What Do I Have?
The first step in developing your media strategy is to inventory the sources of the materials you'll be working with. Your media sources most likely fall into one of these four categories:
| Source | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. Your own local files | Media files on a hard drive you have direct access to |
| 2. Files hosted on the Internet | Media files hosted on your own or someone else's publicly accessible website |
| 3. Files hosted by a Scalar-accessible web service | Media files from web services for which Scalar has direct links. These include:
|
| 4. Files hosted by a Scalar-affiliated media archive | Files from media archives for which Scalar has direct links. These include:
|
It's important to test all of your media sources on all of your target platforms early and often, because each one has its own characteristics and requirements that affect how it appears on various platforms. For example, because of platform and browser differences, a PDF document may appear differently in Safari on a Macintosh than it does in Internet Explorer on a Windows machine. If your book depends on media functioning in a particular way on a specific platform, you should confirm that fact rather than assuming it will "just work." In an open, heterogeneous environment like the web, there are ample opportunities for hiccups when it comes to media.