New question about demos - transition effects?

[Geoff Hart]

John Bartol is producing a demo: <<This is to be used as a feature demo 
for prospective clients rather than a procedural demo for existing 
customers. Now, the system being shown is character-based and is *not* 
'flashy'. The key features of the system lie in the reporting, database 
management, and other tools. What I'd like to do is make a demo that 
lets me 'transition' items into the display. For example, if showing a 
feature that touts inventory tracking/ordering where there is static 
information on a screen shot, and associated reports (and graphics), 
I'd like to do something like: - show the screenshot - highlight the 
key info on the screenshot and display callout  text ("Look at the 
wonderful info :-)") - fade in the report/graphic samples - go on to 
the next point (either automagically or through keypress on button)>>

Sounds like Macromedia's Flash is exactly what you need. My former 
employer did a bunch of this stuff, and with a little training, you can 
accomplish surprisingly powerful results. With a lot of training, the 
sky's the limit.

<<Overall, I'd like to have a screen that shows thumbnails for each 
feature as the demo menu - click the appropriate thumbnail, jumps to 
that demo portion.>>

If you want something bare bones (e.g., you don't have time to learn 
Flash), try Powerpoint or any of its competitors. Most presentation 
software allows hyperlinking to specific slides and between files (I 
know PP does, and assume the competitors now do too), and most software 
also allows you to perform more transition effects than any reasonable 
person would want to do. <g> Combine this with transiations between 
slides and you've got a surprisingly powerful way to produce a demo.

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Geoff Hart   ghart at videotron.ca
(try geoffhart at mac.com if you don't get a reply)
www.geoff-hart.com
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