Lingo is used to develop desktop application software, interactive kiosks, CD-ROMs and Adobe Shockwave content.
[1][2] Lingo is the primary programming language on the Adobe Shockwave platform, which dominated the interactive multimedia product market during the 1990s.
Jeff Tanner developed and tested Lingo for Director 2.2 and 3.0, created custom XObjects for various media device producers, language extension examples using XFactory including the XFactory application programming interface (API), and wrote the initial tutorials on how to use Lingo.
For Director 3.13 and later versions, extensibility occurred via a different type of plug-in called an XTRA, based upon the Microsoft Component Object Model (COM).
However, they can still be used to make black-box handlers, where other objects can input raw data and receive answers back, without knowing the inner workings of the box.
For example, controlling external media devices such as CD-ROM and Video tape players through Macintosh SerialPort.
XObject API was openly available to developers and media device producers, which added to the popularity and versatility of Lingo.
Macromind was very active in positioning the XObject API as standard for external media devices to collaborate through Lingo; and its interest as a standard achieved a lot of involvement from prominent and burgeoning media product companies through an ad hoc group called the Multimedia Association.
Starting with Director version 4.0, Lingo was extensible through a new improved class of external plugin called Xtras.
There are some similarities to functions of image applications (like Photoshop), that make it easy to create dynamic, code-based visual effects.