[2] About Direct-L
Director FAQ [2] About Direct-L
[2.1] What is it?
Direct-L is an electronic mailing list dedicated to discussion of Macromedia
Director. It is the main Internet-based forum for information-gathering,
technical advice, ranting, raving and whining about Director, but discussion
does stray across many other related multimedia issues too.
It is administered by LISTSERV software, which means that most of the day to
day operations are performed automatically - when you send a message to the
list, it is automatically forwarded to all the subscribers. Subscription
requests and other administrative messages are dealt with by computers, not
humans, so they have to be submitted in a format that the software can
understand. Some of the main admin messages are detailed below.
As it is a mailing list, not a newsgroup, everyone on the list has to receive
everything anyone sends, so be a bit considerate when posting - subscribers
may be on services like CompuServe which charge for every piece of mail
received, and they won't have the option of refusing posts they might not be
interested in. This isn't to say you should be afraid of raising subjects of
marginal interest - we're all here to learn, and there are a lot of
apparently esoteric aspects of multimedia that may become central in the
blink of an eye - just that long dreary flamewars and similar Usenet
traditions are best left on Usenet.
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Director FAQ [2] About Direct-L
[2.2] How do I subscribe?
Send email containing the message:
SUBSCRIBE DIRECT-L your full name
to the address:
The message should have no subject and no signature. The address for mail to
be forwarded to list subscribers is:
This address should *not* be used for administrative messages like
subscription and signoff requests. This stuff is done mechanically and
messages sent to the wrong address won't work. They'll also be forwarded to
everyone on the list, and frankly we aren't interested.
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Director FAQ [2] About Direct-L
[2.3] How do I unsubscribe?
Send email containing the message:
To the listserv address:
Note that the message gives no details about who you are or what your email
address is. The listserv computer determines this information from the
headers of your email and there is no capacity for overriding this.
Consequently, you can only unsubscribe from the address you originally
subscribed from. If that isn't possible for some reason, you must contact
the listowner directly and ask him to unsubscribe you manually:
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Director FAQ [2] About Direct-L
[2.4] Why don't I get copies of my messages?
One of the default listserv options for direct-l is to not receive copies of
your own messages. Even though you aren't receiving them, your posts are
still going to all the other subscribers.
If you prefer to receive copies of your own messages, send the message:
to the listserv address:
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Director FAQ [2] About Direct-L
[2.5] Can I get the list in digest form?
Yes. If the volume of messages gets overwhelming, you can instruct the
listserv to send you each day's messages batched together in one. The
message to send is:
and, one last time, the listserv address is:
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Director FAQ [2] About Direct-L
[2.6] I haven't received any messages recently. Is the list down or
what?
Maybe. The list mechanism has broken down once or twice in the past. But
before spamming everyone with queries, stop to check whether your listserv
options are still what they should be:
to the listserv address.
If everything seems to be set right, consider just waiting a few days. Email
can go astray or be delayed for any number of reasons, so it's a good idea to
let a reasonable time lapse before jumping to conclusions. If you're convinced
something's wrong and need confirmation, try sending personal email to
someone you know on the list. If the list is down, sending messages about it
to the list is obviously a waste of time. Comparing notes with someone else
who's also receiving or not receiving their subscription at least gets you
that much information.
As a last resort you may wish to contact the list owner (see 2.9 below),
although if there is something wrong it's a fair bet someone's already done
this.
The one action which is demonstrably useless in such circumstances is mailing
Direct-L about the problem. All that happens is everyone gets 200 posts
bemoaning the list's absence after it isn't absent any more.
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Director FAQ [2] About Direct-L
[2.7] Is there a separate list for Windows users?
No. Although "MacroMind Director for the Macintosh" still appears in Direct-L
mail headers, this is just a historical leftover. Direct-L participants are
users of both platforms. The Windows version is not yet as established as on
the Mac, but Windows-specific and cross-platform issues are increasingly to
the fore. Whatever platform you're developing for, Direct-L is the place.
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Director FAQ [2] About Direct-L
[2.8] Why isn't it a newsgroup?
Direct-L isn't a newsgroup because it started life as a mailing list and
everyone seems pretty happy with it that way. There doesn't seem to be
significant opposition to creating a newsgroup in addition to the list, but
so far no-one's actually felt the need to go through the process of doing so.
If you feel strongly that there should be a Director group on Usenet, the way
to go about creating it is documented in *********
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Director FAQ [2] About Direct-L
[2.9] Who's the list owner?
The list owner for Direct-L is CB Lih:
Be nice.
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Director Web:
Director FAQ: [2] About Direct-L
Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (MCLI)
Maricopa County Community College District
HTML by Matthew Kerner, c642133@missouri.edu
The Internet Connection at MCLI is
Alan Levine --}
Comments to
levine@maricopa.edu
URL: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/director/faq/faq2.html