Background music is Copyright © 1996, 1997 by Michael D. Walthius. All Rights Reserved.
xtension
objects consist of INI, picture, Netscape, search, Open Data Base
Connectivity (ODBC) and mixer. The INI object works like any other
.ini file in windows. It is a text file that stores parameters that
are critical to proper application operation. It can also be used as
a file that stores settings and object positions. This can be
valuable when saving games. The picture object allows .bmp, .dib,
.rle, .pcx, .gif, .lbm and .iff images to loaded in any of 3
different ways. An image may be specified before application
execution, the user has a file selection dialog box from which
various images can be selected or a string variable can be used so
that an algorithm can determine which picture to load. The Netscape
object requires that Netscape be installed. The object provides
control over Netscape so that it can be launched, a www page selected
or deselected, .etc. 
The
search object allows a search for words or phrases to be performed.
The ODBC is supposed to supposed to allow you to access, edit and
create new information contained in a database. The ODBC drivers must
already be installed. Click & Create provides the drivers on
CD-ROM #1. I was never able to get the ODBC icon while running the 32
bit version of Click & Create. I did get the icon while running
the 16 bit version but was not able to verify its operation. I have
both Microsoft Access and Lotus Approach but I could never figure out
how to activate them from Click & Create. The mixer object is for
controlling sounds and music from within an application.
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the afore mentioned objects pertain to the frame editor. There are a
few other objects however and these objects are associated with the
event editor.
These objects are special, sound, storyboard, new object, mouse and
keyboard and player 1. The special object allows the launching of
external executable files, changes and monitors global variables,
etc. The sound object handles .wav and .mid sounds. They can be
started, stopped, looped and will also detect the end of an event so
that other actions may start. The storyboard object controls the
application's flow by starting, ending, jumping from frame to frame,
.etc. The new object deals with duplicate objects in sets that are
related. Groups of duplicates can be selected based on their location
and then manipulated. The mouse and keyboard object deal with input
from the user as to what key is being depressed, clicks in certain
areas and general interactive type work. The player1 object reads a
joystick and detects what buttons are being depressed.
ost
objects have associated with them certain preferences. Global
objects are objects that last for the duration of a game and may be
found on many game levels. Changes to a global object will affect all
the various global objects on all levels. Local objects are basically
temporary objects such as game backgrounds that will change with each
game level. Groups permit a specific set of similar objects to be
affected by one event. The sample in the manual describes a group of
enemies that have a condition placed on them to die when hit by a
bullet. This way you don't have to select 200 enemies and place the
same condition on each one. The editor and object information is
contained in the first 50 pages of the manual. The next 50 pages deal
with multimedia applications, games and screen savers. The text
simply provides suggestions and some general commonsense rules for
the creation of these 3 items. There is no tutorial information. The
rest of the book shows thumbnails of clip art, fonts, backgrounds, .etc.
here
are 3 tutorials and a guided tour that are accessed by way of the
help drop down menu. A guided tour is just that. Most of the screen
shots that accompany this review came from the guided tour. There is
also a multimedia, game and screen saver tutorial. All the tutorials
are very well done as far as they go. They are narrated with a female
voice that has an English accent. The multimedia tutorial has the
user create an interactive presentation type of application with
text, backgrounds, buttons and an .avi file. The tutorial uses
existing graphics that are specific to the tutorial. Click &
Create allows you to create an .exe file complete with a setup
application if you so choose. I selected this feature and Click &
Create quickly created a 6.3 MB .dat file, a small .bin file and
setup.exe file. Running the setup file allowed me to place the
application on either hard drive or my removable Jaz drive. It even
created an uninstall option. The setup worked as you would expect in
addition it gives the option of choosing an optimized video driver,
windows video driver or Microsoft WinG driver. Unfortunately it did
not place a menu choice on my toolbar. It did create 2 icons. One was
for the application and the other was for the uninstall. The tutorial
included an .avi file from CD-ROM #2. The creation of the standalone
application did not include the compilation of this .avi file. Click
& Create provides a warning to this effect. After trying this
several times and reading the warning box presented during the
creation of the standalone application I decided to copy the .avi
file from the CD-ROM to the same directory all the other stuff was
located. Once I did this Click & Create easily created a
standalone application that spanned 5 floppies. The application
installed flawlessly on an old computer and also created an uninstall
icon. I could not find any information anywhere that discussed doing
this. The file drop down menu has an application setup selection that
provides a dialog box that allows the creator of an application to
specify the application's name, creator's name, an editable icon,
instructions, .etc.
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next tutorial I completed was the screen saver tutorial. This very
simple tutorial consists of a background and some text. The text is
animated so that it spins in a circle. The rotation is around the
center. The speed is adjustable. Conditions have to be set up for it
to bounce instead of crashing into the screen edges and stopping. The
step through editor is used for this. Each time it hits a screen edge
it stops, you set it to bounce and then you resume. After this
tutorial is completed you can save it as a standalone application
with installer. It automatically goes to the windows directory when
installing. It also comes with its own uninstaller utility. I then
created my own screen saver. I used a different background and some
text that I typed in. The background was no problem but the text was
another matter. I typed the text onto the background and followed the
procedures as previously described in the tutorial. I discovered that
text objects do not rotate the same as graphics objects. I tried
several times but the result was always the same. The text object
spun about its upper left corner instead of about its center. The
"text" from the screen saver tutorial wasn't text at all.
It was in fact a graphic image. Of course once you realize this it is
easy to create any text you may want in another application or even
windows own paint application. I couldn't figure any way to do it
from within Click & Create. The picture editor that comes with
Click & Create does not have text capabilities! After I created
my text in photoshop and pulled it into Click & Create I noticed
another problem. The white background around the text was
undesirable. Click & Create has a transparency feature. I pulled
the text in again using the transparency feature and the white
background was almost completely gone but not quite. There remained a
white fringe around the text that I was unable to remove. Somewhat
frustrated by this I decided to try something the average user would
have access to. I launched windows paint, created the text there,
selected it with the marquee and used the edit/save to feature to
save only the selected text. I then imported the text graphic into
Click & Create and to my astonishment there was no white fringe!
I don't remember ever using the windows paint application before. I
had to read the help file just to figure out how to save a selection.
This very curious phenomenon launched me on a quest to discover how
my other bitmap editors behaved. Painter 4, Picture Publisher 6 and
Photoshop all gave fringed text images regardless of background color
or typeface. Only windows paint and Corel Photopaint 6 images came
through clean without any fringing of the transparent color. (I have
received e-mail from people more knowledgeable that I who have
informed me that the fringe is caused by the anti-aliasing feature.
When I turned anti-aliasing off in Photoshop sure enough the fringing
went away. There is nothing in the documentation that addresses
this.) After the text image is brought into Click & Create it
then must be made active. This is easily accomplished by either
double clicking the image or right clicking it and selecting new
object/active. This makes a copy of the object and makes it active.
The old text object can then be deleted. The new active text object
can now be spun about its center and bounced around just like the
tutorial. I then added a second text object and followed the same
procedures to get it to bounce off the edges of the frame. This time
instead of spinning it I had it change size from small to large then
back again. Then when I stepped through the screen saver the objects
collided with each other. It was a very simple matter to set them to
bounce off each other. I then ran the application and watched
transfixed at the text objects bouncing, spinning, growing and
shrinking across my monitor. I have to say this could get to be a lot
of fun. Video clips can also be used but I didn't see any way to loop
.avi file. QuickTime clips can be looped however. I imported one of
the three supplied QuickTime videos then gave it some bouncing
movement so I wound up creating a bouncing video clip the played
continuously. This is lots of fun.
All pages copyright© Roger A. Moncrief, Indepth Reviews, 1997
Thanks to Judy Gefter, !LuM! and Charles Blaquiere for their advice and counsel, some I heeded and some I didn't.