Installing Generator

Generator consists of the following components:

Authoring extensions that enable the authoring and previewing of Generator templates in Flash 4.
Offline server components for creating Generator content without a Web server. Offline Generator runs from a command line.
Online server components that enable real-time generation of Flash movies through your Web server.
Online help.
The Generator installer can also install JRun, a Java servlet that allows you to pass information to and from the Web server via the Java servlet protocol.

In Windows, the installer offers four options for installing Generator components:

Flash 4 Authoring Extensions installs the authoring extensions.
Offline/Online server Components Only installs both the offline and the online components. This does not install JRun, which is necessary to generate Flash movies from a Web server.
Online Components with JRun Servlet Engine installs the online component and JRun. The online server component requires JRun or an equivalent supported Java servlet engine. Select this option if a supported version of JRun is not yet installed on your computer.
Documentation/Help installs the Generator online help.

On the Macintosh, the only installation options are Flash 4 Authoring Extensions and Documentation/Help.

In UNIX systems, the installer automatically installs the online and offline components and the online help.


 
Running Generator 2.0

To author Generator templates, use Flash 4. The easiest way to tell if the Generator Authoring Extensions were installed properly is to choose Window > Generator Objects and see whether the Generator Objects palette appears.

The Offline Generator file (generate.exe) is installed in the Generator 2 installation directory. In Windows, you can run the Offline Generator either directly from the MS-DOS command line, or from a batch or scripting environment such as an MS-DOS batch file or Perl script.

In UNIX systems, you can run the Offline Generator from the command line in a shell or from a Perl script. The Offline Generator file, which is named generate, is installed in the Generator2 installation directory.

The Offline Generator has several options (command-line switches) that modify the default operation of the program. For more information on Offline Generator options and processing templates with the Online Generator, see Processing templates with the Offline Generator or type generator -help.