.cct Files not appearing in projector anymore

[Lutris Man]

Hi,
Well here I am with another problem....Sorry, I've tried to figure it out but
haven't been able to.

I am working on a cd rom project in DMX2004, and recently converted an
external cast to a protected shockwave file ("photoLibrary.cct"). It worked
great for a while, but apparently I did something, and the jpegs from the cast
are not appearing any more. If it provides any clues, it used to give me a
warning when I opened the .dir file saying it can't access the cast since it is
protected, but it no longer gives me that message, so I think the link to the
file has been lost.

Can anyone tell me how (or where I can read about how) to restore this link so
that the jpeg files appear again in the projector. I do understand that with
shockwave casts you can't view it in authoring mode, problem is now I can't see
them when I play my projector (stub linked to .dir file). Any advice is much
appreciated, as always. Thanks in advance.

PS, it shows the cast (called "photoLibrary"), in the cast window but it
appears empty and it lists it as "Storage: external", but file size is " 0
bytes". Perhaps it is trying to use the old external cast that I had converted
instead of the .cct, (which is about 24mb) or I could have possibly created a
new cast with the same name by mistake, which is empty.

[JB]

If you can edit the .dir file you could add a prepareMovie handler that
sets the filename of casts to the .cct location.

If running a projector one can throw patches into the lingo.ini file.

[Lutris Man]

Thanks JB,
I am having a hard time here. I have the original external cast with the
images in it, can I just re-import this cast and then update the movie again,
saving the cast as shockwave .cct again? I tried to do this by creating a new
cast, then importing the original cast into it, but it still did not work.

The problem is I am not sure how to I set the filename of casts to the .cct
file. I came across this script in a tutorial:

on startMovie
set the filename of castLib "Text" to the ?
moviePath & "swedish.cst"
end

But I am not sure what I would put where this one says "Text". I even created
a new cast, named it and used that name, but I got an error. When I try to
link a cast to the .cct file, it doesn't allow me to select it as an option.
I'm not sure how I got myself into this mess, but I think I created a new cast
with the same name, that was empty (unless it does that when you save it as a
..cct), since then I've created and removed this several times, trying various
ways to link it.

[JB]

Without actually deprotecting the cast file the best one can do is make
it function in a projector or as a component of a miaw.


if you add an external linked csatlib to the director movie using
modify/movie/csats menu, then save things. You should be able to
substitute your .cct file when that director file is run from a
projector.

It would also be possible to open that director file as a movie in a
window from within director and examine that cast using lingo. This
might hlep you poke around the black box.

open window "theMovie.dir"

tell window "theMovie.dir" to put member(12, 2).name

-- puts the name of member 12 of castlib 2 into the message window

or

tell window "theMovie.dir" to copyToClipboard member(12, 2)

[Lutris Man]

Thanks JB,
The problem was that I somehow deleted the sprites from the stage, (by
accidentally deleting the cast I think). I have been experimenting with a
practice file, and have been able to get these to work, but sometimes it
doesn't work right away. There also seems to be something weird going on with
saving the files. It sometimes doesn't seem to save the cast properly the first
time I try, but later on asks me to save it, then it will work. I'm not sure
why.

[Lutris Man]

Any idea why it asks me to save a different cast that is already been saved and
no changes made to it, after I import an external cast or create a new one? If
I save it then it asks if it should replace the existing one. When I save it it
is an empty file (alway 4kb). I think this is how I keep on screwing up my
movie and cast links, by replacing the original with an empty one. Any ideas?
Am I missing a step in this external cast/shockwave process?

Also, is it possible to re-import an external cast, make changes to it (like
change or add soem jpegs), then just re-shock it, without losing the links?