Zeus Productions
zLaunch for Macintosh FUQPlease consult the following list for answers to the most common pre-sales questions regarding zLaunch specifically for Macintosh, as well as additional technical information not covered on the zLaunch Summary Page. Refer to our Needs Analysis FAQ to determine if zLaunch or some other tool is right for you.
zLaunch for Macintosh has been shipping since
June 1996 and zLaunch for Windows since April
1996, but they are sold separately. Both are mature and robust products
with a number of user-controllable options for maximum flexibility. zLaunch for Macintosh is $299 US. For $499
US you can get the cross-platform bundle which includes both zLaunch
for Windows and zLaunch for Macintosh. Consult the zLaunch
Summary Page for details.
There is not currently a demo version available,
but if you purchase a password, you can Download
the live version from our Download Center. Remember, there is a Money-Back
Satisfaction Guarantee, so you can try any of our products, including
zLaunch, risk-free.
zLaunch works in both Director 4 (revision
4.0.4 required) and Director 5 (revision 5.0.1 recommended). Director 6.0
will be supported when it ships.
zLaunch works with all the possible permutations
for 68K Macs and PowerMacs with
Director 4. and Director 5. Refer to the General
Questions about zLaunch FAQ for more info.
zLaunch will launch the vast majority of
all Macintosh applications. Refer to the General
Questions about zLaunch FAQ for more info.
Applications which cause a reboot, such as
some installers, or kill other running processes may not work with zLaunch.
Refer to the General Questions about zLaunch FAQ
for more info.
Generally you do not need to modify your Macintosh
application(s).Nothing needs to be installed to run zLaunch.
Simply include zLaunch in the same folder as your projector. You can run
it from either a hard drive or a CD. There is no need to
copy it into the System Folder, or similar requirement.
On the Macintosh, unlike Windows, a CD has
a fixed name, so you can simply refer to its name in your path specification,
such as:MyDemoDisk:MyFolder:MyDemo
zLaunch for Macintosh can launch an application
based on its Creator Code.
Refer to the Details on zLaunch's Capabilities FAQ
for more info. OPSG/Creator Code/Document No, zLaunch for Macintosh does not return
the path to an application, but you can launch an application without knowing
its complete path (see above). Refer to the Details
on zLaunch's Capabilities FAQ for more info.
zLaunch is not really designed to control
other applications, but refer to the Details on
zLaunch's Capabilities FAQ for more info. zScript
for Macintosh adds some AppleScript support to Director.
The color of the cover window is determined
by a window resource in zLaunch's
resource fork. This resource
can be edited with ResEdit to change
the window cover. BTW, zLaunch will
cover multiple monitors as well.
zLaunch can pass a document name to an application
when it is launched. If you want to pass documents to an existing application
while keeping Director open, instruct zLaunch not to quit Director. It will
then pass the document name onto an already open application, or you can
use zScript for Macintosh instead.
zLaunch is an external application itself,
so it is actually initiated with using Lingo's "open...with"command.. This starts zLaunch and gives you the opportunity to pass it the
parameters that control its execution. open "configFileName" with the pathName
& "zLaunch"On the Mac, you can control whether to kill
the projector, and whether to wait for the projector's process to die. On
the Mac, zLaunch must be allowed to kill the projector, because if you quit
the projector via Lingo, the desktop will flash briefly. This is not an
issue under Windows, where you can use the quit or halt
command from Lingo to quit the projector.
zLaunch can not unload the Mac Finder from
memory. zLaunch is able to quit Director, because Director is not a "reserved"Mac OS application.![[End of Page]](../images/zeop.gif){kind=small}