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Are you in a busy office and need to get web
design jobs with complex text effects done immediately?
Want to speed up your productivity but avoid working
until Saturday afternoons breaking up text and
hand tweening? Then, SWiSH, the new standalone
tool that creates great font effects and more
by David Mitchie, presented during the Flash Forward
2000 conference, is for you!.
So what’s new with SWiSH? This tool enables
you to create buttons and banners in the program
itself. You can even create a .SWF for importing
into Flash for fast font effects. The “more”
emphasis earlier is what’s coming up in the
future of this product. Mitchie is hoping to release
an update of its first version in May that will
allow the use of images. These plans for added
functionality will give users more creativity
in designing banners and navigation systems.
There are also future plans being expressed by
Mitchie to support many of the features in Flash
today – this includes scripting, movie clips,
audio, vector images and rollover buttons. Right
now, with the first version, you can use its maximum
number of text effects to the hilt. It will also
speed up work productivity. With SWiSH, you can
say good bye to all afternoon of breaking text
up, making key frames and hand tweening –
plenty of hard work but is not anywhere near our
idea of creativity.
Use it by controlling all the various attributes
of each letter and click preview. After installing
this software, in less than five minutes, you
can produce real content for your sites. There
may be arguments about how all the effects just
look alike but remember that there are “industry
standard” and “professional level”
considerations on these things, just like in television
and print. Using SWiSH allows you to produce your
sites with that level of standard and expertise.
Currently, SWiSH doesn’t work in Mac but
they are looking into creating a version suitable
with the Mac. Right now, it works on Windows 95+/NT/2000
only. Still, you can create the files on a PC
and use the .SWFs produced on the Mac, which means
that you could create standard clips for your
files and use them in your libraries. Other system
requirements include Pentium 100 or better, 32Mb
of RAM, 256 color display or better. It does not
require Flash to be installed, too.
Acquiring and using SWiSH is easy enough. You
just go to the site and download its trial version.
Until you get a key, it will scramble text when
you export to SWF. Currently, SWiSH has a US $30
price tag, with free minor updates. Major updates
would be around US $10 – a big difference
in the price of Flash at US $275. Need we say
more? Try SWiSH and see for yourself! -30-
About the author:
Lala C. Ballatan is a 26 year-old Communication
Arts graduate, with a major in Journalism. Right
after graduating last 1999, she worked for one
year as a clerk then became a Research, Publication
and Documentation Program Director at a non-government
organization, which focuses on the rights, interests
and welfare of workers for about four years.
Book reading has always been her greatest passion
-- mysteries, horrors, psycho-thrillers, historical
documentaries and classics. She got hooked into
it way back when she was but a shy kid.
Her writing prowess began as early as she was
10 years old in girlish diaries. With writing,
she felt freedom – to express her viewpoints
and assert it, to bring out all concerns -- imagined
and observed, to bear witness.
For comments and inquiries about the article
visit http://www.ucreative.com
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