FEATURES

The start-up screen displays three options, Create NewMovie (to open the New Movie Wizard and take you through the steps to create a new movie), Open Movie (to open an existing movie already created) and RecentMovies (to select from the most recently opened movies).

Customize your auto record and capture settings. The FitTo option allows you to automatically fit the screen capture of Demo Builder to any applications open on your desktop or to the full screen size.

Simply click the Preferences button on the Recording Settings Wizard and check the Record narration checkbox to record your voice-over narration at the same time as taking your screen captures.

Choose the objects that you'd like to add automatically when recording your movie (from Notes, Cursors and Balloons) and the Language (from English, French, German, Japanese and Spanish) for the text to automatically fill them with.

Create a movie with blank scenes by selecting Blank from the New Movie Wizard, or if you have already taken and saved your images, use the Import Images Wizard to quickly create your movie by browsing and importing images into your movie.

Demo Builder 6 features full-motion recording capability (PROFESSIONAL version only).Choose your frames per second rate, and easily capture smooth recordings of your demonstration. Now capturing drag and drop functions, animations, and Flash websites has never been easier! You can even capture a full-motion movie that is playing on your computer, and play it back in Demo Builder!

With the introduction of full motion recording, it is now possible to import full AVI movies into your presentations as scenes. This allows you to import presentations that may have already been created in other applications, or any other AVI file you want included in your presentation. This feature is only available in the PROFESSIONAL version, as full-motion recording is necessary for it to work.

Demo Builder puts you in the directors chair with a full set of tools, options and preferences at your disposal to give you total control over how your story unfolds. Add, Move, Delete scenes (scenes), Preview, Export, Add audio and/or a PlayerBar - the list is endless.

Use the Start-End property to specify the load behaviour of the movie and the actions that should be taken at the end of the movie.

The flexibility of Demo Builder allows you to change the time sequencing for Scenes and Objects within the movie as desired. You decide when, where and how long your objects and scenes display for.

Use the Transition Wizard feature of the TimeLine to get that smooth entry and exit. Choose from multiple fade in/fade out effects for your scenes.

New in Demo Builder version 5, the Localize Wizard allows you to update the language of your movies for international distribution by exporting your movie caption text (Balloon, Note, Text etc.) which you then update with text in the desired language and import back into your movie with the Localize Wizard.

Two additional options for your Balloons, Buttons, Notes and Texts have been introduced in version 5 to make it even easier for you to create great movies and demonstrations…

AutoCalculate Size : Size your text area to automatically fit the amount of entered text.

AutoCalculate Time : Automatically adjust the object's timing in the Timeline based on the setting of the Reading Speed property in Preferences.

Maintain consistency of 'look and feel' at a single click! For Balloons, Buttons, Notes and Texts you can now apply your chosen font style/formatting to all objects of the same type using the enhanced font properties editor.

You can merge or split scenes that make up your movie as necessary. You can merge multiple scenes into one longer scene, or split one scene into multiple scenes. Whatever makes the editing process easier for you. You may want to split a scene that has become too long in the timline. This will make editing easier. Or perhaps you have many, many short scenes, and want to make the "all scenes" view more compacted. In that case you may want to merge scenes together.

Zoom-n-Pan allows you to zoom in a specific area of your scene in order to focus the viewer's attention on that area or to show specific details.

Make dull, boring slideshows a thing of the past! Jazz up your demonstrations and presentations and keep your audience interested (and awake!) by incorporating sound into your Demo Builder movies - almost effortlessly! Choose to record your voice-over narration and/or import your *.wav or *.mp3 files for individual scenes or the whole movie. Demo Builder even comes with a built-in Audio Collection of sound clips to get you started. Of course, Demo Builder also gives you the option to set your audio preferences just how you like them. For example, Use the Loop effect to have your audio clip(s) repeat continuously throughout your movie.

Get total control over your movie soundtrack with Demo Builder's advanced audio editor. Each individual audio clip can be individually edited and tailored. Cut sections (and mistakes!) out of recorded sound, add silence, fade, volume effects.

Wizard-driven import of your existing screenshots and graphics files into your movie scenes as background images.

Use Balloon tooltips to describe the actions being (or needing to be) taken and provide additional explanatory text to your users. Choose from either elliptical or rectangular shapes in a number of styles - including the new style, "soft" that has been added in version 5 and provides a very smooth and professional looking Balloon for your tooltips.

Much as for Balloons, use these objects to display comments, captions and other information to your users. Again many styles, sub-styles, colors, transitions and other options are available to meet your exact need.

Use shapes in your scenes to bound and draw your users' attention to the important areas of your application's screen. Set shapes, styles, borders, color and transparency as desired.

Quickly add images and other graphics to your scenes. Either Import graphics files from your computer or network drive, use Demo Builder's Screen Capture Wizard to take screenshots or select Clipart from Demo Builder's built-in collection.

Clearly demonstrate the actions, entries and clicks required to your users by either auto-capturing or adding Curson motion objects to your scenes.

Highlight the actions and areas of real importance by adding striking animations to your scenes. For version 5, Animations have been redesigned and even more functionality added! More animation categories (with subcategories), choose from more colors and set the direction of motion for your animations.

The Keystroke object is visible in Timeline and represents any keyboard actions taken during movie recording. Keystrokes (and their sound) can be auto-captured at the time of taking your screenshots and edited later as desired.

Add full two-way interactivity between your movie and your users with Demo Builder's Interactive Objects. Use the Event functionality offered by Buttons, Click Zones and Edit Zones to interact with your users and control the behaviour of your movie based on user responses and actions.

• Use Buttons to pause your demonstration or tutorial and require action from the user in order to continue.
• Use Click Zones to pause your demonstration or tutorial and require your that your users click a pre-specified zone on the scene in order to continue (or take some other action as specified by you).
• Edit Zones objects are extremely useful in creating very high quality presentations and tutorials as they allow two-way interactivity between your movie and your users. For example, you can create an Edit Zone in a scene to hold a correct answer to a question that you want to ask your users. What's more Demo Builder will check the user's response against the correct answer that you have included in the Edit Zone at movie design time - character-by-character if you wish.

Please see the User Interactivity topic for more information on these interactive objects and the event functionality that they offer to allow your users full two-way interaction with your demonstrations and tutorials.

Flash Video files add realism and depth to your movies. You can insert FLV files so that they play from any scene in your movie.

Cursor motions in your presentations can be straight line, convex, concave, or custom. With custom motion, you can define abnormal cursor movements and have them display in your presenations. Perhaps you want to simulate your cursor circling an area in your application? No problem. With custom cursor movements, any cursor motion you can imagine can be capture and replicated.

You can now "lock" objects in a scene so they cannot be edited or moved accidentally. You can also set an object's visibility in a scene to either ON or OFF, so for example you can have an object not display, without actually deleting it. Both of these features can be set in the new Objects and Marks window on the right side of the canvas.

Use the Button Events to interact with the users of your demonstration or tutorial and totally control the behaviour of your movie in response to their actions. The Button object offers the following events that can be used to achieve this.

1. On Press Event: Add objects, actions and/or audio to this event to define how your movie will display and behave when your user clicks this Button.
2. On RollOver Event: Add objects, actions and/or audio to this event to define how your movie will behave when the user positions the mouse cursor over the Button object. (For example to display an explanatory message or tip in a balloon or text as to the action required from the user).

As for the other interactive objects, use the Click Zone Events to interact with the users of your demonstration or tutorial and totally control the behaviour of your movie based on actions taken by your users. The Click Zone object offers the following 3 events to achieve this.

1. On Click Inside Event: Add objects, actions, effects and/or audio to this event to define how your movie will display and behave in response to your user clicking inside the borders of the Click Zone.
2. On Click Outside Event: Add objects, actions, effects and/or audio to this event to define how your movie will display and behave in response to to your user clicking outside the borders of the Click Zone.
3. On RollOver Event: As for the Button object's OnRollOver event as described above.

The Edit Zone object offers the following 3 events to interact with the users of your demonstration or tutorial.

1. On Pass Event: Add objects, actions and/or audio to this event to define how your movie will display and behave in response to a correct answer from your user.
2. On Error Event: Add objects, actions and/or audio to this event to define how your movie will display and behave in response to an incorrect answer from your user.
3. On RollOver Event: As for the Button object's OnRollOver event as described above.

To support this interactive question and answer functionality, the Edit Zone object offers an additional property - the Correct Entries property. Specify the list of correct responses expected from your users and when your user enters text and presses the defined Shortcut key (either Enter or Tab), Demo Builder checks the user response with this list of entries and takes the action for the On Pass event or the On Error event as appropriate.

From the Correct Entries properties panel, you can choose whether user responses must be 'Case Sensitive' in order to match. Likewise, by checking the 'Password' box, you can choose for user responses to be displayed hidden as asterisks (*). You can also set Demo Builder to check your user's responses character-by-character if desired.

For each of the above events, you can assign the desired behaviour of your movie by adding an Action to take and/or Audio to be played. The following options are available to be added or edited for the events of Interactive Objects…

Actions:

1. None: Take no action.
2. Continue: If movie paused, play will continue.
3. Go To Scene: The movie jumps to the scene/mark you specify.
4. Go To Movie: The movie jumps to another movie you specify.
5. Go To URL: Opens a web page you specify, either in the Current Window by replacing the current movie, in a New window, in a Parent window, or at the Top of the current window.
6. Send E-mail: Demo Builder sends an email to the email address you specify.
7. Close Movie: Closes (exits) the movie.
8. Run Exe: Runs the program (*.exe) that you specify. (The *.exe program to run must be located in the same folder as the exported movie *.swf or *.exe file ).
9. Execute JavaScript: Execute JavaScript in a web browser. That option assumes you're publishing to HTML/SWF (Flash)

Audio: Add or edit audio (e.g. a music clip or voice-over narration) to events as described in the audio topics.

In addition to the above actions and audio, you can also add short Animation Effects to be applied to the Click Zone when the specified event occurs. Effects can also be 'looped' to continue for a set length of time.

You can now set Marks through your movies (in fact, several within any given scene). Marks allow you to identify certain points within your movie where you can then add actions. You can have as many marks in your movie/scenes as you need. They do not display in the movie... they are merely identifiers that help in the editing process. For example, let's say you want your movie to pause at mark 2 in scene 3, or at mark 3 you want your movie to jump back to mark 4 in scene 1 (just some examples).

Use Demo Builder's Export Wizard to set your export and distribution options and step you through the process.

Choose to build and export your movies as a Flash Movie (*.swf), as a Standalone executable file (Windows *.exe, Macintosh *.hqx, Linux platforms), as a series of Image Files (in all the popular graphics file formats) or as a Word document(DOC) - Handouts.

Save to Disk, Upload to FTP, Send to Email (supports all the most usual clients such as Lotus Notes, Outlook, Outlook Express etc.), Send via SMTP. All the distribution option options are covered so that you can make your demonstration or tutorial available to widest audience possible.