|
PowerPoint And Illuminatus Opus
by Geetesh Bajaj
Introduction
So, What Is Illuminatus?
Working Together
Autorun Splashes
PowerPoint 2002 HTML Presentations
DocView In Illuminatus
Link An EXE from PowerPoint
Support
Experiences & Comments
Pricing
In Conclusion
Introduction
Indezine is primarily a site which aims to address issues pertaining
to presentations, multimedia, autorun and screen savers - evolution
has led to Microsoft PowerPoint being the core of its existence.
Using other applications with PowerPoint to exchange and enhance
content has been an important aspect here - in the past we have
discussed using PowerPoint with Director, Flash, SVG and AutoCAD
(using WHIP! and Volo View). And now we look at Illuminatus Opus
(hereafter, Illuminatus). And frankly, I am sure I would not be
off the mark to quote that this could be a very significant research
indeed for users of both PowerPoint and Illuminatus. In many ways,
they both complement each other perfectly. So, let's explore...
Back
So, What Is Illuminatus?
 Illuminatus
is basically a multimedia development tool from a UK based company
called Digital Workshop. They create many more fine products which
surprisingly cost only a fraction of the amount you would pay for
other similar stuff elsewhere. You'll find more information at
their site:
Digital
Workshop
Across subsequent versions, Illuminatus has evolved to emerge
as a mature multimedia creation platform. The newest version called
Illuminatus Opus takes this trend further with many new features
and refinements. Digital Workshop also creates an advanced version
of Illuminatus Opus called Opus Pro. However, for this article
we have used the basic Illuminatus Opus application for all techniques
explained hereafter. You'll find more information on Illuminatus
Opus at its homepage:
Illuminatus
Opus
Back
Working Together
So, how do PowerPoint and Illuminatus work together? Actually,
in many ways only limited by your creativity or imagination. I
know many people would point out that with Illuminatus and its
advanced multimedia features, one does not need PowerPoint. Nothing
can be farther from the truth - my experiences with PowerPoint
have resulted in a mindset which believes that PowerPoint is much
more than a basic presentation program - it actually owns the presentation
standard. Tomorrow's presentations are going to be even more PowerPoint
centric, with almost unlimited distribution strategies being developed
around its core. And yet I've not discussed PowerPoint's greatest
advantage - let me explain using an example:
A few months ago, my client visited Australia to deliver a presentation
I created for him using PowerPoint - there were a few changes required
in the last minute - so all he did was to open the presentation
in his copy of PowerPoint and edit a few figures - that's something
you cannot do with a multimedia development program. In plain words,
PowerPoint is omnipresent!
That's why it is important to create opportunities where other
programs perform in concert with PowerPoint - and that's why we
are looking at Illuminatus. It is certainly more strange than ever
- the question is why Illuminatus and why not any of the other
multimedia programs like Director, Authorware, Dazzler or Mediator?
I would love to answer that question because I've had some experience
with a few of the other products too - Illuminatus basically scores
better on both the features and the price front. Let's look at
features: Illuminatus can create autorun splashes for autorun PowerPoint
presentations on CD ROM, it can create browser controls to view
the new PowerPoint 2002 HTML presentations fullscreen from the
web or CD ROM, it can incorporate actual PowerPoint presentations
in itself using the DocView feature and finally it can create standalone
EXE files which can be linked to actual PowerPoint presentations.
We'll explore all these techniques. Finally, Illuminatus costs
much less than its other competitors - and almost anyone who has
PowerPoint can take advantage of a cheap upgrade path to buy Illuminatus
at an even lower price.
In the next few days, I hope to put up detailed tutorials on all
four techniques listed above - as of now, we'll just skim over
them.
Back
Autorun Splashes
Some time ago, I needed to create my portfolio of PowerPoint presentations
on an autorun CD. Since I was experimenting with Illuminatus, I
tried to create an interactive splash screen as a menu to run multiple
PowerPoint presentations. The entire thing was accomplished in
less than half an hour - and the whole thing included animations,
custom backgrounds and embedded typefaces. The compiled splash
screen was set to run as a trigger from an autorun procedure as
soon as a CD was placed inside a system. Resultant menu clicks
opened PowerPoint presentations in full show mode - as soon as
the presentations were viewed, the control reverted back to the
splash screen. The result was simple, yet elegant.
Illuminatus can also create an autorun.inf file which tells Windows
to run a CD ROM automatically on insertion through the 'Publication
Properties' dialog box.
Back
PowerPoint 2002 HTML Presentations
PowerPoint 2002 is the new version of PowerPoint which ships as
part of Microsoft's Office XP suite. New to this version is Microsoft's
commitment to bestow it's Internet Explorer product the new avatar of
'presentation browser'.
As Microsoft makes its moves to promote Internet Explorer further
in this direction, one is forced to face the fact that such HTML
presentations don't open fullscreen as normal presentations do.
Enter Illuminatus again, which I used successfully to create an
autorun container for just this purpose. Such autorun containers
can be created to link to an inline web page to act as an elegant
splash screen and help system. Basically, the entire system uses
the browser component built-in into Illuminatus.
All such inline browsers require the existence of Internet Explorer
on a client machine - since the browser control actually relies
on the Internet Explorer engine to render a page.
Back
DocView In Illuminatus
Somtimes, your major project could have been developed in Illuminatus
itself - and you may be looking for an easy way to incorporate
existing PowerPoint content into the Illuminatus project.
Illuminatus contains an object model that includes the DocView
component. Inserting such DocView components is as easy as inserting
a picture - and such DocView components can contain Word documents,
Excel spreadsheets and you guessed it - PowerPoint presentations!
Unlike the Word and Excel DocView links, PowerPoint presentations
are dynamic - they play like any other normal PowerPoint presentation
in either a window or fullscreen mode within your Illuminatus project
or standalone compiled EXE.
DocView is indeed among the important killer features which make
using Illuminatus and PowerPoint together so easy - nevertheless,
it's important to mention here that a PowerPoint engine in the
form of a PowerPoint installation or the free PowerPoint Viewer
needs to be made available on every client machine.
Back
Link An EXE from PowerPoint
Our three examples above discussed Illuminatus as a host container
which made calls to a PowerPoint engine. Finally, we look at a
reverse situation - wherein a PowerPoint host will make calls to
an Illuminatus engine.
We basically need a compiled standalone EXE project published
from Illuminatus. Thereafter, one can link to this EXE from within
PowerPoint using the 'Action Settings' feature on a given hyperlink.
Here, it may be important to consider the resolution implications
- while a fullscreen Illuminatus publication will completely superimpose
a playing PowerPoint presentation onscreen, a windowed Illuminatus
publication will only superimpose the areas it covers onscreen.
Such windows are excellent for usage of newer QuickTime content
which PowerPoint does not support natively. Of course one can use
this technique for anything - and small popup windows over the
PowerPoint show can look very elegant when one needs to highlight
something significant to an audience.
Back
Support
Digital Workshop offers free lifetime technical support through
a dedicated support line - anyway you may not need support at all
since Illuminatus Opus comes with an extensive manual and online
help files. Also, the product itself ships on two CD-ROMs which
contain many tutorial and sample files to get you going.
There's also an excellent support forum at the Digital Workshop
site - where answers to problems are provided by longtime Opus
users and developers. There's another excellent forum at the Illum4
site, which again also functions as a US based distributor for
Illuminatus Opus.
Back
Experiences & Comments
-to be filled in-
Back
Pricing
-to be filled in-
Back
In Conclusion
-to be filled in-
Back
|
