Sothink SWF Quicker - Software Review by Diananet

Diana F. Arsenault, Tech Reviewer

 

An absolutely marvelous program with an unbelievable price tag.  My decision to review this program very quickly became quite a remarkable journey into the world of Flash Animation and Movies.

 

My past experience working with graphics found me working with PhotoShop, Paint Shop Pro and GoLive for animations.  SWF Quicker has forever revolutionized how I shall create graphics and animations in the future.

 

From the moment you open the program and are greeted with the "New From Template" wizard for making flash buttons, a photo album, a banner or a blank document you're hooked.

 

Clicking on the various wizards will bring up a screen of many for you to select from and then quickly transport you through the process until magically you're finished and have just created something in minutes that could've taken you hours.  Below is a screen shot of the program when first opened with the template wizard greeting you.

 

Below is a template banner that can be instantly created with a few clicks of the mouse using the banner wizard.  There are 14 different banner templates and all you have to do is replace the text with yours to magically have a new flash banner in less than a minute!

 

 

Below is an example flash menu made with the button wizard in less than a minute.  There are 15 different button templates to choose from and you have the choice of a vertical or horizontal layout.  Move your cursor over the menu below.

This menu's file size is only 6 kb.
Now that's impressive!

Below is an example picture album made with the album wizard in less than two minutes.  There are 15 different album templates to choose from and you can embed the photos or link to them in a file that you export the album to.

 

The program wizards and tools magically do things for you or allow you to do things that seem like pure magic.   My goal here is to show someone that has never touched a Flash Program before that they can immediately start making stunning Flash effects with this program.

 

As you create objects in the work area, the program adds a Shape Symbol of them to the Library Panel.   The Symbols you make are reusable in other places in your movie. Instead of having several slightly modified graphics of the same thing, the program lets you have as many modified Instances of the same Symbol as you choose. Each modified copy of the Symbol is referred to as an Instance of the original Symbol.

Each time you want to reuse a Symbol all you have to do is drag a copy of the original Symbol from the Library Panel into the work area and the program automatically makes a new Instance of the Symbol for you.  This helps to keep your file size low.

Clicking "View Samples" in the "Help" menu will transport you to a page of 47 different flash examples.  You can download the source file and quickly edit and create your own versions.

 

One of the source files that you can download is a Guide Line Animation.  Easy animation is one of the things that makes SWF Quicker a magnificent program.  I want to show you how easy it is to create your own animations but we need to learn a little about layers and frames on the Timeline first.

 

Layers are like transparent sheets of drawing paper stacked on top of each other.  On all the blank areas of a layer you can see straight through it to whatever is below it on the other layers.  The pictures below represent three separate layers and the final picture represents the layers stacked on top of each other.  Note that the baby pins have covered up the pacifier that was on the first layer.

 

 

The Timeline below shows two layers.  The first layer is named "2 Pigs" and the second layer is named "Baby Piggy".  Both layers have 35 frames with a beginning keyframe in frame 1 and an ending keyframe in frame 35.  Therefore, both layers will be visible from the beginning to the end of the movie.  The solid line from frame 1 - frame 34 in the "Baby Piggy" layer indicates the presence of a motion tween being present in those frames.

 

Although very simple, the above represents a complete animated flash movie. Very shortly, I will walk you through the steps to creating the above Timeline and show you the exported movie file.  To make things quick and simple, I started with two small pictures.  1 picture of two little pigs and 1 picture of a single pig.

 

When you open up "SWF Quicker", it starts a new file for you to begin working with.  When you export or publish your creation, you must then give it a file name.  The file starts with "Layer 1" which is a blank layer until you put something on it.  When you have created what you want to be on the first layer, you should double click "Layer 1" and give it an appropriate name for that layer.

A Step by Step Guide to a quick Flash Animation:

. Start with a blank "Layer 1".

. Properties Panel - I picked a green background color and set the width to 250 and the height to 150.

. Clicked "File" at top and chose "Import to Library" and loaded my 2 piggy pictures into the Library Panel.

. Clicked in the first frame of "Layer 1".  Then I selected the picture of 2 pigs in the Library Panel and dragged into the work area.

. Double clicked "Layer 1" and named it "2 Pigs".

. Clicked the + symbol below the "2 Pigs" layer on the timeline to create a new blank layer.

. Double clicked the new "Layer 2" and named it "Baby Piggy".

. Clicked the first frame of the "Baby Piggy" layer.  Then I selected the single pig picture in the Library Panel and dragged it onto the screen.

. Clicked in frame 35 of the "2 Pigs" layer and clicked "Insert" at top and chose "Keyframe".

. Clicked in frame 35 of the "Baby Piggy" layer and clicked "Insert" at top and chose "Keyframe".

. Clicked and dragged the baby pig picture and across the work area until it was behind the other two pigs.

. Clicked in frame 34 of the "Baby Piggy" layer and then clicked "Insert" at top and chose "Create Motion Tween".

. Clicked in frame 35 of the same layer and went to the "Action Panel" at bottom and typed "stop();".

. Clicked in the first frame of the layer and then clicked the green "Preview" arrow at the top to watch the flash animation.

. Clicked "Export Movie" at the top and named it "piggy.swf".

	**Click the "Refresh Button" on your browser to reload the animation to the left.**       Due to my adding a stop action in the last frame, the animation plays once and stops.
	A very special part of SWF Quicker are the 89 different built in effects that you can apply to Symbols or letters in a word that have been broken apart into Symbols.          Click the "Refresh Button" to watch the Symbol of butterflies change into flying butterflies.          Click the "Refresh Button" to watch the letters of my name slide into place.          Right click on any symbol on the work area and choose "Create Effect..." select 1 from the 89 effects and its magically applied to your Symbol.

It seems I've left the best for last.  SWF Quicker is an absolutely incredible program.  With SWF Quicker you can purchase Flash templates and quickly edit the template for your own use.

SWF Quicker also installs a Flash Catcher into the top of your internet browser.  Using the catcher you can quickly save any Flash file that is showing in your browser to your hard drive.

The best way to learn how to do something is often by looking at an example.  The internet is full of Flash examples to help you learn how to create your own Files.

 

A truly AWESOME program and you will ENJOY it!