Have you ever lost the .FLA file and the only thing you have left is the .SWF file? And needed it to recover the sounds and art to reduce the time to rebuild of that file? Do you wish you had a tool that lets you browse the swf's on the drive in a visual way to save you time since you like to name your files with names like snoopy and rat, and rat1 etc. Or would you like to be able to see the techniques people employ to make their effects. Well if you have ever had any of these questions then the answer is SWF Browser.

I started using SWF Browser just about a year ago when it was introduced. It's a great resource tool for file recovery. Up until that time, there were shareware tools out there but none could save the sound files. I have had many files that either has become corrupt or lost and I dreaded having to spend the hours to recreate the art. I have also always hated not being able to do a preview in flash of all my output. SWF Browser lets me do all of this and more.

It's straightforward in navigation, if you know it's location you can go directly to it or you can do a search. This is a nice option because it allows you to just say, "find all the swf on my drive". I've used this to find many an .FLA and it's hidden parent folder. (I don't know about you but I have two 30 gig drives and stuff gets lost fast. Artist I am so Organised I'm not.)

You can save files as unprotected swf, set it as a screensaver on your machine or even save it as a projector file. These are nice little touches. While you can't use others work you can learn how they did it by looking at the technique by dissecting the file.

Let your conscience be your guide on this one. I don't recommend using others work. I think if you do, you may be getting a letter in the mail from some nice lawyer. This is an argument that has raged for the last few years on the net. I just want to be clear on this. I do not recommend nor condone the use of this tool to rape files of others work, nor does Flashkit. I am simply reporting on the ability of the tool and what it can do.

Drawbacks of the program are you can't preview the movie clips before you have to save them. Some movies can have several hundred movie clips. It's the same for the sounds. Other than that this is a great tool to manage and recover your work. You can download a trial version of the software at www.swifftools.com.