ALLCapture Add-ins

Reviewed by Geetesh Bajaj, October 26th 2007

Introduction
PanelStudio
SkinStudio
Pricing and Support
Conclusion

Introduction

This review is about two add-ins for ALLCapture: PanelStudio and SkinStudio. ALLCapture is a program that allows you to record the entire screen, or just parts of it, and create a tutorial or movie out of it -- read our full review on ALLCapture 2.0 here...

Both PanelStudio and SkinStudio are included in the Enterprise version of ALLCapture.

PanelStudio and SkinStudio are from Balesio, a company based in Germany that also creates programs like ALLCapture, PPTMinimizer, TurboDemo, etc. You can learn more about these products here...

My contact at Balesio for this review was Christoph Schmid - thank you, Christoph.

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PanelStudio

ALLCapture allows you to use playback navigation bars in output tutorials but PanelStudio allows you to go further and create your own playback navigation bars for Flash and EXE export. You can customize the playback navigation bar itself, the sliders, the progress bar, and even add your company logo to get a more professional output.

Although PanelStudio works as a standalone application, the output can be seen in the final export done via ALLCapture.

Here's a walkthrough of the steps required to create playback navigation bars using PanelStudio:

Once installed you'll end up with a PanelStudio program group in your Windows Start menu.

1. Go to your Windows Start menu and choose PanelStudio | PanelStudio.
   
   
2. This opens the PanelStudio interface, as shown in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1: A new project in PanelStudio.
   
   Select File | New Projects, and from dialog box that appears, choose the type of panel you want to create - for this tutorial I have chosen Side Panel.
   
   
3. Once the Panel type is selected, the interface will look like what you can see in Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2: PanelStudio interface
   
   The interface is divided in three areas:

1. Structure: Enables you to choose the functionality and appearance of the navigation bar like buttons, progress bar, images, slider control, logos, and info button.
2. Properties: Where you set the properties, and load the position of images, buttons, slider, etc
3. Preview: Shows the result of your work.

4. Add navigation buttons and customize it as required.
   
   
5. Once done, save the project and save a copy of the file in your ALLCapture installation directory.
   
   
6. The next time when you will export a file from ALLCapture, you can find the navigation bar that you have created in the default Slide Panel list as shown in Figure 3.
   
   
   Figure 3: Export to Flash SWF in ALLCapture

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SkinStudio

SkinStudio is a add-in to both TurboDemo and ALLCapture. This application enables to create your own text objects, call outs and balloons in different styles and shapes to suit your requirements without any programming language.

Here's a walkthrough on using SkinStudio for AllCapture:

1. Once the application is installed, launch it. The interface will look as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: SkinStudio interface
   
   Select the new skin option from the interface, which will open a new dialog box from were you choose the skin types -- for this review I have chosen Simple skin type (refer to Figure 4 above).
   
   
2. Now you can insert any bitmap (*.BMP) to create a skin. To do that, double click on the box which opens a dialog box, from were you can select a bitmap. Click OK to apply the bitmap, as shown in Figure 5.
   
   
   Figure 5: Inserting a Bitmap
   
   
3. Once done, the interface will look as shown in Figure 6.
   
   
   Figure 6: SkinStudio interface
   
   
4. Save the file in your ALLCaptures BNObjects folder, which contains all the TurboDemo SkinStudio files (*.TDS).
   
   
5. In ALLCapture insert a call out or a balloon, double click on it which will open Edit Text dialog box.
   
   
6. In Edit Text dialog box, click the Define Skin button which opens the Define Skin dialog box as shown in Figure 7.
   
   
   Figure 7: Define Skin
   
   You will find the skin you have created in the Skin Name list. Choose it and click OK.
   
   
7. This will take you to the ALLCapture main interface were you can find the skin applied on the Text box (see Figure 8).
   
   
   Figure 8: Skin applied in ALLCapture.
   

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Pricing and Support

ALLCapture, PanelStudio and SkinStudio are all part of the ALLCapture Enterprise edition, which costs $259 for a single user license, and is available as a multiple user license product as well.

Support is through email, online FAQ, phone, and web tutorials.

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Conclusion

If you need to customize the output of your captured movies and tutorials, both the SkinStudio and PanelStudio add-ins included within the Enterprise edition of ALLCapture provide great options at a combined price.

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