Demo Builder - Create Software Movies, Demos and Presentations

Part II of Screencasting software review series. In our previous review, we covered Qarbon Viewletbuilder in detail. Here we do a review of Demo Builder 5, a powerful software for creating computer presentations, software moviews and demonstrations.

Demo Builder is installed with a sample presentation movie “Screen Saver” - Render this file and you will understand the capabilities of Demo Builder.

When Demo Builder starts, users are shown a simple task pane (similar to that in MS Word) which provides one click access to create new movies or open the existing ones. And even the most recently modified movie files are also listed in this panel.

Demo Builder has one of the best interfaces among all screen capture programs coupled with a good context-sensitive offline help system. The program UI, icon designs and tools tips are so intutive that even first time users may skip the help file.

No other program offers the kind of annotation systems that comes with Demo Builder. If you are select the “Properties” item from the desktop menu, Demo Builder is smart enough and would automatically insert a nice looking balloon shaped graphic or Bubbles with drop shadows that says “Select the Properties menu”. There is even support for Animated annotation objects to attract immediate attention of the user.

The workflow of Demo Builder is similar to other screenshot capture programs like Viewletbuilder. You take a series of screenshots of a running application by pressing some pre-defined hotkey. It records the actions being taken on the application and so is able to demonstrate a simulation of these actions. Each screenshot constitutes a Frame that can be further edited in a timeline similar to Macromedia Captivate. The objects are displayed in the Timeline in the order that they are inserted in the frame.



The final movie can be exported in Flash format, standalone executable .exe or a sequence of images.

DemoBuilder 5 includes a new Localization Wizard and a lot of additional new features.

* Demo Builder version 5 introduces new events for your interactive objects(Buttons, Click Zones, Edit Zones) to give you total control over how your movie behaves in response to user actions. Each individual Event now has its own TimeLine so that you can precisely control the separate and specific sequencing of display and behaviours for that event.

* With Demo Builder 5 you can now have Notes automatically inserted into your frames if ‘special keys’ are pressed at capture time. For example, if F5 is pressed Demo Builder can automatically insert a Note with the text “Press F5 key”.

* Maintain consistency of ‘look and feel’ at a single click! For Balloons, Buttons, Notes and Texts you can now apply your chosen font style/formatting to all objects of the same type using the enhanced font properties editor.

* Record voice-over narration at the time of capturing the screenshots for your new movie. Record voice-over narration whilst previewing and editing your movie.

* Translate your movie text and distribute your movies internationally. The Localize Wizard allows you to update the language of your movies for international distribution by exporting your movie caption text (Balloon, Note, Text etc.) which you then update with text in the desired language.

* Animations have been redesigned, more animation categories (all with subcategories), choose from more colors and set the direction of motion for your animations.

Thanks to Dan Tatomir from DemoBuilder support for providing me a full version of Demo Builder for review.

Download DB Trial or Buy here - The single user license is available for US $199 until Dec 31. You will also get free upgrades to the updated versions that are released within one year from the date of your purchase.