Comments on: Scriptio: It’s Flash without Flash!

By: dilly

dilly — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:55:57 +0000

I like Scriptio from a usability point of view – and also because I have a 64-bit machine and haven’t got around to emulating 32-bit firefox on it – so I can’t see any Flash content anyway!

One problem – the fade-in doesn’t show up on Konqueror – any tips please?

By: IceBrain

IceBrain — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 01:55:51 +0000

You always have Ming, which can make a full scripted flash presentation, so the third and forth point actually don’t apply.

By: John Dowdell

John Dowdell — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 00:58:10 +0000

you don’t want the weight of a flash presentation

What weight is that? For comparable media, SWF will usually be smaller and require fewer HTTP connections than an HTML/JS/CSS approach.

(Tip: For simple animations, some runtime blurring can really help smooth things out, across a range of machines.)

jd/adobe

By: blonkm

blonkm — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 13:14:08 +0000

I think most people arguing about presentations are missing the point here. This tool is very useful in websites where either
1) you don’t want the weight of a flash presentation
2) you don’t want to rely on the flash player being available
3) you want flexibility and an easily modifyable script
4) you want to generate the script from PHP

There’s lots of possible uses for this tool, just probably not for presentations. For presentations I’d still use PowerPoint!

Well done Matthew!

By: mclark

mclark — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 05:58:52 +0000

As the Scriptio author, thanks to Mr. Yank’s posting and the constructive comments by others.

The Scriptio language closely models one used by Data Description for their educational products on desktop applications. They are able to train employees and high school interns how to use the scripting language usually in a matter of hours. They have found the development time (and therefore cost) less than alternatives.

I did consider trying to write a scalable version, but without a graphical editor for script development then using floating-point locations would be difficult and non-intuitive.

Matthew Clark

By: whol019

whol019 — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 01:31:25 +0000

This is excellent. I like it very much.

What about the idea of a web interface for creating scripto script.
Something like the TimeLine Editor

From scripto’s reference page, it seems not a small task but should be doable from my point of view.

Anyway, if in the near future, no one have done it, I will try make one.

By: skinjester

skinjester — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 20:47:29 +0000

despite a love/hate relationship with Flash, for purely presentational purposes, a significant feature is vector based text + antialiasing. Marketing & actual consumers like to see scaling text with smooth smooth edges. I’m pretty sure I don’t see the value of the Quicktime style movie controller. I’m guessing there’s a way to turn it off?

By: Susan

Susan — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 18:15:34 +0000

I agree that I would use Flash or Director.

BUT

About two years ago, I was working freelance and did not have the $$$ to buy Flash. This would have been a nice tool to demonstrate my skills.

My other thought is marrying it with PHP to create dynamic scripts. BUT I’d have to play with it more.

By: beetle

beetle — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:57:29 +0000

I agree with code poet. It’s very nifty. But, outisde of a “proof of concept” or just tinkering-about, I don’t see it gaining traction anywhere.

The author certainly deserves a pat on the back for not only what seems to be a solid implementation, but a fairly unique idea.

By: codepoet

codepoet — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 15:14:25 +0000

I agree that it is technically pretty nifty but I really don’t see this taking off.

The target market is not really thought of. People who create presentations tend to prefer an application with a proper IDE to generate them. I don’t see a Project Manager sitting down and scripting or even altering presentation in this format.

It is a bit like generating a movie from a transcript.