From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Creator (software)
Creator (software)
Creator Promethean after Mike Lawton (the then Promethean
Developer(s) Nigel Pearce MD) saw Creator demonstrated at Ceebit in the same
year. Pearce joined Promethean at the same time.
Initial release 1993
Promethean continued to maintain the Creator prod-
Stable release 1.96 / 1994 uct and to support the user base until mid 1999.
In 1997 the Creator codebase was used as the starting
Written in Visual Basic 3
point for the Promethean application PandA, later Ac-
Operating system Microsoft Windows tivstudio and Activprimary
Creator was a software multimedia authoring applica-
tion, originally designed for the purpose of creating Description
’point of sale/point of information’ (POS/POI) systems. Creator used a "book and page" system. The "book" was
The program was designed and developed by Nigel a Creator file containing one or more pages where each
Pearce whilst working for the monitor manufacturer Mi- page comprised a set of objects such as text, images and
crovitec. video. Each object could have up to two programmable
actions which when clicked upon could link the user to
History another page in the book, change the appearance of an-
other object on the page or play a video or sound file
A predecessor of Creator was written for the Alhambra (amongst other actions).
Theatre, Bradford in 1991. It was written in Turbo Pascal The program implemented the feature whereby each
for DOS and ran on touchscreen driven PCs housed in in- object on the page could be made to replicate itself in
teractive booths within the theatre foyer. The applica- a defined grid formation. Additionally each object could
tion allowed visitors to browse the program for forth- contain a list of content references such as text strings,
coming shows, to book seats using a visual seating plan images or external file references which would then be
and to look for restaurants in the locality. It was devel- automatically displayed inside the replicated objects
oped by Brian Lumb of Visual Solutions (Saltaire), who within the grid. This feature provided the user with the
along with Nigel Pearce helped to implement the work- ability to create interactive menus and scrollable data
ing solution. Much of the coding logic within the appli- lists.
cation was based upon the research by Pearce for his BSc The application could run either unattended in "slide
thesis: ’Point of Information Systems’ undertaken at Sh- show" mode or be driven interactively via touch screen,
effield Hallamshire University in 1992. mouse and/or keyboard. Creator included database
When Visual Solutions dissolved in 1992, Lumb searching techniques via SQL queries on the book data.
brought the "touch interactive software: concept to Mi- The program also utilised numerous page transitions and
crovitec where Pearce evolved the application into a hi-resolution, true colour graphics to attract its target
Windows based version using a mixture of the program- audience. The Creator Server extension allowed for a sys-
ming languages Visual Basic and C. This software became tem administrator to update book and page content on
the product known as Creator. Version 1 was released in any client machine across a LAN or to remote machines
late 1993 followed by Creator Professional in 1994.[1] [2] via modem dial up.
[3] [4][5]
Creator was distributed by Cosmi UK between
1994-1995. References
In 1995, Plymouth County Council adopted Creator as [1] David Bradwell, "How To Develop your own
its general point of information system across the city multimedia software", Article, What PC, Issue 74,
and was implemented using a network of touch screen September 1995
driven PCs connected via modems. The satellite systems [2] Mike Magee, "From Here to Multimedia", Feature,
received updates from the central control server on a Practical PC, Volume 4, Issue 6, June 1995
daily basis. [3] Paul Stevens, "Do It Yourself Multimedia’, Article,
In 1996 Microvitec were suffering significantly in the PC Plus, Issue 106, August 1995
sector and the rights to the Creator application were sold [4] John Taylor, "DIY Multimedia’, Feature, CD-ROM
to newly formed interactive whiteboard manufacturer User, Issue 10, May 1995
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Creator (software)
[5] Simon Williams, "Creator", Windows Pro Choice • Activprimary
Feature, CD-ROM Today, Issue 16, August 1995 • Microvitec
• Promethean
Links
• Activstudio
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Creator_(software)&oldid=449446265"
Categories:
• Multimedia software
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