Macromedia Director is a comprehensive multimedia authoring tool which allows you to build and distribute your own multimedia presentations on CD-ROMs, DVDs, and the Web. You can combine images (BMP and PIC), sound (WAV), animation (GIF), text (RTF), and video content (FLC and FLI) into a single file and then export it in a variety of file types, including AVI and Shockwave. Macromedia Director features a high-quality playback engine\; visual effects, such as alpha channels, rotation, and skewing\; support for vector illustrations\; a scriptable programming language entitled Lingo\; and much more. The program uses cast windows to store the media assets used in a project. Once in the cast, these media assets are called cast members. Each cast can hold and display up to 32,000 cast members, and you can have multiple casts (up to 32,000). Macromedia Director also includes a component called Fireworks, which lets you quickly create buttons, animations, and page comparisons. Everything you create remains editable, and you can save production time with the History panel, step-by-step button maker wizard, and the built-in Library. You can streamline the time it takes to add support for important interactive elements, such as navigation, user-interface widgets, custom controls, lists, and timers using the behavior palette library. In addition, the program features a multiuser server with a capacity of 50 simultaneous connections and the ability to extend it to 1,000, as well as a Shockwave player.