previous version of Director Movie - cannot be updated

It is too bad that no one has addressed your question in six days. I am having a similar problem. I have a bunch of D8 movies developed on the Winodws side that I need to upgrade to D12 running on OS X 10.9.  When I click on the old D8 movie in Finder it opens up in D12 and tells me it needs to be upgraded (I am not getting the can't upgrade error like you are).  But, after the upgrade is performed and I try to edit a field, the program completely crashes.  I have never seen anything crash like that on OS X, but that is what is happening. This is obviously a bug that needs to be fixed by Adobe, but what is the procedure for communicating these problems to them?

Are you guys for real?

pre D8.5 would be ( D8 < year 2000 ) ???

Something so old may not be worth updating

missing xtras / font problems / low res graphics  -  and the list goes on…

You will need to upgrade your .dir files through DirectorMX/2004 then go D12

And director MX won't work on your newer Mac

So you'll need a copy of Mac Director MX, plus an old (pre intel) mac computer.

if you need more help - just ask?

For the Professor !!!!

The reason why nobody gets back - is because it's already been answered here in the forums before…   (search function)

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5810255#5810255

Now did I read your message right, that you're trying to convert - very old D8 windows files on a MAC running Mavericks?

Did you convert your old D8 windows files into D8 mac files first (using a very old mac computer) - before you tried to upgrade them to D12?

Next you'll be complaining that it doesn't convert your Apple2e programs straight to the iPad -

I can try running one of them through D10 Win and send it back to you so you can then try it in D12 Mac - send me a PM with your email address

Thanks Milky_au,

I am very grateful for your response (even though it was a bit grumpy). I just bought D12 Mac/Win reluctantly after being a Director user on Windows since D4. I create educational apps for my students and have had to get a dual boot MacBook to keep up with the increasing number of Mac users. I have never had a problem upgrading Dir's before, but that was up to D8.  Then, I stopped even though I own 8.5, 10.0, 11.5, and now 12. The newer versions didn't support the needed xtras like resX and POM lite (free version) so I just kept using D8. I also like D8 because it lets me install it on all of my computers (I have several with different OSs and like switching around). I broke down and bought D12 last week because the Mac App I created in 11.5 for one of my programs (which includes all D8 files created in D8 on Windows and works perfectly) asks for Shockwave Player 11 when it launches. Then, when my students go to the Adobe web site they get Shockwave 12 and the D11.5 App won't run on the Mac.  I have no such problem on WIndows. So I bought D12 to make an app launcher for my Mac users. I will also publish some of them to iOS. I had no idea that there was such an upgrade issue until I read the link you included. That link, however, raises as many questions as it supposedly answers. Bottom line is that the Upgrade button in Director may or may not work when upgrading over several versions. I upgraded a dir made in D8 on Windows in the new D12 on the Mac and the program functions when I press the start button in authoring mode. I can open and play with the scripts but it crashes Director completely when I tried to edit a field cast member. It would have helped if D12 had warned me (in D12) that upgrading from D8 to D12 was a problem and that I should have upgraded one version at a time until D12 on Windows before going to the Mac (if that in fact is the proper way to do it). Anyhow, now that I know that there is a problem with upgrading, I will be more careful (even though I received no error message or warning). I probably have the same problem with the D8 Win dirs I published to iOS with the D12 Mac.  The keyboards don't pop up on editable fields and I couldn't figure out why.  I thought that maybe there was touch Lingo to get a keyboard, but when I created a simple username password screen in D12 it worked on iOS. When researching that problem, I saw your Notepad_iPad.  Very nice!  BTW Anyhow, I am very thankful for any help I can get as I am not a full-time programmer (just a lowly Ph.D. , CPA who loves to create stuff for students) and no I was not complaining and I do not own an Apple 2e, just the original Commodore with an 80 character screen . If it weren't for Sean Wilson I probably would have committed suicide several times.

Thanks Sean,

U R a life saver as always! I did not realize that there was such an issue with upgrading. I own 8.5, 10.0, and 11.5 for Windows, and now 12 Mac/Win and so I should be able to handle it. My question now (I guess) is do I have to upgrade my D8 on Windows to just D10 Windows or can I go directly to 11.5? Which ones can I skip, if any?  Then, do I have to go to D12 on Windows first before opening it on the Mac?  There doesn't seem to be an official procedure for this or it may not actually be necessary. I am also wondering if I can install my new D12 on the Windows side after I have already installed it on the Mac side?

Sorry for being a bit grumpy – I find the Director forum a bit hard to deal with, when people criticize D12.

Being able to produce iPad apps is a MIRACLE for me

But, I do understand where you’re coming from – RE: making iPad apps is NOT as easy as making Windows & Mac projectors.

How times have changed – you can’t even make a Windows / Mac projector without it coming up with so many warnings re: unsigned program / who made this? Ect… - which puts most people off.

(Rumour is that the next Apple OSX will only install apps from their app store. )

When I have more time, I’ll post some more of my ios / iPad demos.

I also understand the suicide comment (lol) – I’m working on a very expensive iPad app, which works great for about 20 minutes, then it bombs out.

If this helps >

If you make a D11.5 mac projector, and it asks for shockwave 11 to install – yet it’s not a shockwave file but a projector???

Try NOT inbedding the xtras into the projector – but have them in an ‘xtras’ folder outside of the file.

Just make sure you put all the xtras ‘you use’ in the folder!

This should fix this problem.

One of your xtras is not being inbedded? / is missing? – so director tries to find it by downloading shockwave – but when it tries, it downloads the latest shockwave 12 – when it really needs the older xtra from shockwave 11 to work.

resX could be replaced by…

if the runmode <> "Author" then

    the stageColor = the stageColor -- removes the white flash

    (the stage).rect =  (the desktopRectList)[1]

    (the stage).drawRect = (the desktopRectList)[1] -- this makes the stage full screen!

end if

pom (print’o’matic) could be replaced by…

print() – move text & graphics to a flash object first!

Thanks.

I would start by trying D8 -> D10 -> D12. Hopefully you aren't using any 3rd-party xtras

Oops - I should have read all of your message first. You'll have to ditch resX and find a workaround for the printing features of POM - Milky_au provided an option

As an aside, you can go into very old Director files from Director 12, I think even if using the Convert feature would have failed. In the Message Window type this:

go movie ""

and press Return. Navigate to the old file and open it. You'll be asked about whether the text is Roman, but after that it should open. If the movie would then fail if you run it, you could at least copy things out of the Cast and Score windows.

BTW, I tested my idea on Director 7 and 8 movies.

HI!

I LOVE *this*:  go movie "" (see above)

It works!

:-)

I have a Mac with an Intel Core i7 processor running Director 11.5. Apple has decided that recent operating systems will not run applications made on pre-Intel Macs - hence in order to run them I have to update them. I'm using Director 11.5 to open .dir files made using Macromedia MX2004 on a PowerPC (pre-Intel) Mac. It sort of works, but there are two main problems:

1. The "dissolve, pixels" transition is hopelessly slow and ugly - but I can solve the problem either by changing each "dissolve, pixels" transition to a "dissolve, pattern" transition or by using a "Fade In Out". No worries.

2. The transitions in my applications are mostly triggered by cues in the music track. My problem here is that what was on the beat in the original application is now mostly - but not always - a beat or so late. Does anyone know if there's an easy fix? I could, I suppose, go to the original music track and move the cues back a bit, but that would involve a lot of trial and error and be enormously time-consuming.

Any ideas?

Many thanks in advance.

Martin

Hello Martin,

I had a similar problem - when I updated an old kids game to the latest Director mac version, it messed up the timing on my cartoons

I ended up going through and placing different 'Frame Properties: Tempo' along the top

Even though it use to work fine all set to 30fps - I had to go through placing some at 30 and other at 24 etc - until I had it all synched up and working again

regards

Milky

Hi Milky,

Many thanks for your response.

I'll try putting different 'Frame Properties: Tempo' values along the top. I suspect, however, that different tempi are not going to help in this case as the transitions are being kicked off by cues in the soundtrack. The program will simply wait till the next soundtrack cue. My problem is that it takes longer than it should - than it did in the previous version - to perform the relevant action so that instead of being on the beat the changes occur some time later.

best wishes,

Martin