December 2004/January 2005

Volume 45, Number 3

Solutions, Inc.

by Ron Arner

Some recent tips, how-to's, and advice from the Rocky Mountain Chapter Listserve:

Thread #1: Free Web Tools

I ran across a couple of very useful free Web tools that I wanted to share with you.

The Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/) is an amazing place where you can find cached Web pages from many, many years ago. Useful if those cherished links in your favorites list are suddenly broken and you need one more chance to capture the content. (Also proves that simply removing a Web page does not make it go away. Can be very embarrassing to see old copies of stuff you trashed years ago.)

If you've ever wondered if someone copied your Web site content and is calling it their own, now you can quickly find out at Copyscape Online Plagiarism (http://www.copyscape.com/). After you've played around with the search features, spend a few moments learning more about global web rights--the bottom button on the home page takes you to http://www.copyscape.com/campaign.php. There you will find a Guide to Responding To Plagiarism, a public forum about plagiarism and copyright, and links to many useful resources.

Hope you find these sites useful.

Thread #2: Using/Developing Applications in Flash

(Original posting) I would appreciate any input you may have on the following questions:

1. What do you create in Flash?
2. How did you get up to speed?
3. Can you recommend any good resources (pre-built templates, consultants, trainers, training products, user groups, etc.)
4. If any of you create software demos, do you use Flash or another package?
5. If another package which one and why?

I have some experience with Flash. And there are many expert Flash developers in the area, plus excellent training resources...many world-wide resources in books, sites, etc. Your post was not clear on one point—the term 'demo (prototype)' suggests two different things—one of which Flash is good for and one of which isn't. If it's demoing existing software, then your tool of choice should be RoboDemo—now re-christened as Captivate. If it's to create fast prototypes of software that doesn't exist then Flash *might* be a good choice-however, there are others. In and of itself, Flash is a wonderful tool for creation of animations and presentations. However, it has a steep learning curve, and in today's Flash (with ActionScript) you really need some significant programming experience to use it efficiently. Incidentally, RoboDemo/Captivate is in itself a 'Flash Generator'—meaning that, while not requiring Flash expertise to operate, it generates Flash output (SWF) files, which play on recent Flash players.

I took a web development course (104 hrs) here at the University of Minnesota of which Flash was one subsection. It's a great tool but a steep learning curve...

RE: Software Demos
We recently started using RoboDemo and we plan to use it more often because of the success we've had. Here are the benefits for us:

• Easily create Flash demos of our software without knowing Flash. It captures the screens and automatically inserts captions based on your mouse clicks. Editing captions and mouse movements is easy too.
• Can incorporate the same demo in our Help files or embed them in FAQ pages on our customer portal.
• In some cases, creating a quick visual is faster than writing the actual description. See attached sample. It demonstrates a utility our customers use outside the software to merge older information. It doesn't have audio but you can incorporate that as well (sound increases file size and download time though). Note: The splash screen and closing screen were templates - all I did was select a template and enter the text.

I use RoboDemo (now called Captivate) to create training movies that can be viewed using Flash. (You can export the movies into a few different formats.)

The best place that I found for help was the RoboDemo community (http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/indexcfm?forumid=67). I spent a lot of time just reading the postings and making notes. You'll notice a lot of expert advice from a guy named Larry, who also has a separate site on RoboDemo tips and tricks (http://www.pcabcs.com/robo/).

See Item #2 in this e-zine—I think you will find it very interesting, given your recent experience with Flash.

2. ANOTHER LOTUS SCREENCAM?

A reader asks: Does anyone know of a product similar to Lotus ScreenCam that will create a simple CD demo of a product that needs to be played across all PC operating systems? "It would be great if it could cross over to a Mac, but that is not totally necessary."
Responses:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/captivate/ Michael Harris ( MHarris@international.edu ) used Lotus ScreenCam extensively from 1999 to 2000 to create product demos but then became frustrated with having to start from the beginning when anything went wrong. "Also, the resulting files were so large, they really were only usable on CDs; they weren't practical for attaching to e-mails or displaying on Web sites," Harris says.

In 2001, he started using a product called FlashCam, "which was easy to edit and saved as fairly small Flash swf files." The software, he notes, was later renamed RoboDemo when eHelp Corporation bought it, and now that Macromedia owns eHelp, they call the software Captivate.

According to Harris, Captivate can record product demos and create product training. It also can export into several formats—even as a Word document with thumbnails and captions. "You can add captions, narration, clickable areas, and much more."

http://www.qarbon.com
Jo MacDonald ( macdonald.jo@idsi.com )"highly" recommends ViewletBuilder by Qarbon in San Jose, Calif. "It is far more versatile than ScreenCam and creates far smaller files, she says. "It has a variety of output formats, including Flash files and executable files for Windows, Mac and Linux." She notes that presentations can be scaled to run on PDAs, and users also can create viewlets (animations) as automated presentations or as tutorials with user input and feedback. "The program functionality is very intuitive, and free online tutorials help new users over the rough spots."