I’m importing the software reviews of third-party Flash tools from my other blog (contentwritermicky) to here, where they just make more sense. Then I’ll focus my Content Writer Micky Blog more on web content writing, copywriting, SEO, article writing etc.

I promise I’ll get organised now and put all posts where they belong!

I will be publishing short blog posts here about website templates that I have found and love. Many will specifically target a certain type of business or industry. I’ll make sure to tag each post with the relevant keywords, e.g. restaurant website template, design studio flash template, etc.

A lot of really cool Flash and CSS templates are available, and with search engines now increasingly able to “read” Adobe Flash files, there’s no reason not to go for an incredibly slick looking Flash website from an SEO point of view. You can always also make sure to have an alternative HTML page filled with your keywords and submit that to search engines and directories if you’re worried about SEO.

I’ll try to publish one or two posts a week to start with, so keep an eye out for new Easy Web Design Templates here!

Take a minute to download the free shareware version of Amara Intro and Banner Builder from the Amara Software website and you’re ready to start playing around with the options (PC/Windows only).

You don’t have to get your credit card out until you want to save your creation and put your Flash banner or intro on your website. And even then you only pay US$39.95 for the registered version, which includes free upgrades for two years.

Amara Intro and Banner Builder 3.0 includes some samples to get you going quickly, or you can start building your Flash banner or intro from scratch by clicking ‘New’ and going through the tabs to enter your settings.

Flash Banner vs Flash Intro
First of all, let’s establish the difference between a Flash intro and a Flash banner, as defined by Amara Software.

• A banner consists of a sequence of sentences or a sequence of text blocks appearing one after the other. This is the traditional banner as seen on millions of websites.
• An intro is more complex as the sentences or text blocks do not necessarily appear one after another. It’s possible to set the incoming time of each text effect and the duration to make the next ones appear while the previous ones are still displayed.

Creating an animated Banner or Intro

Amara Flash Intro & Banner Builder screenshot

Amara Flash Intro and Banner Builder is not a complex tool to use, and even if there’s a setting you don’t quite understand, you simply try it out, click ‘Generate and Display’ and see what happens in the Preview Frame on the right.

There are step-by-step tutorials for creating banners and intros on the Amara Software website, so if you’re unsure about something or should get stuck, you can always follow the developer’s instructions.

To design a Flash banner or intro from scratch, click ‘New’ on the right hand side, and then work your way through the four tabs at the top: Layout / Type / Texts / Sound.

Here’s a brief overview of what’s under each tab.

1. Layout
In the Layout tab, you set the movie dimensions to the size you want for your banner or intro, and the frame rate. Other options in this tab include border, background color or background image (GIF, BMP, JPEG or PNG), background SWF clip (yes, you can use a photo AND a Flash animation as background of your Flash text effect if you want) with various property settings, compression, loop and preloader. Amara Software offers dozens of free Flash animations on its website, which can be used in the program.

2. Type
This is where you select whether you want to create a banner or an intro (see definition above). You can insert a URL where users are taken at the end of your animation, and there’s a ‘Skip intro’ display option.

3. Texts
The Texts tab is where you build your Flash text animation. For each line of text you want to create, click ‘Add item’, type your text and set properties such as URL links, text positions, timing values, font styles and of course the style of effect. Amara Intro and Banner Builder 3.0 comes with 20 different text effects to choose from.

You can assign a unique set of properties, including different font styles, position and effects, to each and every line of text in your animation.

4. Sound
It’s possible to include your own WAV or MP3 file as a background to your animation, which you can import here, set the volume and select loop if you want it to keep playing. If you don’t want sound with your Flash intro or banner, simply skip this step.

By clicking ‘Generate and Display’ in the Preview Frame on the right at any time during the creative process, you can check what you’re doing and make adjustments to get it just how you want it.

Saving
In the registered version, all your creations are automatically saved within the program. This means that all your settings, e.g. for pictures, URL links, fonts, text, colors and sound, are automatically loaded the next time you use Amara Intro and Banner builder, so you can easily change or update animations you created earlier or use those same settings as a template for a new animation.

As explained above, you can only save your creation as an SWF file to use on your website if you have bought the registered version of Amara Intro and Banner Builder for US$39.95.

Conclusion
Amara Intro and Banner Builder is an effective and intuitive application for which NO Flash or programming skills are required. At the price of $39.95, it seems very good value for money.

Things I particularly like:

• Ability to simply upload your own photos, animations and even music to use in the background of the text effect.
• Easy WYSIWYG interface and ‘Generate & Display’ preview pane to immediately see what you’re doing.
• Fact that you can use an unlimited number of text blocks or lines in the one animation and that each can have different fonts, colors, sizes, positions and effects.
• Incredible number of possible properties and settings for the effects to really create a unique and individual animation.

More information including a tutorial, samples, FAQ and free download of the trial version are available on the Amara Flash Intro and Banner Builder website.

About Amara Software:
Amara Software is the developer of no-nonsense, affordable animation software applications, making it easier for people to create Flash elements for their website. Amara Flash Intro and Banner Builder was first launched in 2004 and is one of Amara Software’s five software applications.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re an experienced web designer or a newby who doesn’t know anything about Flash or programming, because the Amara Flash Slideshow Builder is simple enough to use but gives you loads of options, settings and controls to personalize your photo slideshow.

All of the Amara Software applications are shareware programs, so you can download a free trial version of the Flash Slideshow Builder and play around with it (it won’t let you save your creation) before deciding to buy. And I dare say that at just US$29.95, it’ll probably take you all of two seconds to make that decision.

Creating your photo slideshow – Step by step

When you open up the Amara Flash Slideshow Builder, just follow the steps in the program to create your personal slide show.

Screenshot of Amara Photo Slideshow Maker software program

Start by setting the size of your slideshow. The program allows you to scale your images, but it’s a good idea to at least make sure all your images are of similar dimensions and your file sizes not too large if you plan to make it a big slideshow. You can import images in all kinds of picture formats (e.g. GIF, JPG, BMP and PNG).

Then select a background color and border if you wish, and choose from a large number of creative slide transitions to go from one image to the next. You can use the same transition effect between all your photos or select a different effect for each transition – it’s all up to you.

To change the appearance of the slideshow, you can further set the speed and transition time. You can even add your own background music to the slideshow if you want.

Every image in the slideshow can also be linked to a different URL, so people can click on different photos to go to specific web pages you want to send them to.

When you’re happy with your slideshow, just click on Save SWF and you can insert the photo slideshow into your website. Going back later to make changes to the slideshow is easy as all the slideshows you create are automatically saved within the program itself.

That’s really how easy it is, but I suggest you download a free trial version yourself to try out all the options yourself and see what the Amara Flash Slideshow maker can do.

My conclusion:
The Amara Photo Slideshow Builder is an ideal program to easily create professional looking Flash photo albums or slideshows for your website. It’s especially good if you don’t have or know how to use Adobe Flash but want great slideshows on your website, you just want a relatively cheap piece of software that help you do that, which you can download in 1 minute and use over and over again.

More information including a step-by-step tutorial and samples are available on the Amara Flash Photo Slideshow Software website.

About Amara Software:
Amara Software is the developer of no-nonsense, affordable animation software applications, making it easier for people to create Flash elements for their website.

It’s very easy to use and relatively cheap to buy, and it lets you create and customize professional looking preloaders (those bars that show the progress of a Flash file being loaded, with a loading percentage).

Flashkicker Flash Preloader Software - screenshot

Using preloaders for Flash files is generally recommended for any animation that’s over 40kb. But they can be pretty difficult to create in Macromedia Flash. The Flashkicker preloader program makes it very easy.

Flashkicker preloaders show visitors to your website the progress of loading larger Flash movies or animations to ensure your visitors don’t get impatient and leave. You can also add other text for visitors to read while the animation is being loaded.

You can create a great looking and properly coded preloader for your Flash animation in less than a minute with Flashkicker Flash Preloader Software. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a beginner or a web design expert, you’ll have no problems creating a professional Flash preloader with Flashkicker thanks to its simple step-by-step user interface.

How to use Flashkicker Flash Preloader Software:

Step 1: Select the SWF (Flash) file on your computer to which you want to add a preloader.

Step 2: Select one of the built-in preloader designs and modify it to make it look the way you want, e.g. to match the colors of your website. The launch version of Flashkicker comes with 16 different, customizable Flash preloaders, including progress/percentage bars and various graphical illustrations.

You can change the colors of the background, border, preloader animation and progress text. You can also change the progress text itself and the position of the preloader animation. Plus you can import an image or small animation to use as a background.

When you click ‘Refresh preloader’ you’ll see the results of your changes in a preview area on the right hand side.

Step 3: This is optional. Here you can enter an extra text message that will be displayed with the Flash percentage preloader or progress bar. You can change the font style, size and color of the text and position your message anywhere within the preloader area.

Step 4: Save the file (this will be your original SWF file with the new preloader embedded into it) and simply upload it to your website.

You can download a free trial version of Flashkicker from the Flashkicker website. If you like the program, you can buy it for just US$29.95 to get the full registered version.

For more information and to see samples, I suggest you check out the Flashkicker website.

Flashkicker Flash Preloader Software is the latest animation software application by well-established, Australian-based company Triple W Communications Pty Ltd.