How to create Flash-based website demos and software tutorials?

A Flash demo is a great way to show your website or software product in operation and teach how to use it. This article deals with creating such animated tutorials.

There are two ways to create demos: manual and automatic.

Creating Flash demos manually

1. Start Adobe (Macromedia) Flash and create a new project.
2. Open the website in the browser or start the application you want to create a demo for.
3. Use the Alt+PrintScreen key combination to make screenshots for your demo and paste them into Flash. Note: The Alt+PrintScreen key combination copies the image of the currently active window to the clipboard.
4. Go back to Flash and arrange the captured screenshots in frames on the timeline so that they appear and disappear when needed.
5. Add the mouse pointer.
6. Animate the mouse pointer so that it shows where and how to make mouse clicks to get the result.
7. Add captions and hints to explain what the purpose of this or that option is and tell the user about the features of the program.
8. Save the demo. The demo is ready to be published.

Creating Flash demos automatically

The second way is faster and more comfortable because you will not have to manually capture screenshots and add animation. To do it, you should use one of screen recorders. These are special programs that take upon themselves the entire work. Once started, they automatically record everything you do on the screen right into a Flash movie. All you have to do is open the application you want to make a demo for and work with it. As a result, you will get a perfect tutorial showing how to work with the application. You will find a catalog of screen recorders at http://tools.allflashtools.com/Screen_Recorders-11.html