I have to agree with scase and glowman71 on this one too. I use more than one tool depending on the project. You really need to consider what it is you really want from this tool as there are many available.

My favorite is Articulate Studio 09 Professional as it offers several great products for one price. This one is very easy to learn and they have great help online as well. You can dowload a trial version and test it here Articulate The best thing about it is the use of PowerPoint slides, especially when input from SMEs is needed. It is much easier to distribute a presentation.

I would recommend Snag-It for screenshots as it is cheap and offers more than just a screen capturing tool.

These are just my opinions!

Good luck,
June

Hi,

Check out www.coggno.com it is unique, not only in that its user interface makes it a very easy to use, but you can create all the training you like, and don't have to pay for the great tools. There is a small fee when you actually distribute the training. The pay per use system makes it very cost effective.

The training can be delivered privately or sold openly.

Here's a shoprt video on the platform http://www.coggno.com/overview


Let me know if you have any questions
tod(at)coggno.com

I have a different position on Articulate. In my group, we currently have three licenses for the Articulate suite.

While it’s easy to use and the learning curve is short, what is on your PPT screen may not be the same thing when you publish using Articulate Examples: color may not remain the same, animation may not work correctly and videos will likely be out of sync. This can be *very* frustrating since you don’t know this until AFTER development!

In addition, Customer Service is pretty much done via blogs. For the blog to be effective, the following must happen: 1) someone has already had your problem 2) they had to explain the problem on the blog in a fashion you think resembles your problem 3) someone has to answer 4) hopefully the answer is correct and 5) you were lucky enough to find the answer. This is too much like waiting 10 years for the stars to line up and my Articulate problems need solved before waiting 10 years.

There is an online support page, hence another problem with Articulate: There is no way to send a screen shot of what’s going on. Therefore, you have to use the 1000 words to describe what the one screen shot would have shown. Then you can only expect a reply to “search the blog” for your answer.

The final straw is the fact that only the latest version is compatible with Adobe Flash Player 10, of course we can ‘upgrade’ for $3000 (3 suites X $1000). This is not acceptable since the software we have is only a year old!

At this point, I say “Run, don’t walk away from Articulate”

Wondershare Eleaning software would be the most cost-effective tool. You could have a review.

Wondershare PPT2Flash Professionalis a Flash authoring tool which help you convert PowerPoint to Flash for high-impact Web presentations and eLearning Courses with rich media, quizzes and simulations

Here is an article on easy Flash creation... how to simply create Flash animations (basic one that is) :
http://sharingknowledge.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/easy-and-free-flash-creation/

Regarding screencasting (recording manipulations for a software for instance) I recommand Wink which is free and quite efficient (http://debugmode.com/wink)

For screenshot I also use and like SnagIt... very efficient, not free but you might find a free version (older) somewhere. Also use JIng which is OK but I'm not so appealed by it.

PierreEtienne
pierre@red-dog.com