Projector Tools Showdown- Flashmagazine verdict

Doing this review has been a lot of fun. Both the tools and their makers are more mature. The feature sets increase, the resulting projectors are more stable and almost all the tools are more user friendly and easier to use.

With Macromedia pushing Flash web applications, many think of Flash as just a web tool, but Flash can indeed build commercial quality software using Projector tools. We have seen Flash Projectors used to create everything from funny little desktop gizmos and eye candy to both useful and amazingly complex applications. Before you set off to recreate Microsoft Word, keep in mind that Flash was never built for applications of such a scale. We won't say it's impossible to do such a thing with Flash; it's just that other programming tools would do it better and faster.

So what kinds of applications is Flash suited for? All the projector tools in this test use the Flash Player in some way. That means that any application developed will have the limitations of the Flash Player.

- Speed is one such limit. Flash Player 8 comes with a new bitmap caching feature that may make this a lesser concern.
- Size is another limit. Flash developers working on big Flash projects often find that odd things happen when the application becomes big. In virtually all cases, it is possible to code around these problems.

Unfortunately we can't give you a prescription for when you'll hit the limits of Flash. "Ask a seasoned Flash developer" is the best advice we can give.

The tools are getting better all the time
The Projector market has long been limited by how complex the tools were to use. The FSCommands were cryptic and didn't resemble something designers or even programmers recognized. The arrival of ScreenWeaver changed this. ScreenWeaver was the first tool to offer Actionscript-like syntax, code hinting, event handlers and extensive help inside the Flash IDE. There was hardly any learning curve. Anyone with Actionscript experience could use the tool straight away. When the others saw this, they knew they had to leave FSCommands.

The only two tools in this test that have not changed and still rely on FSCommands are iceProjector and Jugglor. If they do not change, they will probably disappear and fade away. They both claim this is since they target designers rather than programmers, but FSCommands are not very designer friendly either. Both the tools can still be used for small and un-complex projects, but we'd not recommend them for building applications. ScreenWeaver is no longer available, so that leaves us with three tools; mProjector, SWF Studio and Zinc.

The tool to choose
It is impossible for us to say that one of these three tools is the best one. That will depend on what your project is and how you like to work. mProjector was the first to introduce synchronous commands. The advantage of these are tremendous. Much less scripting and less handlers to write.

Both NorthCode (SWF Studio 3) and Multidmedia (Zinc) are working on implementing this in their products. In a few months time, they will probably both offer many synchronous commands. mProjector is already synchronous in all commands, so ScreenTime are now doing the opposite of the competition; working to make their FTP commands asynchronous, since FTP is async by nature. The FTP is already async on the Mac version of mProjector.

Platform support may also be interesting. Zinc has the edge here, with PC, Mac, PocketPC and with time, maybe even Linux. You should keep in mind that not all commands are available on all platforms. We have no numbers, but we'd guess that the Mac version has less than half of the features found in the PC version. When developing with Zinc, you will have to keep this in mind. mProjector has fewer commands than Zinc, but all the commands work in both the Mac and PC version. The exception is OS specific commands such as bouncing the application icon in the OSX toolbar. Currently there is no Mac version of SWF Studio. Northcodes homepage state that at Flash Forward NY (almost two years ago), they showed their new Mac/PC software called Thing. This could become a strong contender when it arrives.

A hot tip for building larger applications would be to build a separate class holding all the projector functionality in your project. If you then need to change to another projector tool at a later time, you can (in theory) just modify this file and all should work. This may save a lot of time if done properly.

So which is our subjective favorite then? We have to say mProjector is the tool that impresses the most. The ease of use, synchronous commands, good documentation and Mac support is hard to beat. We have never had problems with the stability of projectors created with mProjector and that is also a big plus in our book.

The feature set of mProjector is however a little limited; so many projects will require either SWF Studio or Zinc. Version 3 of SWF Studio is soon out and the synchronous commands are also soon there. The base features of SWF Studio and Zinc overlap, but they differ in several key areas. In the end, the feature sets will probably dictate what tool you choose, depending on your need.