Well the newest version of Sorenson Squeeze has made it out which is awesome. I've been waiting for this for quite some time as I do a lot of vid work and need to get it to flv. Very nice looking app I think, and there are some seriously major improvements. Unfortunately there is a small problem....
For the progressive FLV player component that we created, it requires the metadata that *doesn't* get put in with squeeze 3.5. Which means we have been using flvmdi quite liberally and then reading the file into flash. This has worked great so far but I really didn't want to have to keep opening up the little black command window to use this tool and was truly hoping that Squeeze 4 would have metadata put in properly on encoding. It does get put in... but it's wrong. In point, it doesn't put in the proper size of the flv (in height and width) which is very bad for players that use that info (like any player that is worth it's sand..). So until they fix this bug (whether they are aware of it or not is beyond me..) it's a necessity for all you flv junkies to continue to use flvmdi. Which I guess isn't so bad, 'cause you do get more info with it and can put in your own stuff if you really want to. It's just that it would be so nicely convenient to get it all done in one jump.. especially for batch jobs. *sigh*
I'm sure a lot of you already have your opinions on swf to exe tools but I thought I'd stick my thoughts up just in case there are some who are still wondering what's up with swf to exe tools.
I'm going to compare 4 tools today, and it's going to be mainly from a dev point of view I think as I don't do a lot of design myself. I actually don't know anymore swf to exe products, so if I'm missing something please let me know.
First off is Screenweaver. The software that died on Dec 2, 2003. This is the last build of it which sucks because I think that screenweaver had the most potential just because it has already what most of the others are just getting around to getting in.
The best part of screenweaver is that it has it's own AS methods that you can call to talk to the OS. Changing icons and focus is as simple as calling the methods that Screenweaver supports. There are tons of commands and I have yet it lacking in something I needed.
It supports alpha transparency perfectly. I remember when I first started using it I compared it to Flash Studio Pro v1 and found it miles ahead. At the time FSP didn't support alpha transparency which was a very big deal because then you had to make "windows" windows. Which sucked.
It supports 2 byte characters. I have found no other swf to exe software that supports this. Screenweaver is definitely ahead of the pack when it comes to international applications. Is it because it's not an American company? Not to shoot down American companies but a lot of them DON'T think about 2 byte characters and almost never support them. Screenweaver is a Rubberduck (no site..) product which is Dutch? Where is the domain .nl?
Screenweaver is quite easy to use, and has a couple of different editing modes to help the beginner or for the advanced user who really knows what they are doing. A good piece of software all around I think.
The unfortunate thing about Screenweaver is that it is a hog on resources and it leaks. At least from my experience unless you minimize the program once in a while it'll climb and climb which ends up sucking up memory which of course slows down your comp. Also in the beginning it sucks up a lot of memory. Which is really too bad but in a way liveable I think.
The worst thing about Screenweaver is that there is no support anymore. Mails will go unanswered and the forum is a an unofficial ghost-forum. You can almost see the digital tumbleweed going through it.
Moving on to Flash Studio Pro v2. I won't even mention v1 as I considered it garbage that wasn't even worth looking at for longer than 5 mins. Especially compared to Screenweaver at the time. BUT it has grown up. A lot. It still doesn't do everything that Screenweaver can in some areas but does more in other areas.
What I need most in the apps we create for the desktop are 3 things. Good command of the OS, perfect transparency, and the ability to internationalize it. As in, it must support 2 byte chars.
The command of the OS is great. They finally have moved away from the nasty fscommand and have made the "FSP Script" which seems to work quite well though is still a bit in it's infancy. Still there are over 600 commands so I truly doubt that you will be "lacking" in anything that you need. It's worked quite well so far for me.
Transparency... still doesn't match up to Screenweaver which stopped updating their app almost a year ago. What is so hard about making an app properly transparent? There are multiple problems that I have found, the HUGEST being that you have to embed fonts that you want people to see/input them. This is absolute garbage as far as I can tell and does nothing to show me that they have the situation in hand. I don't have to do that with Screenweaver... but enough of comparing it to SW. I would like to see better support for transparency that's for sure.
Internationalization.. nope. None. What a bummer. What year is it again?
Their support seems to be quite good and they have been getting out new builds pretty quick. I did harp on them once for the transparency issue but ended up getting ignored in the end and never got an answer about the text issue (ended up finding out after about another bunch of people asked the same question)
They have a mac plugin!! This is about the only thing that I consider puts them ahead of the pack. No other swf to exe product supports this.
Next is Screentime's mProjector. I'm afraid I don't have much on these guys other than that I will probably never ever use their software. Like screenweaver they thought it would be a great idea to create their software in Flash.. I'm not sure why, I mean I am making software in flash I guess but that's not the point :)
I DL'd the trial, installed, and went to try the first file and it locked up. The wonderful "this flash script is taking a long time, do you want to stop it" error comes up... I think "oh this is made in flash.. great" And then my file gets imported but unfortunately I just stopped the flash script so none of the buttons work anymore... Which means it can't be closed because they used a wonderful transparent movie so they have their own close buttons. Anyways, you're wondering what was in the file right? It was the media component because I was thinking of making a quick exe that would play a vid that I had in the same directory (just a basic example). I tried the same file in FSPv2, and it imported nicely.
It does have it's own script like screenweaver and FSPv2. Which is cool and you can integrate in with the OS quite well I think. And it gets installed into flash so you don't have to look at a seperate help file or pdf (like FSPv2) which is extremely handy.
It does not support 2 byte chars. That sucks.
The interface is annoying in my opinion. The buttons react on the "rollOver" so if you move your mouse over them you automatically go to a different section. It's small, and you CAN'T turn off the preview, which lead to the problem I had on my first file. I'm sure they'll get their stuff together a bit more in the future but for now I rate them lowest.
The last is one that I have the least experience with (about the same as mProjector), Northcode's swfStudio. I have heard a few good comments from friends on their software so I thought I'd try it out.
The first thing it did after I ran it was reinstall my logitech quickcam..... I have no idea of why. And I was extremely annoyed because no matter how many times I canceled it would pop up. So off I go to find the cd... and a few minutes later it pops up and then loads up MSWord so that it can show me the licence. This is turning out to be an extremely horrible user experience (and experience matters right?)
So it's up now, and the first thing I check.. no support for 2 byte chars. Strike 1.
The GUI is nice I think, there are a lot of options to mess with and you can change a lot of stuff around. It uses fsCommand which I find is really annoying, though I'm sure a lot of people may like it or even prefer it, I'd rather not use them. Though it does seem to have a lot of control over the OS.
That's about it for swfStudio unfortunately. I've had a bad user experience with it so far and just don't have the will to mess with it anymore. If anybody has some thoughts on this product, please place them in the comments and will try to post my thoughts on those.
I guess so far it's really a toss up between FSPv2 and Screenweaver. I like FSPv2's GUI and commands. It has a lot of options and the software is still alive and kicking unlike Screenweaver. But Screenweaver supports 2 very important things to me, internationalization and transparency much better than FSPv2. If there was a way to fix that memory leak problem and the fact that Screenweaver built exe files can be taken apart with winZip I'd be a lot happier.
Why is it that we still can't have our cake and eat it?
So in conclusion, all of the software listed above have free DL's, and for the most part are all fully functional with certain limits on how long you can use the created files or an annoying "this is a trial" banner thingy when you load the file up. I think all support FTP'ing, and HTTPS and sending mail directly to a mail server. Which is cool. Database support is good in FSPv2 as you can connect to a local access file or mySQL. Handy stuff.
I am curious if anyone has found a workaround to opening a Mac FLA on a PC. In the past I have used MacOpener (www.macopener.com) to access Mac media, but it only works with cross platform files formats and FLA is not on the list.
This hasn’t been much of an issue, but recently our company started an internship program for web students at the local university. Being the main Flash guy, they ask me questions and have me look at files to help them figure things out. The problem is that they ALL work on Macs and I am on Win XP. While I can go and work on their systems, I occasionally work from home, where I do not have access to a Mac.
Any tips are greatly appreciated.