Creating MicroWorlds projects to be viewed in an Internet browser.

The MicroWorlds Web Player that you have just downloaded allows you to view MicroWorlds projects in your Internet Browser. An exciting feature is that you can use MicroWorlds 2.0 (Macintosh: MicroWorlds 2.03) MicroWorlds Pro, MicroWorlds EX (including Robotics) and MicroWorlds JR (Macintosh) as the authoring tool for this dynamic interactive content. Almost any MicroWorlds project can be included on a Web page, but there are certain limitations. The following provides some tips and instructions for including a MicroWorlds project on a Web page.

General Tips for Creating Projects

When creating a project to be viewed on the Web, the most important consideration is the size of the whole project, including media resources such as sounds, movies, and midi files. We highly recommend limiting the project size to under 250k. Here are some tips to help you:

• Do not include digital movies.
• You should reduce the size of your project to about 400 by 300. In MicroWorlds 2.0, use the instruction newprojectsize [400 300] to create a project in the recommended size. MicroWorlds Pro and EX users can select the "New Project Size / Web Player" in the FILE menu. MicroWorlds JR (Macintosh only) users can change the project size by dragging the thumb in the lower, right corner of the page, BEFORE adding anything to a new project.
• Do not make or import long sounds.
• Include as many melodies (on-screen piano) and MIDI music as you like.
• You should consider EMBEDDING all the sound and midi files in your project. If you don't, you will have to upload them on the server along with your project. Remember that file names are case sensitive. To make your life simpler, consider using lowercase names and extensions always. In MicroWorlds JR (Macintosh only), the audio files are always embedded. In MicroWorlds EX, there is checkbox in the Import dialog box that allows you to specify "embedded" or not. In MicroWorlds Pro, they are never embedded.

The following primitives cannot be used for projects that are meant to be viewed using MicroWorlds Web Player:

cc
closeworksheet
exporttext
getcell
importtext
loadshape
loadpict
loadtext
merge
newprojectsize
openworksheet
placepict
printtext
procedures
savehtml
savepict
saveproject
saveshape
savetext
setcell
setfooter
 

Also, note that the primitive show will behave like the command "announce" when use with the Web Player.

In addition, the primitives that access your hard disk are not available. Therefore, do not include the above primitives in a project for viewing with the Web Player. Use buttons to run your programs as well as to change pages in the project since there is no Pages menu. Then follow the steps for viewing in the Web Player. As a rule of thumb, you should be able to use your project in Presentation Mode, without a Command Center or Menu Bar. When your project is debugged and works fine, save it one last time with the "first page" showing. That's the page that will show first when the project is loaded.

Finally, since the Internet is not specific as to system configuration, the following tips will help you make your project compatible with different hardware configurations/platforms:

• If your project has transparent text boxes (used as labels or decorative text), stamp the text with the stamper to make it part of the background graphics, and then delete the text box with the scissors. In this way, the font/color/size will remain the same on any system so your page layout will be unchanged.
  
• Your projects may be accessed in languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, French and Russian. Do not use a decimal point or coma as a decimal separator. Instead, use the divisor sign, e.g., type 21 / 10 instead of 2.1. If your Operating System is set to "," for the decimal separator, the Web Player will not be able to do calculations and your program will not run.

Preparing your Projects to be Viewed Using MicroWorlds Web Player:

The instructions vary depending on which version of MicroWorlds you are using. Click on one of the links below.

MicroWorlds 2.0 for Windows
MicroWorlds 2.0 for Macintosh
MicroWorlds Pro (Windows and Macintosh, version 1.1 and higher)
MicroWorlds EX (and EX Robotics) for Windows and Macintosh
MicroWorlds JR (Macintosh)