Copyright (c) 1996 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company
PC Magazine -- April 9, 1996
Linda and Erick Von Schweber
Neither a CBT tool nor a typical kiosk creation program, Looking Glass Software's $799 MediaVerse 1.5 takes its own road. Developers who must make sense of an existing media collection or producers who wish to turn a linear source (such as a book) into a nonlinear interactive title may find all they need in MediaVerse. But unfortunately, the product's novel approach comes with an immature development environment.
MediaVerse, a 16-bit application that runs on Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, follows the Hypercard concept: An application consists of one or more card stacks. Each stack shares a background with the stack's cards and is a screen of the application containing the user-selected and specified objects that present media and interface components. But this is where MediaVerse's similarity to other Hypercard-inspired tools--such as Multimedia ToolBook and Oracle Media Objects--ends.
When you open the development environment, an abundance of window opens up. The MediaVerse database, a repository of media with a tool to shift your view easily, dominates your display. You can view by media type or a folders perspective, and a flat view lets you peruse all media types. The database represents both files that you've imported into MediaVerse and linked files that remain external. MediaVerse marks every object accordingly.
The edit mode lets you launch an editor for each media type by clicking a media object. Hypertext, the text editor's specialty, outshines the rudimentary graphics and .WAV editors. And the interface editor, in which you build your application, provides most desired features.
Media linking, perhaps MediaVerse's most powerful and distinctive feature, lets you place clickable areas called HotLinks into your media and link these hot spots to other media in the database. You create such links in Link mode; just point, drag, and drop. These useful MediaVerse editors can create HotLinks in .WAV files, .AVI videos, and graphics and text files.
The interface editor lets you create a simple screen with a media placeholder for each media type. Drag a media object, such as a graphic with HotLinks, into the placeholder. Click a HotLink and the linked object will come up in the appropriate placeholder. You can follow HotLinks from this media object to others.
PC Labs' testing did not include object management or the creation of interactive multimedia books, tasks for which MediaVerse seems best suited. To complete the tasks required by the testing script, we had to make a number of simplifications. We could not animate the main title of our application to slide into place, nor could we implement pick, drag, and drop for the CBT quiz. MediaVerse does not directly support CD audio and MIDI, which require MCI commands, and implementing the data access and file writing proved possible but cumbersome.
Further checking revealed nearly useless documentation and a general immaturity in MediaVerse's development environment: Huge dialog boxes have no cancel option; program-editing boxes have no editing facilities (as in cut-and-paste); the online help system often says things like "The script edit box is where you edit script"; and you lose references of media objects after you import one.
The interface editor features a tool palette of common interface objects such as buttons, list boxes, and placeholders for media. Select an object type from the toolbar and place it on the card, sizing it via point-and-drag. Double-clicking on the object brings up a properties dialog that specifies the values of attributes. You can add your own attributes, set their data types, and initialize them. But make sure to save often: The attributes box has no cancel button to undo the changes you've made.
Once you've chosen, placed, and specified your objects, you must next assign behavior to the interface. Again, MediaVerse follows its own path with a method not quite fully developed yet likable nonetheless. We could create a screen that let us play sound files and match them with the correct image of the composer. To play each file, we created a button by clicking the button object on the toolbar. We sized and labeled it, then dragged the icon of a .WAV file onto the card containing the button. But the visual representations of the button and sound object became grayed when we switched from Edit to Link mode.
Unfortunately, no definitive identifier links the input/output icon from an object in Link mode to the object you see in Edit mode. MediaVerse attempts to locate the input/output icon "over" the grayed-out object, but so many objects on a screen can be confusing. Clicking on the O of the button's input/output icon produces a dialog box of attributes, events, relationships, HotLinks, and wires. We selected the Clicked event and connected it to the play method of the sound object. A wire appeared that connected the output of the button to the input of the sound, which provided visual confirmation.
Looking Glass promises that Version 2 of MediaVerse will include a more mature environment, extensions to support data access, and even deployment over the Internet. If the applications you develop fall precisely within MediaVerse's territory, the product, despite its shortcomings, should fulfill your needs. In any event, MediaVerse, with its unique approach, is certainly a product to watch.
MediaVerse 1.5
List price: $799.
Requires: 486/66-based PC or better, 8MB RAM, 4MB hard disk space, Microsoft Windows 3.1 or later, VGA card, 2X CD-ROM drive.
In short: MediaVerse is an average hypermedia authoring tool optimized for creating interactive books and media management but adaptable to kiosk creation and CBT.
Looking Glass Software Inc., Inglewood, CA; 310-348-8240; fax, 310-348-9786.
Power Ease
Interactive title development Fair Good
Computer-based training (CBT) Fair Fair
Interactive catalogs/kiosks Good Good
Web authoring N/A N/A
N/A--Not applicable: The product does not have this feature.
Copyright (c) 1996
Ziff-Davis Publishing Company