A brief introduction to Director

14. Whoah There, Cowpoke!

Keeping Director on the right frame.

Director 8.5 Shockwave Studio: A Beginner's Guide

Online reader support forum for the book

Click on the cell just above your text-field cell, and then click in the large grey rectangle right at the top of the Score window. You should see a new window open that contains the following text:

  on exitFrame
    |
  end

With the cursor flashing between the two lines. This is a Score script window, and it is the place you enter commands that Director is to follow when it reaches a certain frame of the movie. In this case you want director to pause, and that's precisely what you enter for any version of Director prior to 6.0:

  on exitFrame
    pause
  end

For Director 6 and up, the command is a little different:

  on exitFrame
    go to the frame
  end

This has the effect of keeping Director on the frame containing your message while also allowing items on the Stage to be updated (animations, for instance) without special commands having to be sent.

Now you can close the Score script window. You've just told Director that, when it gets to that frame, it should pause. This will keep the program from simply quitting after displaying "Hello, World".