— to take best advantage, give Play it Cool a memory allocation of 512K RAM more than the movie’s size (allowing for any dependencies),
· change movie’s icon to that of Play it Cool
— double-clicking on the movie from now on will open it in Play it Cool.
Tip: Hold down option while choosing this command to show all files (not just movie files).
— This is useful if a movie file is not shown in the file list because it has been transferred from a non-MacOS system.
Tip: Hold down command while opening a movie from the desktop to let you choose the three options described above.
 
Close (‚åòW)
• Closes the active movie window.
Save (‚åòS)
• Writes the active movie file to disk.
Save As…
• Writes the active movie file to disk, asking for a new name.
• Leaves the original movie file unchanged.
Options
· save the movie normally (allowing dependencies)
— it will occupy much less disk space (≈ 4K)
— it will rely on other movie(s) from which it was created,
· save the movie as self-contained (flatten the movie)
— it may take up several megabytes on disk
— all required data is contained in the saved movie file.
If you save the movie as self-contained, you can make it playable on non-MacOS computers (e.g. Windows, BeOS and Silicon Graphics).
Tip: Hold down option to turn this command into Save A Copy As….
— Save A Copy As… saves a copy of the current movie, but unlike Save As…, does not open the saved movie afterwards.
 
Revert (‚åòR)
• Removes all changes made to the active movie since it was last saved.
Recompress Movie…
• Asks for a movie file to be compressed or recompressed.
Options
· The movie compression dialog lets you choose a QuickTime compressor, the number of colours or greys, image quality and motion settings (see diagram)
— click and drag the preview image to reveal other parts of it.
Tip: Press option while dragging the Quality slider
— the slider bar now changes the movie’s temporal settings (i.e. how much the compressor relies on differences between successive frames).
Tip: Press option while clicking in the preview to zoom in.
Tip: Press option and shift while clicking in the preview to zoom out.
 
Compress Picture…
• Asks for a PICT file to be compressed or recompressed.
Options
· The picture compression dialog lets you choose a QuickTime compressor, the number of colours or greys in the movie and image quality (see diagram)
— click and drag the preview image to reveal other parts of it.
Tip: Press option while clicking in the preview to zoom in.
Tip: Press option and shift while clicking in the preview to zoom out.
 
Build Application…
• Builds a copy of the active movie as a standalone application.
• The application can be run by any Macintosh with QuickTime installed.
• It runs independently of Play it Cool or any other QuickTime movie player.
• Movie-Applications are intended for presentations:
· they have no distracting backgrounds,
· they play at optimal playback rate,
· they change the screen’s resolution to the most appropriate size.
Movie-Applications load into RAM as much of the movie as possible before playing. To load the complete movie into RAM, give the Movie-Application a memory partition of about 200K more than the movie occupies on disk.
Options
· up to six lines of credits text may be displayed at the start of the movie
— to suppress credits text, ensure that all six entries are empty,
· the current movie window size and speed settings can be applied,
· the credit text colour can be chosen,
· the background colour can be chosen,
· the Movie-Application can quit automatically after the movie finishes playing, or it may wait for the user to click the mouse before quitting
— note that if you have chosen to quit automatically, you can still click the mouse (or use one of the key combinations below) during the movie to quit.
Tip: If you want the movie to loop or loop back and forth, choose the appropriate loop setting from the Movie menu before creating the Movie-Application.
Tip: To skip the credits, click the mouse button.
Tip: To quit the movie, click the mouse button, or press the escape key, or type command-. (the command key and the period key) or command-Q.
Unbuild Application…
• Asks for a Movie-Application to be converted into a normal QuickTime movie.
Note: This removes credit text and loop settings.
Page Setup…
• Displays the standard page setup dialog box for selecting printer page layouts
— paper size, reduction/enlargement, orientation, …
Print… (⌘P)
• Displays the standard print dialog box for selecting print settings
— number of copies, paper source, …
• If the frontmost window is a movie window, prints the current frame of the active movie, scaled according to the movie’s window size.
• If the frontmost window is a movie info window, prints the movie information.
Preferences…
• Displays a dialog allowing settings to be customised:
· click the coloured box to change the background colour used in Stage,
· select the monitor you wish the movie to play on in Stage
— the “main monitor” is the monitor containing the menu bar
— if you only have one monitor, this option is disabled,
· enter the number of seconds of blank screen before and after the movie plays in Stage,
· select whether you want the Stage to close after the movie finishes playing, or if you want to click the mouse button to leave Stage
— note that if you choose “Stop After Playing”, you can also click the mouse during the movie to stop it,
· select whether the monitor should be set to the best screen depth for this movie (this improves movie playback and image quality),
· select whether the monitor should be set to the best screen resolution for this movie (the movie looks its best at this resolution),
· select the format for the sub-seconds counter (the time counter on the far right) in the movie speed palette
— 24 fps (frames per second) is the cinema film standard,
— 25 fps corresponds to the broadcast PAL and SECAM standards,
— 29.97 fps corresponds to the post-production video standard,
— 30 fps corresponds to the broadcast NTSC standard,
— 60 ticks per second is the internal time standard used by MacOS,
· select whether you want all movies to use the same movie settings
— these include Loop, Loop Back and Forth, Mute and Play All Frames,
· select whether you want movies to play automatically when they are opened
— otherwise, you must click the “play” button in the movie controller to start playing the movie,
· select whether you want to save the “Open options” you have chosen for next time you run Play it Cool. “Open options” include loading the movie into RAM and changing the movie’s icon to that of Play it Cool
— otherwise, these three options will be turned off by default,
· enter the initial width (in pixels) of new and sound-only movies. The standard width is 160 pixels.
 
Quit (‚åòQ)
• Quits Play it Cool and returns to the desktop.
