A Product Review of Macromedia Authorware 6.5

Authorware is Macromedia’s product for creating multimedia interactive learning applications for the Web, Intranet, or CD-ROM. Version 6.5, released in September 2002, introduces new features for usability, extensibility, and accessibility. New usability enhancements include improvements to script functions and liberal use of drag-and-drop operations. The new script function features let developers create reusable scripts both inside and outside of Authorware. Since scripts can be invoked from external URLs and text files, they can be maintained separately from the Authorware application, and they can be used to define application behavior dynamically at runtime. This not only makes Authorware easier to use, it makes it extensible as well. Other extensibility features include an extensible commands menu, nonmodal commands, and ‘‘Xtras’’ for third-party plug-ins. The new accessibility kit included with version 6.5 enables courseware developers to create applications for use by learners with disabilities. The kit uses text-to-speech software, such as the Microsoft SAPI facilities, to read text aloud. Note that the Authorware accessibility kit requires familiarity with several advanced Authorware features, such as scripting and list handling, and there are significant limitations in the text-to-speech capability. The accessibility kit handles only predefined, static text, and it cannot handle program-controlled text or text supplied by a database. Developers who wish to provide accessible products should design their designs with this in mind.