Flash Publishing Tools

Demo Builder is a tool to create interactive Flash movies that allow you to show how applications and systems work with the help of interactive tutorials. It works by taking a series of editable screen captures of a specified application or window, and automatically combines them into an annotated Flash movie clip with moving cursors and popup hints. The animation is ready-to-use almost immediately after capture, however you can further customize the movie by editing, and adding annotations, highlights, visual effects and more. The result can be viewed in virtually any browser, and also distributed as standalone EXE file with built-in viewer, or as a sequence of images. Additional features include full-motion recording, auto-annotation of activities, built-in audio editor, FTP upload and more.

KoolMoves is a web animation software that creates Flash movies and frames for animated gifs. It offers fully-featured drawing tools as well as the ability to import SWF Flash Movie files, FLV Flash Video files, vector clipart, MP3 and wav audio. KoolMoves can be used to create navigation systems, splash pages, flying logos, text effects, character animation, transition effects, drop shadows and much more. Shape fills include color gradient and bitmap. You can select from libraries of 67 action script based text effects, 28 web interfaces, 259 clip art items, 13 animated clip art movies, 70 buttons specially designed for Flash movies and more than 100 text effects templates. KoolMoves makes it easy to create a Flash movie - all you need is an idea. The program was designed by a professional animator to deliver powerful functionality with an easy to use interface.

Sothink SWF Decompiler enables you to convert SWF to FLA, and capture, browse and decompile Shockwave Flash movies (.swf files). It can extract sounds, images, movie clips from Flash movies. In addition, the program can decompile the action scripts in a Flash movie and turn them into neat and readable code.

Sothink SWF Easy (formerly Sothink Glanda) is an easy and fast way to create Flash effects with no need for Flash design experience and art design skills. You can easily create a wide variety of Flash animations such as Flash buttons with mouseover sound, navigation panels, graphic logos and splash pages for your web pages with a few mouse clicks. The WYSIWYG design window and build-in Flash player help you to create Flash movies from pre-made effects that are included with the software. All effects can be customized by replacing shapes, adding text, link, sound (*.wav or *.mp3) or a background image (*.jpg), etc. Sothink SWF Easysupplies up to 199 ready-to-use flash buttons and abundant shapes, images and audios.

Macromedia Flash , the original Flash development tool, from the creators of Flash. It fuses the precision and flexibility of vector graphics with bitmaps, audio, animation, and advanced interactivity to create brilliant and effective Web experiences that attract and engage visitors. It offers scripting capabilities and server-side connectivity for creating engaging applications as well as Web interfaces, and training courses. Once you ve created your content, 97.6% of the online audience will be able to view it with the free Macromedia Flash Player. Macromedia Flash features include intuitive drawing tools and bezier pen tools, Vector effects, symbol libraries, MP3 audio streaming, XML transfer and HTML text support as well as many other advanced features.

Mix-FX is a Flash text Effects and Flash Button creator that lets you create fast loading, stunning text effects and buttons in just minutes. With Mix-FX, you can create hundreds of different effect combinations by using the supplied templates and combine them to your preference and further customize color and appearance. The finished animation is ready to use on your web site or can also be loaded into Flash, PowerPoint, or into your video editing software. Mix-FX offers a full preview, allowing you to see the results of your changes immediately as you combine foreground effects with background effects, movements etc. The program is very easy to use and requires no experience with Flash or graphics design.

FlaX allows you to create text effects in Flash format, using more than 120 ready-to-use special effects, which can be further customized by the user. It provides a real-time preview, that allows you to easily design your text effects. You can also add also a picture file and a sound byte to your effect SWF.

Create Flash animations for web pages. Includes vector painting with feathering, gradients, textures, text effects, 3D effects, shadows, bitmaps, sounds, morphing, and buttons. A very powerful and easy to use animation tool. Has many advanced features such as transformable layers within layers, keyframe based animation and morphing, and a programmable Javascript interface Flash animations are the new interactive animation standard for web pages. Perfect for animated web buttons.

Anim-FX allows you to create animated text effects, such as intros, splash screens and banners. It includes a wide range of animation templates that enable you to quickly create cool effects. You can include text and background animation with up to 5 lines of text. You can customize text and background colors, positioning of the text, specify URLs to link to and more.

Flash Decompiler enables you to easily extract sounds, images, videos, shapes, frames, morphs, fonts, texts, buttons, sprites and ActionScripts from any Flash (SWF). It offers an item-by-item preview, user-friendly interface and integrated player to view the original Flash file, as well as individual components. Additional features include general resource and file statistics, customizable interface layouts and more.

SWF Extractor allows you to extract and save all resources contained in a Flash (.swf) file. You can preview images and sounds from a thumbnail explorer, and then simply extract all or just selected items. The program supports drag and drop into other applications and also integrates with Windows Explorer. Flash movies can also be previewed from within the program. SWF Extractor fully supports Macromedia Flash 3, 4, 5 and MX Movie files, as well as all supported resources.

Alligator Flash Designer (formerly Selteco Flash Designer) enables you to create interactive Flash animations for your Web site with minimum skills required. You cannimate images, texts or shapes and create a Flash movie with added sound and transition effects. The program provides more than 130 built-in animation effects including Fade, Zoom, Rotate, Fly and more. It also offers basic editing tools to modify any image, resize it, add objects etc. A preview browser allows you to display your animation exactly as it will appear on the web before saving it. The program can export all the HTML code necessary to integrate the Flash file with your web page.

Sothink SWF Quicker lets you author Flash (*.swf) with a friendly user interface and plenty of useful features. It supports shape design, motion tween creation , guideline, mask layer, stream and event sound, frame label, setting movieclip instance name and more. The program includes more than 80 ready-to-use animation effects, which can be further customized and saved as new effects. Additionally, multibytes language (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.) text is supported perfectly. Sothink SWF Quicker also offers the capability to import SWF files, using an intelligent motion analysis system and full action support. The imported movie can be modified and generated back to a new SWF movie without losing any functions of the original one. Additional features include an ActionScript generator, symbol library and more.

Swiff Chart is a tool to create eye-catching animated charts in Macromedia Flash format that can be published on the web and viewed in virtually any browser. You can simply paste your Data Series from your spreadsheet or import them as a formatted text file, apply a predefined Style, adjust parameters and animations and instantly export your chart as a Flash file, ready to upload to your server.

SWFText a tool to create basic Flash text animations. It offers 160+ text effects and more than 40 background effects, that can be further customized in font, text color, and layout. The program is easy to use and all you have to do is enter your text, and select the desired effects. The program provides a real-time preview of the selected effects. The result can be published as single .swf file or complete web page.

123 Flash Menu enables you to create professional looking Flash menus for web sites, using ready-to-use template designs that can be customized to your preference. The program supports vertical and horizontal designs and includes dynamic effects like animations, sounds, gradient and transparency. An integrated preview shows your menu as you design it, and lets you test the links in a browser window. Additional features include support for CSS scripting, Flash compression and custom templates. 123 Flash Menu is easy to use and does not require any Flash skills. The trial version includes about 20 or so templates, the registered version adds an additional 100 templates.

FlashPoint allows you to create multi-page Flash presentations from an easy to use WYSIWYG interface that allows you to drag and drop objects, shapes, sounds, images etc. into place. Flashpoint output the design in HTML and Flash format, ready to be uploaded to the web. Designing your presentation is similar to using a word processor and allows to to apply colors and other properties to each selected item, using fonts, shapes or any image of your choice. Each item can also be linked to an Internet URL and you can choose from many ready-to use motion effects to animate each object, having it slide in, rotate, fade out and more.

SWFKit lets you create 32-bit Windows applications from Flash, using a step-by-step interface and FFish script (an easy to learn scripting language). With a little bit of practice and some script learning, you can create applications that can access databases, perform realtime communication by socket, send and receive email, read and write files, access the system registry, play and record multimedia, embed ActiveX controls and more. Furthermore, you can make the interface of just about any shape and design, add animations and use other features supported by Flash. Most of the interface base features and options, as well as the installer are configured from the step-by-step wizard, the actual program actions however need to be written in FFish script. There are several examples available as well as detailed documentation. Additional features include optional shareware expiration, complete installer, screen saver creation and more. If you always wanted to write a program, but didn`t want to go through the trouble of learning a full-blown programming language, give this one a try!

Amara Flash Menu Maker allows you to create a Flash menu for your web site fast and easily. You can choose from a scrolling menu with sub menus, customize the size and colors and also add optional sound effects for mouseover actions and alpha blending. The program does not require any Flash or programming skills, and includes several button styles (3D, glossy, 2D, flat etc.) to get you started. Furthermore, you can import your own background picture, background music, use custom fonts and more. Amara Flash Menu Maker currently only offers one style of menu (horizontal). The program is fairly easy to use, however does not include any documentation.

Flash Video Studio allows you to convert most video files into Macromedia Flash SWF and FLV format. It includes video editing features to add special effects (sepia, motion blur etc.), as well as watermarks using text or image overlays. You can also trim the video and add a secondary audio stream for background music, using WAV, MP3 or WMA files. Flash Video Studio then creates the complete Flash file and HTML code for publishing, using a choice of player control skins and custom navigation options. Additional features include batch processing, automatic FTP upload, real time bandwidth and file size estimation, video adjustments and more. Flash Video Studio supports AVI, WMV, ASF, MPEG and Quicktime formats.

Amara Flash Intro and Banner Builder allows you to create text based Flash banners and intros. You can add multiple text items, each with individual effect, timing and text style, and also link them to URL links and Target Frames. The program includes ready-to-use text effects that can be customized in some parameters, and easily used for your designs. Amara Flash Intro and Banner Builder provides 3 step WYSIWYG interface with built-in preview. Does not require any Flash skills.

Amara Flash Slide Show Creator allows you to easily create photo slideshows in Flash (.swf) format that can be published to the web or used as .swf file for any other purpose. It supports several transition effects as well as background music in mp3 format (44,22 and 11 khz). The slideshow can have a custom color, image or transparent background and each image can be associated with an URL that is launched when clicked on. The program is easy to use, and requires no further knowledge; the code to insert into your web site is automatically generated and can be copied to the clipboard.

FlashSlider allows to create Flash (swf) image slideshows from your pictures. You can customize the size, position the images and choose from many transition and motion effects that can be applied to each image. You can drag images to change the order in which they are shown, set the background color and add an URL that will be launched when the slideshow is clicked upon. FlashSlider creates the HTML code and .swf file for you to upload to your web site.

Swift Optimizer compresses your Flash (.swf) files and reduces the size by 10% to 70%, increasing download time and reducing your bandwidth. The program can automatically find swf files and play them with the built-in (basic) Flash viewer. In addition to compressing your files, Swift Optimizer can optionally add protection to them as well. We tested the program with about 40 Flash files, and the results were as promised, with the lowest at 6% and highest compression of 64% (results vary based on type of animation) and no visible difference in the movie. Swift Optimizer is easy to use and produces good results at a reasonable price. It lacks some key functionalities though to improve usability - most importantly, it will overwrite your original files without prompting, so make sure that you backup first.

SWF Toolbox enables you to convert Macromedia Flash Files (SWF) into standalone projector files (EXE), AVI movies, animated GIFs or frame-by-frame JPEG/GIF/BMP image series. The Advanced Projector option allows you to fully customize the projector with custom title, splash screen, optional expiration date, icon, file version, right-click options and other details, and can automatically install Flash OCX if not present on the system.

Amara Flash Photo Animation enables you to create virtual tours, using regular photos and a combination of panning and zooming effects that create a movie-like effect and allow the user to `walk through` each picture. You can combine multiple images into a slideshow, add URLs and more. The program offers an easy to use WYSIWYG interface that lets you design the zoom effects using simple mouse clicks and drag and drop to manipulate the effects. Additional features include optional background sound, customizable output size and background, 360 degree panning, transition time control and more.

Flash Jigsaw Producer lets you create a custom online Flash puzzle using any JPG image as a base. You can customize the size of the puzzle, the pieces as well as the shapes. The user can drag and drop the pieces in the browser to solve the puzzle; and once solved, he will be sent to an URL you specify. The program is easy to use, just select the JPG image and use sliders to preview the puzzle, then generate the Flash and HTML code.

Flash Optimizer enables you to to compress your SWF files by up to 60-70%, using algorithms of vectors, shapes, morphing, Z-buffer, fonts and other optimizations. The program offers several presets, ranging from basic compression without quality loss to strong compression with some quality loss. You can preview the result side-by-side in the built-in player, and also frame-by-frame with zooming options. The parameters of the optimization process can also be customized if needed, to achieve the results you want. The results may vary depending on the Flash file content, we had some great results with more than 50% reduction, and others with just a few percent.

IntroWizard Flash Website Builder enables you to create a complete website, based on Flash technology. It provides a collection of templates to choose from and a step-by-step wizard to fill in the blanks with your custom content. In addition to the Flash file, it also creates a simple text-only version, which can help with search engine indexing of your site. The program allows you to create a fancy looking website in very little time and without the use of any HTML, however it is also very limited in what it can do, and mostly useful for pages with very basic text content.

Banner Maker Pro for Flash enables you to create Flash banner ads of various sizes. It offers a step-by-step interface and real-time preview of your design. You can add text, shapes and images, and then animate the entire banners from a selection of pre-defined animation effects. The program supports all installed system font types as well as drop shadow effects and transparency. The elements can be arranged on the banner by dragging them into place. Once you have finished the design, you can save the banner as .swf file, generate the HTML code to include it in your pages, and use the included FTP tool to upload it to your server.