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Adobe Inc shipped Adobe Director 11 today, with a street price of $999. This not only marks the first release of Director since Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005, but also the first major update since the previous version - Director MX 2004 was released on January 5, 2004.

Four years is a very long time for Director developers to wait and some may grumble that such a mature product - given four years - would be more enriched in terms of features.  Check out the attached list. While the list is short on paradigm shifting technologies - this release provides necessary improvements for creating and deploying modern applications using Adobe Director.

Paradigma Software Valentina 3.5.2 for Director 11 is the first database product with key support for Director 11 on Mac OS X on Intel, Windows Vista and Unicode. Valentina for Director is available in developer kits for building standalone applications and projectors as well as true, royalty free client-server or server-side solutions using Valentina Developer Network. With VDN, you can build shockwave-safe or standard projector interface applications and deploy these with a totally complete database server.

Adobe Director 11 Feature Set

Adobe has published a complete list of features for Adobe Director 11. See a complete list of features - features in italics are enhanced, features in bold are entirely new.

Support for more than 40 video, audio, and image file formats. Enjoy the flexibility to incorporate content in virtually every major format, including SWF; DVD-Video and other video formats; as well as the broadest range of audio and graphics formats, including bitmaps, vectors, text, and 3D.

Windows Media format support. Use the popular Windows Media format, including Windows Media Audio and Windows Media Video, within your Adobe Director® projects.

Apple QuickTime 7 support. Take advantage of QuickTime features, including support for streaming MPEG-4 video and MP3 audio.

RealMedia format support. Integrate RealMedia files, including RealVideo and RealAudio, in Director projects for Mac or Windows®.

Bitmap filters. Achieve an even wider variety of rich visual effects, including blur, drop shadow, bevel, glow, and more, with bitmap filters you can apply through the user interface or scripting.

Multiuser interactivity. Build games and other applications that allow multiple users to interact.

Enhanced Script Browser. Save time working with script-sensitive movies using the enhanced Script Browser, which provides click-and-script convenience; easy access to information about functions, events, keywords and commands; and a complete Lingo and JavaScript dictionary.

Code snippets. Get started faster creating sophisticated interactivity with code snippets that let you take advantage of Lingo and JavaScript methods without writing code.

Enhanced user interface. Do more and do it faster with an enhanced user interface that offers window docking, tabbed views, and improved management of movie assets to streamline your workflow.

Sprite and channel naming. Assign custom names to sprites and manipulate them easily without altering existing code. Move sprites and channels without modifying code, reducing scripting and editing time.

Help system. Get your questions answered fast with a comprehensive help system. Find all the information you need, including product help and Lingo and JavaScript syntax reference guides, in one convenient place.

Stage docking. Improve productivity and reduce window clutter with Stage docking.

Movie-in-a-Window docking. Enhance your workflow by docking Movie-in-a-Window (MIAW) tools with other palettes and tools.

Start page. Gain quick access to recently used files, help, and tutorials through the Start page.

Window properties. Work efficiently and quickly customize the look of your windows in Director projectors. Complex tasks, such as creating window and drag masks, are as simple as selecting a cast member in a pop-up menu.

Projector publishing panel. Reduce the time required to publish Director applications by saving projector settings on a per-project basis.

DVD-Video support. Easily integrate this popular interactive video format into your Director projects. Embed, control, and play back DVD movies with other types of media to create powerful interactive experiences.

DVD Event Manager. Trigger events, such as firing web pages or swapping cast members during DVD playback. This easy-to-use visual tool eliminates the need for the majority of DVD-related scripting and speeds the creation of sophisticated interactivity.

DVD Controller components. Quickly add DVD playback capabilities to Director projectors or Shockwave enabled web pages using prebuilt, Flash based DVD Controller components. Select from three different styles to control nearly every aspect of DVD movie navigation.

Adobe Shockwave Player. Your games, applications, eLearning courses, demos, and prototypes are customer-ready for the web thanks to popular Adobe Shockwave® Player software, available as a free download for Universal Mac and Windows platforms and already on the majority of computers worldwide.

Easy multiversion output. Broaden your market reach by authoring once and publishing across platforms and technologies, with support that ensures your application is customer-ready for virtually all computers as well as kiosks, DVDs, CDs, and the web.

Unicode support. Easily localize your games, applications, demos, training courses, and prototypes for international markets with new Unicode support.

Windows Vista support. Publish your standalone applications for virtually all Windows based computers, including those running new Windows Vista®.

Mac OS X Native Intel support. Authoring with the Mac version of Director 11 is available only for Intel® based Mac computers. The applications you create, however, can run on all PowerPC® and Intel based Macs.

Easy cross-platform projector publishing. Publish your applications for Universal Mac and Windows desktops with a single click.

Xtra plug-ins. Extend your authoring environment, as well as the playback engine, with an ever-expanding ecosystem of third-party Xtras.

Adobe product line compatibility. Take advantage of the easy workflow between Director 11 and the Adobe applications, including Adobe Photoshop®, Flash, and the entire Adobe Creative Suite® 3 family of products.

Application control. Create fully featured applications that can access, launch, and control other applications from within your Director project.

Full JavaScript support. Expand your options with full support for JavaScript syntax and compatibility with Lingo scripting.

Accessibility support. Create content that meets government accessibility guidelines — including Section 508 guidelines. Director lets you add text-to-speech, captioning, and tab-navigation features to web-based Shockwave content or standalone applications on both Windows and Mac systems.

Text to Speech. Director applications are self-voicing through the cross-platform Speech Xtra extension, which converts text to speech without a screen reader. The operating system provides voices at the system level. Create completely customizable, accessible content that doesn’t rely on screen readers. Any user with Shockwave Player and a speech engine installed (which ships standard on current operating systems) can use your accessible content.

Accessibility behaviors. Drag-and-drop behaviors let you control speech, tabbing, and item highlighting, as well as the captioning of words spoken by the Speech Xtra extension.

Internet protocol support. Import HTML text while maintaining full control of all link references, create web-based e-commerce applications with secure transactions (HTTPS) inside Shockwave, and integrate two-way communication (CGI Post).

XML parsing. Reduce resource requirements and leverage standard data exchange, even from large XML documents, with XML document parsing.

Native 3D rendering with DirectX 9 support. Deliver more engaging experiences with DirectX 9 support for native 3D rendering. Create sophisticated game environments, make realistic simulations, and add immersive interaction to your applications, prototypes, and simulations.

Advanced physics with AGEIA PhysX support. Build games with realistic collisions and create simulations that model real-world gravity and other forces. The included AGEIA™ PhysX™ physics engine delivers advanced dynamic motion and interaction.

Support for Flash CS3 Professional and video created with Flash. Expand your creative options by easily importing content created with Flash CS3 Professional*. Launch Flash from within Adobe Director software and have your changes saved automatically.

Flash Asset Xtra for Adobe Flash Player. Create sophisticated 3D and 2D interactivity more efficiently with the Flash Asset Xtra, which enables easy interaction between ActionScript 2.0 based objects and JavaScript syntax or Lingo scripting — or a combination of the two.

Enhanced text rendering engine. Display smooth, crisp text in your demos, courses, games, and other applications with a more powerful text engine that improves font rendering.