TechNote (Archived)

Map file basics

A basic understanding of map file concepts is important for web packaged pieces to function properly. This TechNote outlines the most common elements used when preparing a file for the web:

The Authorware Web Player plug-in
The plug-in folder
The map file

The Authorware Web Player plug-in

The Authorware Web Player is needed to play any web packaged piece. The Web Player is basically the Authorware runtime engine, wrapped into a plug-in or ActiveX control for the browser. For more information about the different versions of the Authorware Web Player, see Authorware Web Players (TechNote 15966).

Note: The Authorware Web Player does not perform any processing on the server. The server simply distributes the files. All processing occurs on the client machine by the Web Player. This means that even if all the required files are in a folder on your hard drive or on the server, the piece may not play properly if the map file is not set up correctly.

The plug-in folder

The location of the Authorware Web Player plug-in depends on the browser. For example, when using Internet Explorer, the Web Player is typically installed in the following location:

On Windows NT: Winnt\system32\Macromed\Authorwa
On Windows 95/98: Windows\system\Macromed\Authorwa
On Windows 2000/XP: Windows\system32\Macromed\Authorwa

When using Netscape browsers, the Web Player is typically installed in the following location:

Program Files/Netscape/Communicator/Program/Plugins/Np32asw

Note: For Netscape browsers, the exact location of the Web Player may vary. However, it should always reside within the Netscape plug-ins folder.

The example below shows an example Windows NT directory structure for the Web Player plug-in, but the relevant data is the same for all operating systems.

The Map File

The map file controls the download of the web piece. Essentially, it tells the Authorware Web Player what files are needed for playback and where they will go on the end-user's machine. The map file is basically a text file and has a file extension of AAM.

For Authorware 6 and later, the One-Button Publishing feature accessible from the Publish command in the File menu will create the map file for you. Choose File > Publish > Publish Settings to modify the settings for One-Button Publishing. Settings in the map file can be customized in the Files tab of the One Button Publishing dialog box (be sure to check both the Local and Web sub-tabs in this location). Before Authorware 6, the developer must create the map file with the Authorware Web Packager or with a text editor application.

A sample map file is shown below:

Ver 0 5 indicates that this is an Authorware 5 file to the plug-in. This would state "Ver 0 7 " if the piece was made with Authorware 6.5 and "Ver 0 8" if it was made with Authorware 7.
get . means "Get the files listed below from the same folder where you found the .aam file."
put DOWNLOAD means "Put the files listed below in a folder called 'Download' within the plug-in's AW50 folder."
seg lines are the segment files of the piece that have been created by the packager. These will stream down from the server to be played. You will almost never have to edit these lines.
#HTML_PARAMS: tell the browser how to play the piece. It is unlikely that you will ever need to edit this line.
Bypass Security Dialog controls whether the piece will play automatically or whether the user will have to click on a security dialog box to start the piece. If the user clicks Ok in the security dialog, the piece will play in Trusted Mode, otherwise it is not a trusted piece and certain features will be disabled, such as the ability to download external files or to use certain functions such as JumpOutReturn.
Unique ID is a parameter for the Advanced Streamer. If there is ever a "Unique ID" error and the Advanced Streamer is not being used, delete this line and the error will go away.

We will mostly be concerned with Get, Put, and Bin lines, which are discussed next.

The Get line

Get lines tell the map file where it can find the files it needs to download. As noted above, Get . tells the map file that it will find the listed files in the same folder as itself. Unless you have different needs, it is easiest to have all your files in one folder on the server. To specify a subfolder, the Get line could be edited to read:

Get media

This would tell the map file: "Look for the files listed below in a folder called 'media,' which is a subfolder of the current folder."

The Put line

The Put line tells the Web Player where to put the files listed below it. For files that have to be at the same level as the runtime, such as movie drivers and UCDs, this would be:

put .

It is safe to change the put DOWNLOAD line toput . for most files. It will save you some further map file editing and will not affect the performance of your piece. If you are using 3rd party Xtras that must go to the Xtras folder, the line would be:

put Xtras

It is possible to have many Put and Get lines.

Note: It is very important to consider that the files to be downloaded are controlled by the closest Get and Put lines directly above them in the map file. Make sure that the files are underneath the correct Get and Put lines.

The Bin Line

Bin lines are used to direct the map file to download any external file that is needed to play the piece. These might include:

UCD/U32s/DLLs (when using a Knowledge Object, for instance)
3rd party Xtras or Xtras not already included with the Web Player
External media such as video, audio, linked Flash files, PDFs or text files for a glossary

To insert a Bin Line, highlight the line directly above where you want your line to appear, then choose Edit > Insert Line> bin. A dialog box will appear that looks like this:

Generally, only the Server and Local fields need to be filled in. These two fields will usually be identical. For details on the different parameters of the bin line, read Editing external content lines (part of the article, Editing a map file with the Authorware Web Packager).

This is an example of a map file that illustrates these points:

and this is the directory structure to which it refers:

In the above image, the Server folder represents the folder on the server, or your files on your hard drive. Themovie.mpeg file is in the media folder.

Note: In the above images, the AW50 folder has been moved to the Desktop for clarity. This example still reflects what will happen in the plug-in folder.

After the piece has been run, the plug-in folder will now contain all the external files:

Now we can see that, per the instruction in the map file:

The movie.mpeg has been copied from the Media folder (get Media) and put in the main plug-in folder (put .).
The a5mpeg32.xmo has been copied from the server folder (get .) and put in the main folder (put .).
The 3rdparty.x32 has been copied from the server folder (get .) and put in the Xtras folder (put Xtras).