[15.1] What are Xobjects?

[15.1] What are they?

XObjects, XCMDs and DLLs are all forms of standalone code: extra procedures and functions that can be stitched into Director on the fly to extend its capabilities. Typical uses are to provide support for specialized hardware and to give access to wayward bits of the operating system.

XObjects are Director's native standalone code format, using much the same object-oriented structure as factories. XCMDs (external commands) and XFCNs (external functions) are Mac code resource formats originally devised for HyperCard and subsequently adopted by a number of other applications. DLLs (dynamic link libraries) are the Windows standard format for standalone code.