The mscape team are pleased to announce that a new version of mscape is available from today.
Internet Connectivity
Probably the most exciting new feature is one that has been tested, honed, and improved after feedback from mscape experimental users.. That is, the internet connectivity functionality provided by the new HTTP object.
With the HTTP Requester object found within HTTP, your mediascape can now download and use live data from a whole host of on-line data sources. Your mediascape can feature data extracted live from text files, XML files, or JSON files hosted anywhere public on the web. HTTP can talk back to the web too - you could upload scores or notes or other data to your existing website, or in conjunction with some straightforward server-side code (e.g. PHP), you can make a multi-player mediascape game.
You can also download images, audio, video, and Flash Movies live from the web and play them back in your mediascape. As I’m sure you can imagine, this opens up a huge number of exciting possibilities for mscape developers.
To help get you started, you can check out some of the tutorials we’ve written on the HTTP Help Pages.
Other Changes
There are a series of other changes for you to enjoy in version 2.6…
- Groups of regions/pins/speakers can now be moved to a new location in one go using the new Recenter/Move Regions option. Right-click on a map or group to use it, it’s dead handy for moving an existing mediascape to a completely new location.
- The color of regions can now be changed during the running of your mediascape. e.g. MyRegion.Color = Color.Red;
- If you drag an object in the mediascape list on the left-hand side of the screen up to the top or bottom, the list will scroll. This makes drag-drop operations such as moving files much simpler on large mediascapes.
- Loads of bug fixes. For instance Flash Movies have had a number of bugs sorted out which make playing back Flash-based mediascapes much more reliable. See the release notes for the full list.