April 27th 2005 | Jens C Brynildsen

Projector Tool Feature Comparison

The tools in the Showdown vary in many ways. From capabilities and price - to ease of use and the technological solutions chosen. This table can only highlight parts of the functionality provided, but should help you choose what tools suits you best.

For each of the feaures, you will find an explanation further down this document. Click the image below to open the full size table.

The features listed in this table are the ones the author of this article finds important. All of the tools have specialties and functions other than the ones listed here. If you miss a feature in this table, install a trial version of the tool that sounds best suited for your task and check the included help file.

Windowless Projectors
The Projectors you can create with Flash alone are always square. They have the standard Windows OS framing or a Flash Player menu on a Mac. Using a Projector tool, you may have your program look just like you want. Forget the square framing. Why not go for something semi-transparent with an irregular shape?

Not all the tools reviewed can show semi-transparent projectors for all platforms. To make a program semi-transparent often requires a lot of CPU, especially while dragging the window. OSX, Windows XP and 2000 supports this. For a projector tool to also show transparency on other platforms, special code is required. Check the feature listing for each tool if you also want transparency on older Windows machines.

File I/O
Reading, moving, deleting, writing and opening files are basic functions to any desktop program. Reading directories from a users hard drive, choosing colors and directories are also practical features. The table lists only if there is some support for working with files present in the tool. Not all tools support dialogues such as choosing directories and picking colors from the systems color picker.

Starting Applications
Using the original FSCommand, Flash Projectors could open external documents. Projector tools took this a step further and added functions that control what program is used or installed on a users machine. The cleverest ones may check if a user has i.e. Adobe Acrobat Reader installed.

System Dialogues
When you choose Open from the File menu of a program, the standard file opening dialogue is usually displayed. If the Projector tools supports opening these dialogues, you can often save a lot of scripting.

System Events
With the first Projector tools, you had to use MovieClips that looped looking to see if i.e. the user had changed the resolution of the screen. If the screen becomes too small/big, you may want to change the size of the graphics on screen to compensate for this. A well written Projector tool has methods that you can define to trigger if such a change occurs. Generally speaking: more events to listen for = less code to write.

Database support
Most Flash coders are used to using some kind of middleware (PHP, ColdFusion, ASP) to store data on a webserver. This is fine for "connected" applications, but if you were to make an accounting program, you'd often want to have the database locally on the user's machine. Some projector tools can connect directly to databases. ADO is a general database connector that can connect to several kinds of databases. Zinc also has native drivers for Access and MySQL databases.

Tray Icon support
This is a Windows only feature, though there is something similar on the menu-line on Macs also. A small 16x16 pixel icon sits in your task-bar. You may often have the program display here rather than as a normal program on the middle of the bar. This is useful for applications that should run in the background and be available at all times.

File Download / upload
So you have made an application and distributed it to several thousand users. Then you need to update it. Wouldn't it be nice if the application could just download any changed files? The most advanced tools also supports uploading thus allowing you to build full FTP programs with Flash.

Send Email
Want to make an email program or maybe build a mailing list application for terrorizing innocent people with Spam? Then you need emailing functionality.

Multiple Window support
For many kinds of applications, it is practical to open more windows. A MP3 player may need a playlist or a settings window.

Changing Screen Resolution
If you make a Flash game, you can often increase the playback speed if the resolution is reduced. Keep in mind that a well produced program also resets the original settings upon exit.

Screen Capture
If a tool support screen capture, you may build your own Captivate program with Flash - almost. How about making a screen saver that shuffles the screen just like a puzzle?

Export Screensaver
Many tools also have the ability to export screensavers. The best of them also allows for control of the Settings-dialogue in the control panel. Flash is excellent for creating all sorts of screensavers and combined with File I/O, this can produce beautiful slideshows and other kinds of screensavers.

Extendable
What if you need special functionality? Can the tool of your choice be extended to support new functionality?

Web Browser Control
Can the tool open a web Browser as part of the Flash application? Some of the tools have very solid support, allowing you to skin and almost rebuild your favorite browser.

Media Player support
This was a more important feature before Flash got video support. With the new video codec in the Flash 8 player this function may be almost redundant, unless you want to build your own Media Player

Number of Commands
This number usually reflects how much each tool can do. If you read the reviews, you'll soon find out that some tools require several commands for solving just one task, so the real number of things you can do may be lower than this count. The actual number of commands may not be important as long as it has the functions you need and its easy to work with.

Flash Versions Supported
Does the tool support Flash MX 2004, Flash Player 7 and ActionScript 2.0? If you only have an old version of Flash, this may also be interesting information.

Platforms
We love the fact that more tools now support OSX projectors. Zinc's support for PocketPC is unique and they also talk about making a Linux version. Keep in mind that all commands/Features are not supported in the Mac version. All base functions are usually supported, but it makes little sense to control the Windows Media Player on a Mac...