Demo / tutorial maker tools?
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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
Another popular package: http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp[^] David Veeneman www.veeneman.com
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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.
The first time I was trying to build a Windows Help file, RTF wasn't documented at all, and the markers required to create links, topic headings, and so on weren't the most intuitive thing in the world. Also, it was possible with a single press of the back space key to completely destroy the structure of the RTF by deleting a single marker. The whole mess was extremely fragile, and a monumental PITA.
Software Zen:
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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 info, I personally used a software called 'Wink' in the past. It was working quite well and was entirely free. It also generate a flash SWF file that you can embed in your application or within a webpage or a help system. http://www.debugmode.com/wink/[^]
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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 surprised no one has mentioned Camtasia from Tech Smith. It's a great product for creating software demos. You can add audio and/or a talking head to the animated screens shots easily and quickly. It's from the same folks that brought you Snag-it and you can purchase the two as a bundle for somewhere around $350. Camtasia alone is just under $300. -- modified at 10:59 Wednesday 1st March, 2006 http://www.techsmith.com/[^]