Adobe Ships Director 11

• By David Nagel
• 03/25/08

Adobe has released Director 11, the first major update to the company's multimedia authoring tool in about four years. The new version expands 3D features with a new physics engine and new DirectX support and also introduces parity between JavaScript and Lingo for scripting. The new version supports Mac OS X (Intel only) and Windows.

Widely used in education for training, simulations, interactive instruction, and game-based learning, Director is the 20-year-old titan of Web and desktop authoring Adobe acquired when it bought out Macromedia. The latest release is not a radical departure from previous major releases of the software. It continues essentially along an unchanged course, focusing on highly interactive application and visual development for gaming and electronic learning.

Version 11 adds support for Intel-based Macs and Vista and also introduces several new features and enhancements, including support for the latest 3D hardware, expanded DirectX support, and a new physics engine called the AEGIA PhysX Engine. It also offers enhanced integration with Flash, including support for Flash Video.

Other new features in Director 11 include:

• Unicode support;
• Improved font rendering with sub-pixel anti-aliasing;
• Bitmap filters for effects;
• Script effects; and
• An improved script editing environment.

For developers, one of the more major advancements in version 11 is vastly expanded JavaScript support. Adobe representatives told us that JavaScript now has parity with Lingo in the latest release--a change that was designed to alleviate the burden on developers who author in multiple environments and do not want to have to "switch gears" when coming back into Director.

Director 11 sells for $299 for educators and $99 for students. The student edition, according to Adobe, is exactly the same as the full version except that content created in it can't be sold for profit. The retail version of Director 11 runs $999. Volume licensing is also available. Director 11 and Shockwave both run on Mac OS X and Windows. The Mac version of Director is not a Universal Binary. It runs only on Intel-based Macs. A 30-day trial version is available here.

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Proposals for articles and tips for news stories, as well as questions and comments about this publication, should be submitted to David Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.

About the Author

David Nagel is editorial director, education for 1105 Media's Public Sector Media Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal. A 22-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art and business publications.

He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at or follow him on Twitter at @THEJournalDave (K-12) or @CampusTechDave (higher education).