Demo / tutorial maker tools?
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
They want $1900 for the full tilt boogie version of RoboHelp!
I always wondered about people that used it. I'd use the HTML Help Workshop and MS Word any day of the week before I dropped 2K on RoboHelp. :) Jeremy Falcon
Back in the Windows 3.1 days, when I had my software company, one of our gigs was writing a bunch of Word macros to help automate their help system stuff. Man, talk about primative. I'm sure it's much better these days. Probably don't even need stone tablets and a chisel anymore. :) Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
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Yeah, there are a few different styles to choose from. You could also draw your own.
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That may work for me since I already have Flash at home I can just add the voiceovers in that. So, as long as I'm asking... :) Anyway to control the frame rate so it's not so jittery? Jeremy Falcon
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Back in the Windows 3.1 days, when I had my software company, one of our gigs was writing a bunch of Word macros to help automate their help system stuff. Man, talk about primative. I'm sure it's much better these days. Probably don't even need stone tablets and a chisel anymore. :) Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
I just noticed the name change. I like it. Easy to remember. Jeremy Falcon
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I just noticed the name change. I like it. Easy to remember. Jeremy Falcon
Thanks. Show Programming was started back in 2001 when I was writing DMX concert lighting control software. It didn't make much sense in the context of my current strategy consulting business! Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
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BTW, there's a free trail if you want to play around with it first. Jeremy Falcon
Yeah, downloading as we speak... Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
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That may work for me since I already have Flash at home I can just add the voiceovers in that. So, as long as I'm asking... :) Anyway to control the frame rate so it's not so jittery? Jeremy Falcon
Yes. :)
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Yes. :)
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I just downloaded it. It doesn't seem to save video to anything except SWF and EXE. And it throws an ugly progress bar saying "Created by Wink" on the SWF. :( Jeremy Falcon
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Hey, guys. I'm looking for a good tool to create those nifty, animated popup tutorials for an application. For example, the user clicks a "How do I add a record?" button, a little window pops up showing an animation of a mouse selecting Record / Add from the main menu, types in text, hits save, etc., preferably with an option for accompanying audio for verbal explanation. What's neat and groovy for this sort of stuff these days? Don't want to write a new tool, just want to find one that works and use it. :) Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
FYI, I just came across this one. It's about $200 cheaper but still has what you're looking for. http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp[^] Jeremy Falcon
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Hey, guys. I'm looking for a good tool to create those nifty, animated popup tutorials for an application. For example, the user clicks a "How do I add a record?" button, a little window pops up showing an animation of a mouse selecting Record / Add from the main menu, types in text, hits save, etc., preferably with an option for accompanying audio for verbal explanation. What's neat and groovy for this sort of stuff these days? Don't want to write a new tool, just want to find one that works and use it. :) Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
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I just downloaded it. It doesn't seem to save video to anything except SWF and EXE. And it throws an ugly progress bar saying "Created by Wink" on the SWF. :( Jeremy Falcon
Ya, swf and exe are the options. Hit File->Preferences and check out the preloader options - you can select one that doesn't say "Created by Wink", or disable it entirely.
---- Scripts i've known... CPhog 0.9.9 - make CP better. Forum Bookmark 0.2.5 - bookmark forum posts on Pensieve Print forum 0.1.1 - printer-friendly forums
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Ya, swf and exe are the options. Hit File->Preferences and check out the preloader options - you can select one that doesn't say "Created by Wink", or disable it entirely.
---- Scripts i've known... CPhog 0.9.9 - make CP better. Forum Bookmark 0.2.5 - bookmark forum posts on Pensieve Print forum 0.1.1 - printer-friendly forums
That's cool. I just would've prefered more output options so I could fancy up the video clip and import it into Flash for the voiceovers. I'm not a big fan of using SWFs on top of SWFs anyway. Jeremy Falcon
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FYI, I just came across this one. It's about $200 cheaper but still has what you're looking for. http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp[^] Jeremy Falcon
Just got through downloading & doing a quick sample with Captivate, and I think it's going to be just what we need. I also like the fact that it's with a major and established company. Swf support is pretty standard these days. Thanks for all the help, man! I think I hear a pizza calling... :D Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
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Just got through downloading & doing a quick sample with Captivate, and I think it's going to be just what we need. I also like the fact that it's with a major and established company. Swf support is pretty standard these days. Thanks for all the help, man! I think I hear a pizza calling... :D Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
Christopher Duncan wrote:
Thanks for all the help, man! I think I hear a pizza calling...
No problem. :-D Jeremy Falcon
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Hey, guys. I'm looking for a good tool to create those nifty, animated popup tutorials for an application. For example, the user clicks a "How do I add a record?" button, a little window pops up showing an animation of a mouse selecting Record / Add from the main menu, types in text, hits save, etc., preferably with an option for accompanying audio for verbal explanation. What's neat and groovy for this sort of stuff these days? Don't want to write a new tool, just want to find one that works and use it. :) Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
For non-talkies I use Wink. For talkies, I use http://www.camstudio.org/[^]. "My dog worries about the economy. Alpo is up to 99 cents a can. That's almost seven dollars in dog money" - Wacky humour found in a business magazine
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Hey, guys. I'm looking for a good tool to create those nifty, animated popup tutorials for an application. For example, the user clicks a "How do I add a record?" button, a little window pops up showing an animation of a mouse selecting Record / Add from the main menu, types in text, hits save, etc., preferably with an option for accompanying audio for verbal explanation. What's neat and groovy for this sort of stuff these days? Don't want to write a new tool, just want to find one that works and use it. :) Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
I can vouch for Captivate. It's incredible. Also, if you can swing the academic qualifications, you can get it for half-price. Tom Archer (blog) Program Manager MSDN Online (Windows Vista and Visual C++) MICROSOFT
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Back in the Windows 3.1 days, when I had my software company, one of our gigs was writing a bunch of Word macros to help automate their help system stuff. Man, talk about primative. I'm sure it's much better these days. Probably don't even need stone tablets and a chisel anymore. :) Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
At least now it's simple text (well, HTML) you're generating, instead of RTF X| .
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I can vouch for Captivate. It's incredible. Also, if you can swing the academic qualifications, you can get it for half-price. Tom Archer (blog) Program Manager MSDN Online (Windows Vista and Visual C++) MICROSOFT
Excellent. My client had originally wanted to send out a trainer for two weeks to each new customer, which I thought was an extremely cool attitude in terms of taking care of the customer. I wish more companies felt that way. However, in this case it wasn't really practical from a financial perspective, so I'm thinking that a really good set of tutorials can offer the next best thing in terms of a quality experience. Played with the Captivate eval for a few minutes tonight. It looks like a nice piece of work. Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
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That's cool. I just would've prefered more output options so I could fancy up the video clip and import it into Flash for the voiceovers. I'm not a big fan of using SWFs on top of SWFs anyway. Jeremy Falcon
Yahhh... It's not quite Macromedia Director. :) I use it for quick demos when i want feedback on a UI, but don't care to deal with users dealing with the pitfalls of a prototype.
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Thanks, man. This looks interesting, both for the tutorial stuff and for some web based classes I'm thinking about putting together - unless you have even more neat & groovy suggestions for the latter :) Christopher Duncan Practical Strategy Consulting Author of The Career Programmer Unite the Tribes
I own captivate and I must say it's an excellent tool. Worth the $ in my opinion.
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At least now it's simple text (well, HTML) you're generating, instead of RTF X| .
Software Zen:
delete this;And what exactly is wrong with RTF? Technically, I would say that RTF and HTML, both being text-based representations using tags, are similar in concept and complexity. Ah, I remember being given a Windows 3.0 SDK manual, and being told "write a help file". I spent a week or two reading about RTF tags, before I discovered you could do it all "the easy way" in Word 2.0.