mTropolis
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mTropolis (pronounced "metropolis") was a multimedia authoring tool created in 1996 by mFactory (pronounced "em-factory"). The development environment was very different from the other tools around at the time - Apple Computer's HyperCard and others had a card based metaphor, and Macromedia Director had a film metaphor (the content area is called The Stage, the time line The Score, an assets library named The Cast, etc). In mTropolis there were sections, subsections, and scenes. Assets would be placed onto the scene, and then combinations of behaviors and modifiers would be dragged onto the assets
Powerful interaction and animation could be created by making different modifiers send messages to each other, allowing a user to create something impressive fairly quickly, without any typing. There was a simple programming language, accessed via a Miniscript modifier, but most of the programming was achieved by attaching standard behaviors and modifiers, and making selections within the modifier pop-up menus. The main problem with this sort of program is that the Internet has offered so many options that delivering content on CDs and even DVDs isn't commercially feasible anymore. Still, mTropolis remains an interesting study in application design, and held a loyal following for many years.
mTropolis was short lived, being bought by Quark in 1997, who then discontinued the product a few months later, possibly in favor of QuarkImmedia. Many believe though that the use of behaviors in mTropolis spurred Macromedia on to introduce behaviors in Director 6.0. A few CD-ROMs were created using mTropolis, including Scott Kim's Obsidian, A Sharp's King of Dragon Pass, the Muppets Treasure Island, Voyager's Fun With Architecture and The Magic World of Beatrix Potter.
According to Starship Titanic author Douglas Adams, his team had originally selected mTropolis 1.0 for its development platform but it had to be abandoned for unspecified technical insufficiencies in favor of an in-house tool.[1]
External links
- Adams, Douglas. "Why isn't Starship Titanic on the Macintosh?". Retrieved 2008-05-31.