mTropolis (pronounced "metropolis") was an open-architecture rapid application development system for multimedia, introduced in 1995. It used object-oriented concepts such as reusable objects, modifiers and behaviors for multimedia authoring. It was developed by mFactory (pronounced "em-factory")  which was bought by Quark in 1997, which moved development from Burlingame, California to Denver. Unfortunately, the product was cancelled a year later.

It had a different approach to competitive products. While Apple's HyperCard, Pitango Clickworks had a card based metaphor, and Macromedia Director had a film metaphor (The Stage, The Score, an assets library named The Cast, etc.). mTropolis used sections, subsections, and scenes where assets would be placed. Combinations of behaviors and modifiers would be dragged onto assets. Interaction and animation was created by making different modifiers send messages to each other. Without any typing a user could quickly create scenes, without any typing. There was a simple programming language, however, most effects came from attaching standard behaviors and modifiers from pop-up menus.

mTropolis 1.1 released in May 1996, added support for QuickTime VR 1.0. Retail price $1,195.

October 1996: mFactory released beta 1 of the mPire browser plug-in

On the CD-ROM:

• mTropolis editor for Macintosh and Power Macintosh
• mTropolis players for Macintosh, Power Macintosh, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95
• MovieTrax Quicktime track editor for Macintosh and Power Macintosh
• mFactory Object Module (MOM) Interface documentation, headers, and examples
• mTropolis Tutorial
• m Examples Project and Title
• On-Line Reference Guide and Developer Guide
• QuickTime, Sound Manager, and Acrobat Reader for Macintosh
• WinG, Video for Windows, QuickTime for Windows, and Acrobat Reader for Windows

Platform: Apple Power Macintosh or Apple Macintosh 68020, 68040 8 Mb of RAM CD-ROM Hard Disk

               Mac OS System 7.x Quicktime 2.1 (included) Sound Manager 3.1 (included)

Application Software (AS:) Multimedia

Version: 1.1 for Power Macintosh and Macintosh

Related Items in the Collection:

Quicktime 1.5

Apple Media Tool

Multimedia in Action

Information About mFactory: