or double-clicks on an object (or on no object), and which (if any) object was clicked upon. - Mike (9/13/99)

Centering Application & Covering Background AW4 (160K) This is a quick-and-dirty example of centering a 640x480 application window on a monitor set at a higher resolution. It also covers the user's desktop using the Cover.u32. There are much nicer and more eloquent examples of how to accomplish this, but I cannot remember exactly where they are. My guess would be that the Macromedia site has a show me on this (probably on the CD too, but I'm too "lazy" to look :-)

Changing Labels on Buttons AW4 (9K) This file simulates changing button titles in real time. Buttons are simulated by using bitmap graphics of buttons in various states, and embedding variables in text objects on top of the "buttons."

Clickable, Multiple Text Entry Fields AW4 (100K) This file adds a new feature to multiple text entry fields using one Text Entry interaction. This file allows the user to navigate forwards and backwards through the entry fields using tab and shift-tab, and also allows them to click on any field. The focus moves to the field clicked on, and the last text entry is saved in the field moved from. It'll make more sense when you download it and pull it apart. - Mike (3/5/99) Note: If you are looking for a tool to assist with rapid development of multiple-field form interactions, I suggest that you download the Fast Form Maker (see description above).

Controlling Display of Text and Buttons AW4/AW5 (18K) A nuts-n-bolts example of how to control and align the placement of buttons with text strings of varying sizes and lengths. - Mike (7/21/99)

Custom Certificate using RTF Template File on Internet/Intranet AW7 (9K) Basic demonstration of how to read and modify an RTF template file on an internet/intranet web site, and produce a customized certificate. - Mike (7/18/05)

Detecting Right Mouse Clicks AW4 (8K) A simple yet challenging problem: How do I get my hot spot to resond to right clicks as well as left, and how do I tell the difference? Here's one A4W solution that you can modify to work for you... - Mike (c.3/20/99)

Detecting Right Mouse Clicks (enhanced) AW4 (27K) A response to an question about my example below. This example shows you how to respond to left and right clicks by emulating Win95 desktop icons... - Mike (4/2/99)

Display Variable Images AW5, AW60, AW65 (240K) This image viewer example file demonstrates how to display multiple images using a single display icon and a simple navigation structure. - Mike (4.22.03)

Displaying Formatted Text AW4 (25K) This example shows how to use RTF-type markup tags in a text file to display text using various formatting styles. Marked-up text is read or typed into the application and parsed sequentially into pre-defined variables to display to the user. There are many limitations to this method, but it is nearly as extensible as the Author's tenacity.

Displaying RTF Objects AW65 (22K) Demonstrates basic techniques for creating, displaying, hiding, and erasing multiple RTF objects using the RTFObj.U32. This file randomly selects a number of RTF files and displays them vertically in random order. I will be updating this file shortly to incorporate pagination between the multiple RTF file objects, so check back soon! - Mike (2/18/04)

Drawing While Dragging AW4/AW5 (18K) Again, this is a very simple example that I developed in reponse to a request to demonstrate how to get Authorware to draw a line connecting two objects while one of the objects is being dragged around. In this case, we get Authorware to draw lines representing wires connecting leads to a meter. - Mike (7/4/99)

Encrypt Password Entry A4W, A5W, A60, A65 (35K) Simulates a password entry dialog box. User's text entry is replaced with bullets (alt+0149). In this demonstration, the unencrypted value of the text entry is returned. This example file can be easily modified to implement as an encrypted text entry interaction.

Extended Character Generator AW4 (17K) One of my favorite exercises. In response to an AWARE List post asking for a way to allow non-english speaking end users to access the extended characters on a keyboard, providing the unique accents and symbols of their languages. I developed this extended character palette which inserts selected characters into a text entry field.

Free-hand Drawing Tool AW4 (5K) This was my first crack at creating a free-hand drawing tool in Authorware. It's okay, but Grace Daminato demonstrated a far superior application at TAAC98. Back to the free-hand drawing board for me, I guess ;-)

Irregularly-shaped Hot Spots AW4 (6K) This very simple example demonstrates one method of using a transparent object to emulate an irregularly-shaped hot spot.

Make Button Active on Text Entry AW4/AW5 (12K) Someone recently asked how to make a button become active only after a user has begun to type into a text entry box (e.g. a "Done" button or "Enter" button). This example file shows you how to activate a button (or other interaction object) after the user begins to type into a text box. - Mike (12.16.01)

Mark Completed Sections AW65 (21K) This example file demonstrates a method for displaying checkmarks (or any other completion graphic) next to section headings in a multi-section presentation file. When a user completes a section of content (by viewing all pages) a checkmark appears next to the section name.. - Mike (10.09.03)

Mark Visited Links AW4 (15K) This is one method of marking visited links in Authorware. This file was upgraded from an A3W file, and uses delimited text strings to track and check the states of visited and unvisited links. Variable tracking is displayed for purposes of demonstration.

Movable Text Entry Dialog Box AW4, AW5, AW60, AW65 (34K) Many moons ago someone asked if it was possible to create a text entry dialog box that would allow the end user to click on the title bar and drag it around the screen. I said "yes" and came up with this little ditty...

Moving and Controlling the Cursor AW4 (38K) This file (movecsr.a4p) displays one method to allow the application designer to wrest control of the cursor from the user, and to move the cursor to a specified location on the screen at a given speed. This technique can be used and modified to create complex interactions and demonstrations for simulated applications without animating a graphic of a cursor. This demonstration uses budapi.u32 which is not included, but is available from Gary Smith's site at www.mods.com.au.

Multiple User Router & Bookmarking AW4 (24K) This example file has been upgraded to demonstrate how to use a router file to route multiple users to bookmarked locations in a child application. Warning: This is crude nuts-n-bolts stuff! But I hope it helps. - Mike (4/19/99)

Pivot Table Emulation AW4 (7K) I couldn't figure out exactly what to call this. This exercise demonstrates how to emulate rotating (pivoting) a tabular row into a tabular column. It makes extensive use of cursor positions, Line() functions, and trigonometry to draw a rotating "rectangle" as the user drags the row from the horizontal to vertical position. - Mike (8/4/99)

Progress Bar AW4/AW5 (10K) This file demonstrates one method develop, display, and update a progress bar. This example, by necessity, also demonstrates advanced methods for navigation. Also managed to fix some navigational issues in the A5W version. A4W users will notice a "feature" when using the "Next Section" and "Previous Section" buttons from time to time. This feature has been remedied in the A5W version. - Mike (11.30.01)

Randomizing Quiz Questions AW4/AW5 (21K) This is a high-level example of logic that you can use to select and randomize quiz question sfrom a pool of questions (in this case the pool of questions is contained in an external .txt file). The logic in this example can be fairly easily incorporated into the quiz navigation contained in the "Controlling Display of Text and Buttons" example (see above). - Mike (01.22.02)

Resizing the Application Window at Run Time AW4 (8K) This updated file (resizwin.a4p) displays one method to allow users to resize the runtime Authorware application window much in the same manner as they would resize any other Windows-compliant application window. New features demonstrate moving objects within the resized window, and redrawing the window in real time or on MouseUp. Last updated 10/17/98.

Simple Encryption Exercise AW4 (7K) This example file simply demonstrates how to modify ASCII values in a string to generate a simple encryption routine. - Mike (4/20/99)

Simulating Typed Text AW4/AW5 (10K) A recent question on the AWARE list asked how to make text appear on the screen as if it is being typed by the application (including typing sounds). Several suggestions were made regarding making an .AVI or animated .GIF file to simulate the text entry, but plain ol' everyday code can achieve the same effect with far less overhead to your application. It ain't pretty, but it's free. ;-) - Mike (12.12.01)

Slider-based Navigation AW4 (24K) A simple example of how to construct a slider interaction, and use it to navigate between pages in a framework. Challenge: I fell asleep at the switch in this example and I challenged the Authorware community to fix my error. Challenge Solved: See what was wrong... - Mike (4/21/99)

Swapping library files AW4 (63K) A recent thread on the AWARE list discussed methods of delivering content in multiple languages. I had to shoot off my big mouth and say that I had heard a method in which the external library files of an application were swapped and renamed on the fly to present the content in multiple languages. Somebody else said "Yeah?...How?" so I was forced to put my money where my mouth is. This example demonstrates a mehtod to make this happen. Hope you find it helpful.

Varying Animation Speed Dynamically AW4 (19K) A very basic exercise demonstrating how to control the speed of an animated object. User increases and decreases speed of the Earth as it circles the sun.