Adobe Director for Windows

Adobe Director is a powerful media application developed by Macromedia today part of Adobe Systems Incorporated. It enables users to build interactive applications built on top of a movie metaphor, with the whole user as the director of the movie. Originally developed for building cartoon sequences, the integration of a very easy scripting language called Lingo gave it a competitive edge over other similar programs. It can be used for a wide variety of purposes, such as building, editing, animations, video post-production and time-line monitoring. Its key features include its ability to create complex movies with multiple scenes, a fully featured track editor, drag and drop functionality, the ability to add text, jump cuts and music and the option to record everything as it happens.

Adobe initially developed the Adobe Director to complement Macromedia's other multimedia application authoring platform products such as the Video Editor and the Deluxe Movie Maker software. Initially it was a free CD-ROM application but later became an entirely online-based application. Adobe started out with an extremely simple product called the Windows-based QuickTime Player that allowed users to import and edit videos and audio from different sources. The popularity of Director quickly increased when it was added to the Windows Trial version in Windows ME, offering users the chance to create quality home videos and films.

The popularity of Adobe Director has led many people to attempt to port similar QuickTime and Windows programs to the Apple Macintosh computers. This resulted in a number of Apple computer users who have been using adobe application titles to create multimedia applications and films. Most porting efforts have been unsuccessful and have not gained much attention. On the positive side, however, the overall functionality of the Adobe software is superior to that of Apple's own QuickTime and Microsoft's Windows Media Player.