Digital Workshop

Made a publication which included several controls - if the user was running in 256 colours then a page would display text indicating they need to change the setting to a higher value then re-insert the CDROM. To my surprise the page showed NO text when viewed in 256 colours. Recreated this single page in an older version of Opus Pro and all worked well with text visable in 256 colours.
The main publication includes video clips and narration (.wav) and as such requires an operational sound system to be active - decided to use the variable 'system_has_sound' to detect the presence of - failure to detect would cause a page to be displayed indicating to the user that they need to run the CDROM on a system with sound working. Did tests on several PC's and some laptops and all was well until I tried the CDROM on a Compaq Laptop EVO N1050V running Windows 2000 - this was 1.6Ghz Celeron with 200Mb ram - it was on this machine that the sound worked fine but the detection in the publication said there was NO sound system and as a consequence, the warning page came into view - now decided not to use this variable.

the best work around for this is to create a piece of opus script that checks if the colour depth is 256 or below and if so launches a html page. on this html page you explain to the user that their system is set to 256 colours and show them how to increase it using screen shots.

alternatively you could create a quick utility in an earlier version of opus which is launched from opus script if the colour depth is too low, this could also include a button which displayed the systems display properties.

Launch this file:
rundll32.exe

with option/parameter:
shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL desk.cpl,,0

Hi John,
Interested to know what kind of video you are going to run at 256
colors -- most recent PC's won't run at this resolution without
problems.
I have several pubs built in Director that refuse to run
properly at 256 colors on 2003-2005 PC's with new video cards,
but they run ok on older 1999-2000 PC's with older video cards.

I think it might be a bit optimistic to expect pubs built in cutting
edge software to run in 256 colors nowadays without problems.

You are right about sound detection, it is not reliable as there are many possible variables involved in hardware detection -- Windows XP doesn't get it right all the time either-- I just tell clients I expect sound to be installed and working.
Paul

No Paul. you misunderstood. He does NOT want a computer to be at 256 colors. He wanted to detect if the computer was on that setting and have the user change it to a higher one. I still have some old games my kids will play on their computers that will force a computer into 256 and not change back in exit. That would be a case where John wants to be sure the user has the computer set up for higher colors.

Thanks for your comments - I have just tried XE05 again on a different PC running XP - created a single page with one line of text and one small picture on the page - publish and view in higher than 256 colours - all is visible, view the same in 256 colours and the page is blank. Conclusion, must be something wrong with XE05 - as this stands, you cannot supply a message which is readable in 256 colours to say to the user "increase your colour depth setting to view this publication" - they won't see anything.

Quite right about the "System_has_Sound" variable - too many different PC's/laptops out there and hence best not to trust the use of this variable. I originally used this and if the variable finding was "false" it would display a page saying "no active sound system detected" and then EXIT the publication - sadly this page showed even though the laptop textcase played sound just fine.
Regards
John

Work around maybe. If the text doesn't show in 256 colors maybe a image will show. Just put the text in an image and show that.