The principals of Interactive Authoring:

There are different tools used for interactive authoring all with different levels on how complicated each software is, there are also two different levels of one which is high level and these are the authoring tools and the other which is low level which is for programming, the difference between these two levels is that the higher the level software the less complicated it is to understand and the high level authoring tools work more with the software, whereas the low level tools are closet to the hardware for things like manipulating with the memory of the pc which is one thing that the low level tools can do which the high level tools can’t do.

Two good software’s to compare that are a high level and a low level would be PowerPoint and Glbasic, these two software’s are both extremely different where PowerPoint is a high level software which is easy to use, Glbasic is a low level software which is close to programming, the difference between these two software’s is that PowerPoint is easy to use and everything is laid out on the software so you can just click and drag, Glbasic however is close to programming where you can do it all from scratch writing out the code instead of clicking and dragging the elements

High level software:

High level software is the type of software which isn’t close to the machine, what is meant by this is the high level software will barely affect the machine for example the memory, a type of high level software could be adobe flash this also uses drag and drop in the software, these high level software’s are also very simple and easy to use with the drag and drop you don’t need to change anything using code, although these are high level software’s they are probably made using low level software’s which are closer to the machine, since these kinds of software’s are generally easy to use they can be used by anyone and not just programmers, high level software means that people like developers are able to look more at the functionality of something instead of the hardware and actually making something work.

Low level software:

This type of software is close to the machine and more difficult to use an example of a low level software could be C these kinds of software’s are mainly used by programmers or software engineers, this kind of software also makes the programmer or whoever is using the software get the most from a computer and helps get to the lower level hardware of a machine, low level software can also be used to make high level software and a good example of this being used is a programmer in a game company could make a game engine for the game designer to use so the programmer uses a low level software to make a high level software for someone else to use to help make a game.

Here are some examples of high level/low level software:

PowerPoint:

PowerPoint is a high level software that uses slides and drag and drop to add elements to it, this software is easy to use as you can just click on something to add it in whereas in lower level software’s you would usually have to do some programming to be able to have that, this software also has things like transition effects in and this in PowerPoint is easy to do as this type of software is mainly drag and drop.

Prezzi:

Prezzi is a lot like PowerPoint however this is done on a website however this is still a high level software it is easy and simple to use but uses more transitions and effects than PowerPoint, although this is still drag and drop and can be used by anyone so there is no real difficulty in learning this software.

Glbasic:

Glbasic is close to programming but is still an authoring tool, the reason it’s close to programming is because the user has to use a language to program to make something, this type of software is a low level software because you are able to get close to the machine e.g. being able to change the amount of memory used this is good if you can use the software but can be bad if done wrong, so not everyone is able to use this kind of software as you will need to be able to do some sort of programming to fully understand this software and because this isn’t drag and drop you have to write the program from scratch.

Flash:

Flash could is more of a high level software however it doesn’t just use drag and drop it does have some programming in it for example as2 and as3 (action script 2 and action script 3) this kind of software then is both easy and slightly difficult to use depending on what you are using it for, if you use it for things like animations then it is easy and simple to use, however if you use it for programming a game then it becomes more difficult to use as not everyone knows how to use as2 and 3 so depending on what is being done on flash depends on what kind of person can use it.

here is an example of flash using drag and drop tools such as the rectangle tool:



there are also more tools in flash that use drag and drop elements as well which help make this a high level software and makes this software easier to use and also to learn.














However the parts that can make flash also a lower level software is the programming, flash uses actionscript as it's programming language, you are able to use actionscript 2 or 3, here is an example of what some programming can look like:

With high level and low level software you can do some of the same things, such as making an animation, so in flash it could be easy to do using parts in flash like the frames and drawing/editing the animation:

so using flash making a simple animation could take only minutes, however if you were using something like Glbasic this could take longer, as it is a lower level software without the frame or timeline feature that flash has and it would have to be made by scratch and also making it so it animates which would take a lot longer than simply making it in flash.

many people could decide to use a higher level software rather than a lower level software because the higher level softwares are easier to use so instead of using C someone could use GLbasic because it is slightly easier to use with the elements it has and also how GL basics language was easier to understand compared to using C.

another reason to use a higher level software could be depending on the job you have to do, such as if it is a designing a website then the better software to use would've been Flash rather than Gl basic, basically people could use a higher level software depending on what they need to do and also on how much time they have, if someone has a lot of time to do one project then they might use a lower level software to be able to do more rather than using a higher level software which could have less in.







Authoring:

There are different types of authoring tools and these can be used for different multimedia products, types of authoring tools can go into different parts, a type of this could be:

• Slide
• Frame
• Scripting language

A software which uses slides is PowerPoint this is a high level drag and drop software, a high level software which uses frames is Adobe Flash, this software uses drag and drop as well as a scripting language however a more common software for scripting language is Glbasic, but this is a low level software so this is different from the other two.

The benefits of these authoring tools are that they are easier to use by just dragging and dropping using little to no code at all so it is easy both to use and to learn however the limitations of these authoring tools such as PowerPoint means that you can’t do as much as you want to do or can think of doing whereas using lower level software means that you are able to do more and make more, however with this being able to do more though it is more difficult to learn as you need to program to make what you want instead of using drag and drop elements.

There are different kinds of interactive elements, such as timelines and slides, timelines are used in flash as well as frames the frames are just like slides except these are used more for animations or if programming in flash then can be used for different pages or buttons this is different to programming tools such as C as you don’t have different slides or timelines instead you have to program in new pages or different screens but it is more difficult to do as you have to write the program from scratch whereas with the higher level software in a few clicks you can do exactly the same in half the time the benefits of this in a higher level authoring tool is that you are able to do certain things with in the software a lot quicker.

The benefits of authoring tools is that they are easy to use, everything is there and ready for you to use so you have to program nothing and just use drag and drop to add elements and this Is simple and easy to do, another part that benefits the authoring tools is the fact they are easy to use and learn so you can learn and use them easily without any difficulty.

A limitation of the authoring tools is the fact you can’t change certain parts closer to the machine for example in Glbasic you are able manipulate the memory whereas in a higher level authoring tool such as flash you are unable to do this, and also with the authoring tools there are some limitations on what else you can and cannot do whereas if you use a programming software you are able to do certain things that can’t be done in higher level software’s.