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eZedia News
eZediaMX
By Philip Roy
New Zealand MacGuide
September/October 2003
When Philip Roy looked at the much-loved HyperStudio in issue 6, he confirmed that little appeared to be happening with the product. He investigates a possible alternative for simple multimedia and cross-platform CD creation from a Canadian company.
eZediaMX allows the creation of digital portfolios, storyboards, multimedia slide shows and interactive CD-ROMS that interestingly require no programming or scripting. While Hypercard users might have just gone into shock, HyperStudio users are going to find a lot of comfort in the product. eZedia's site, software, communication and general level of support has always been impressive. They have an obvious awareness of the needs of the education sector (which is often looking for the kinds of tools eZedia offers) and it's pleasing to see material on the site aimed squarely at this market.
My investigations of the product were using the newly released 3.1 beta for OS X and Windows. While version 3.0 of the product is also available for OS 9, the 3.1 beta is confined to OS X on the Mac. The company is still investigating whether to continue updating the authoring tool for OS 9. Let's hope that they do!
The program is based around Java, QuickTime and OpenGL - three technologies that sit comfortably in the cross-platform, multimedia world. Keep in mind that people viewing your work with the eZedia Player (that you can distribute with your work) are going to require OS 9.2, OS X or a PC capable of using OpenGL, all with QuickTime 5 installed. OpenGL is an important factor in how distributable your work is going to be. I found that on an old PC (running Windows 98) and one running WindowsXP, the player warned me that my hardware did not support OpenGL and so frame transitions were noticeably jerky.
Getting Started
eZediaMX is a 34MB download or you can get a CD version that includes tutorials, over 200 object wells filled with media, and the eZediaMX Tour to introduce you to the program.
Installation is easy and the program comes with an extensive 366-page PDF manual, as well as a 30-page tutorial and supporting files. The eZedia website also has a large number of movies and tutorial projects to view or work through.
The program sports a nice, simple interface and while I should try to avoid too many comparisons to HyperStudio, users of that product will feel right at home.
A document window is the area where you place your various items; the toolbar contains buttons for adding the kinds of media objects you'd expect (graphics, text, buttons, shapes, movies) but also includes other objects such as a 'Go to' navigation object, branching object, multi-choice object, as well as a reporting object which can track the performance of users.
I've got to Edit and Run
Development is very HyperStudio-like, with you not only placing images, sound and movies on screen, but being able to place buttons that move you to the next frame in an exceedingly similar way. By basing itself on pre-existing technologies such as QuickTime, when you add in a transition, it's a transition built out of QT technology. eZediaMX also has a lot of advanced graphics, motion paths and animation features that are easy to edit once created. With a simple key combination, you switch from editing to running your presentation via the eZedia Player.
The toolbar objects are effectively grouped into four categories (Media, Interactive, Logic, and Special Objects) although some minor interface changes would make these groupings more visibly obvious. The power of many of the objects won't be clear at first, until you delve deeper into the properties and actions you can apply to them. The program uses the term 'Frames' to represent each screen, but it might seem a bit odd to then say that a frame can comprise a number of buttons and a movie that can play for any length of time. I tend to think of a frame as a scene and would like to see this term used by eZedia.
Oh! It's O-O
The program uses an object-oriented approach to help avoid scripting, which is achieved through linking one object to another. You place a button and a movie on the layout area, tell the movie to play when linked to and tell the button that it's a standard button. Then you literally link these two objects by dragging a link line from the button to the movie.
Imagine if you then wanted the movie to trigger a number of text objects to appear, based solely on how far into the movie we'd got. You'd link the movie to a Container Object that links to a Branch Object (that has time interval settings stored in it), which then links repeatedly to different text objects, which will activate at a set time. While this avoids any unnecessary scripting, it does require getting in to an O-O frame of mind.
Drag a link in the wrong direction and you've got the wrong object controlling the other, which you may not realize without understanding some of the programming principles you are employing.
While the link includes an arrow to indicate control, I'd like to see some sort of prompt that could guide you through the process of linking. You may recall that HyperStudio had a preferences setting that allowed you to switch on more helpful prompts. Perhaps by incorporating some sort of feedback, guide or wizard when linking two objects, ensuring your O-O principles are sound would be easier to determine.
Well, well, well
eZediaMX contains an Object Well system, similar to that of an Object Palette. These Wells store objects for reuse, maintaining all of their properties including their position in the frame from which they were dragged. You can create Object Wells, drag objects to and from them and have multiple wells open at the same time, as well as download collections from the eZedia site.
Like programs before it, eZediaMX does not embed your media files into the program or create a single projector file for you. It's important to maintain a good file structure and keep the media you are linking to in one folder. If you are then going to create a multimedia CD, you could easily make this folder hidden, while ensuring that the main project file is accessible and can be played by the Mac or Windows eZedia Player.
Educationally Speaking
I have no doubt that as I delve further into eZediaMX, I'm going to come to the same realization I experienced when first using HyperStudio, that it has a wide range of functions. I can already see many new features to explore in the program that will make it an incredibly powerful development tool and can think of a number of advanced tricks to reshape the interface to make the player less obvious.
Teachers looking for a simple-to-start-with piece of multimedia software should look at this product. I can see it being of tremendous use in many of the curriculum areas schools need to cover, with no need to simply confine it to use in ICT.
It has enough basics in its operation to fit comfortably in upper-Primary, as well as being flexible enough to extend users in Secondary to create advanced programs. So download the demo today and make a start on easy and enjoyable multimedia.
Philip Roy works for Massey University as an E-Learning Facilitator, as well as owning the NZMac.com site, which has joined forces with MacGuide to become MacGuide @ NZMac.com.
Copyright ©2003 New Zealand MacGuide. All rights reserved.
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