[V4MD] Database

[Tschoatscho Kettl]

Hello Marshall,

> I think this database was built in access first, The files(Images)  
> were not embedded in the database.

So the database only contains file names of the images (amongst other  
information?).
You can dump the Access db tables to csv (or the whole db to SQL, if  
Access supports that) and then use any db engine that is supported by  
director (for speed reasons I would recommend Valentina).


> So I opened the the file in flash and there was the image, SO I  
> need to convert all the flash file into bmp images and reference  
> the data to images then connect images to a  inm impressario  
> possibly in a container and pdf template then wala!! I'm print full  
> color presentations from Projector.

Is there any reason for you to use PDF and Impressario?(except INM  
"marketing" scripts to "combine" it with V12)
You know that you can use the SWF files directly in Director?
If you want to extract a whole bunch of images from SWF files I would  
recommend that you use a batch extractor.
Depending on the compression format of the SWF files you should get  
JPEG or PNG (be careful with re-compressing JPEG images).
As long as every SWF contains only one image it is very easy to write  
a batch extractor, assumed you don't find a freeware programm on the  
web (SWF is a tagged format and well documented).
Director can link to both PNG and JPEG images and if you won't to  
protect your images from unauthorized access you could even embed  
them into a Valentina database.
Maybe you could even embed your SWF files into Valentina by using a  
#flash member together with getMedia/setMedia.

However, the fastest and most memory efficient way to present images  
in Director is to use PNG or JPEG, either from a database or linked  
to external file.
Using SWF could be more efficient regarding production, using PDF for  
images only wouldn't be a good choice.

> There is a v12 Database I think that is what it is called that has  
> a whole sample script working with PDF on the fly.

There are sample scripts for V12 to scan and index PDF files (with  
text info) for use with Impressario.
As long as you don't need PDF you don't need Impressario, you don't  
need these scripts and therefore don't need V12 (which has meanwhile  
been updated to Vizion AFAIK).


> I wonder are there any valentina samples working with INM Xtra?

Why should Valentina support a competitors (Impressario is from INM  
as well as V12) xtra?
Again, as long as the PDFs don't contain text information the scripts  
are useless for you.

Just my 2 ¢
Tsch.