14 DAY TRIAL // Creating and maintaining a successful website can be often compared to building up a relationship - you have to make it interesting, as original as possible and bring in something new every day.
Macromedia Flash is a powerful design environment which can create everything that you may think of, but with two conditions: you have to afford buying it and have the required skills. For those who fail here, there are the template-based Flash banner and intro builders who can help beginners a lot.
Triple W communications is one of the software producers that create very good flash tools, with lots of presets and good customization possibilities. Their product's full name is Anim-FX Flash intros and Flash banners builder 3.3 and I can assure you that its features are up to it!
This program is one of those all-out applications, having all the options accessible from its main interface. The best way to get to know what we can get for $27 is to install and run the demo version available on the website.
What makes Anim-FX better than any other of all those similar programs out there? It's highly customizable, extremely easy to use and, most important, is compatible with Macromedia Flash, Dreamwaver, Front Page and other HTML editors.
In the demo version you can't save the settings, the text file or see an external preview of how your animation is going to look like, but you can explore all 69 templates available, change text, colors and enjoy the process.
First, choose an effect from those available. Next, you have to add the desired text in one or up to all five text lines in the upper left of the program's interface. Note that, unlike other flash intro creators, in Anim-FX you can add as much text characters as you need. For each text line you can set the position and size.
Use the Freeze feature if you need the animation to stop at the last text line. The number of loops can be left as default, 0, and your intro will run again and again until stopped. To make an Anim-FX effect jump to your page after ending its run, you have to set the loops number to 1 and then enter your domain name in the "URL at end" field. Pretty easy I'd say... don't you agree?
Each intro has its own sound effect, and you can change its sound volume as you like. If you don't want it to be noisy, just set the Volume value to 0. After all these features, it's obvious that the effect background and text color can also be changed without any problem, and with just two clicks - first, click the Background or Text buttons and then choose your color from the palette.
You can change how the URL you want to be displayed when clicking the intro will open. The default mode is _self, which loads the specified URL in the same window or frame containing the Flash movie. You can change this as needed, they won't have any effect in the demo version, but it's good to know what you can get for your money...
I didn't say anything so far about the 69 presets available, maybe because visual beauty it's hard to describe in words. You have to check out the demo yourself and enjoy each one of them. It's enough to mention just some names of these presets - matrix, explosion, fireworks, beetles, Christmas balls, Easter...and the list goes on.
The Good
After customizing an effect and uploading it to the web server, you don't have to change and upload the flash file again, it's enough to change the text file attached to it; this adds up to the large amount of features mentioned above. It has no stability problems and can run on computers with only 64MB of memory and a 200 MHz CPU.
The Bad
You can't create your own intro presets from scratch and you can't change the font of the text, these are the things that bothered me most.
The Truth
Anim-FX is a light, fast and useful application. It has a good price and offers a wide range of features. I advise you to try it, it will be an easy and pleasant ride for sure. The end will be having some fun and then uninstalling it or clicking the Buy button. No matter the choice, you can't miss the fun that comes with it!
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
