PODIUM is an object-oriented multimedia application generator that makes it quick and easy to produce three levels of applications: simple presentations, hypermedia programs, and more sophisticated interactions with answer judging, feedback, and record-keeping. PODIUM is used around the world to create presentations for classroom and business use, produce multimedia CD-ROMs that are easy to install and use, and build kiosks that provide information on demand. PODIUM is Internet aware and enables you to send and receive multimedia e-mail. PODIUM’s publication tools help you optimize and package multimedia applications for distribution on diskettes, CD-ROM, or the World Wide Web. PODIUM supports every multimedia device installed under Windows, and it can launch any DOS or Windows program seamlessly. You can even create Web channels that push information across the Internet via PODIUM Intracasting®.
PODIUM provides both graphical and textual tools for creating multimedia applications. Graphically oriented users prefer the custom toolbox that uses icons in a click-and-drag interface to create multimedia screens. Textual users like the way PODIUM lets them create multimedia applications with any text editor. Many users learn both sets of tools and combine them when developing applications.
PODIUM has creation tools that help you record, capture, edit, and sequence multimedia events. The CD Audio tool will work with any audio compact disc. The Waveform Audio tool lets you record sound from any audio source. The Videodisc tool lets you browse and make clips from any CAV or CLV videodisc. PODIUM lets you link any combination of these events to any hypertext or graphical trigger in your application. You can use ambient sound, which is a multimedia technique in which a waveform audio file keeps repeating to create the aural illusion that the user is in the place or situation where the sound was recorded. You can even create tickers that move text and graphics across the screen in scrolling banners.
PODIUM has dozens of special effects to enhance your application. You can use any Windows TrueType font in any size or color with any amount of drop shadow. Dissolve patterns let you split, stripe, checker, push, or wipe the screen. Timings let you coordinate the appearance of slides with a sound track that narrates them. You can associate the appearance of any textual or graphical object with any mouse click, and bring them to life with the flight plan animation tool.
PODIUM is object-oriented. It lets you put any combination of text or graphical objects on the screen and link them to any object on your computer or network. All Windows multimedia devices are supported. The links can consist of any combination of sound, graphics, text, video, PODIUM file types, or any executable DOS or Windows program. For example, PODIUM provides a seamless way of linking ToolBook books, PowerPoint presentations, and Access databases. There is no limit to the number of linkages you can make with PODIUM. Its hypermedia web is infinite. PODIUM also supports Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE).
When it comes time to publish your application, you will benefit from how easy PODIUM's publication tools make make it for users to install your application. PODIUM applications can be published on diskettes, CD-ROM, or Internet World Wide Web sites. You can use PODIUM to create screen savers.
When users run your application, a chalkboard feature lets them write on any PODIUM screen, videodisc slide, or motion sequence. Simply press and hold down both mouse buttons at the same time, and the mouse cursor becomes a piece of chalk you can write with to point things out on the screen. PODIUM lets you define your own cursors, which you can make appear instead of PODIUM’s default cursors. You can change both the “normal” cursor and the “hot” cursor shape. Any bitmap editor can be used to create custom cursors for use with PODIUM.
PODIUM’s Print feature lets you print your multimedia screens in a variety of formats. You can make each screen fill the page, or you can print two, four, or nine screens per page, leaving room for students or customers to take notes. You can also attach print functions to triggers and buttons in your PODIUM applications.
Any time you need help, you can take advantage of PODIUM’s hypertext help system. Simply highlight with your mouse the feature you want help with, and press the F1 help key. Or you can pull down the PODIUM Help menu, browse the help system’s table of contents, look up items in the help index, and search for key words.
PODIUM has a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that lets multimedia authors type text directly onto the screen in the desired font, color, and shadow depth. You can specify a block into which you type the text, which will wrap automatically to the next line when your text reaches the end of the block. With your mouse, you can position the cursor any place in the text and insert or delete characters. By dragging the mouse over the text, you can highlight blocks of text for cut-copy-paste operations. PODIUM supports double-byte fonts for displaying international characters in languages such as Chinese and Japanese.
PODIUM’s HotTip feature, also known as flying help, makes it easy for you to create applications that are self-helping. If the user hesitates while mousing over a trigger or hot spot, the HotTip appears, providing just-in-time help on that part of your application. The HotKey command lets you trigger events from the keys on your computer keyboard. When the user presses the hot key, PODIUM triggers the objects you linked to it.
PODIUM comes with a drawing toolbox that lets you draw points, lines, rectangles, circles, arcs, splines, and polygons in any size, color, thickness, or shape. The toolbox also lets you create graphs and plot any point, line, curve, function, or shape on any graph. PODIUM variables enable objects plotted on graphs to become dynamic; as the user interacts and the values of variables change, the graphs update automatically. The graphics toolbox makes it easy for you to draw three-dimensional buttons, which flash when the user clicks them. You can copy-and-paste graphics from screen to screen, and easily paste graphics created with other applications. PODIUM even resolves palette shifts automatically when pictures or movies have conflicting palettes. Dissolve patterns include horizontal and vertical splits, upward and downward diagonals, explodes and implodes, checkers, and stripes. You can even push images up, down, left, and right, creating a 360-degree panoramic effect.
PODIUM supports MPEG playback. The movie hanger tool enables you to position the video window, put a frame around it, and control playback with a VCR-style button bar. A TV tuner feature lets you tune to specific television channels, and a Video Overlay command language lets you create video windows of different sizes and fill them with video coming from TV cameras, cable feeds, VCRs, and videodisc players.
PODIUM can read and write the values of numeric and string variables in datasets that can be stored on any read/write drive on your computer or network. You can use these variables in conditional statements that control how PODIUM behaves. This makes it possible for you to make PODIUM act differently, depending on what your users did the last time they used PODIUM, or if some external process (such as a payroll program) changed the value of the data. Input fields can be queried at any time as to their current contents and status. You can judge an input either key-by-key, when the user presses Enter, or any time you want to query the field’s contents.
PODIUM has a random number generator that you can use to select test questions from item banks, make pictures and sounds appear randomly in attract loops, or insert a randomly selected object or event any place in your application. You can preset the range of random numbers to be generated, and you can specify whether the random numbers that get generated are permitted to recur.
In addition to continuing PODIUM’s ease of use for new users, PODIUM 9.0 extends its capabilities in several important ways that greatly increase authoring productivity. The new features include metatext editing, intelligent buffering, eyedropper color chooser, transparent bitmaps, quick access to recently edited files, special symbol selector, palette-independent colorization, tiled backgrounds, scaleable movies, full-screen movies, local and wide area Intracasting, asynchronous animation, automatic folder creation, smart paths, quick kiosking, dynamic data exchange with Netscape, and a free runtime version for non-profit use.
To check out these new features, return to the PODIUM home page and choose "Whats New in PODIUM 9.0."
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