KoolMoves User Guide / Manual

[pherbrick]

http://www.koolmoves.com/support.html now has a User Guide in the Help Manual section. It is 90 pages long and formatted for doubled sided printing (blank pages inserted so chapters and appendices start on odd numbered pages), so people wanting to minimize paper consumption should skip the pages intentionally left blank.

[Ultra Pulse]

I was wondering what that was when i checked the website, I'll have a look and see if you missed anything important.

[pherbrick]

I'll have a look and see if you missed anything important.
Oh joy, words every manual author is dying to hear :). Be still my heart! :p

Sarcasm aside, yes, please post comments to this thread. Especially newbies and users coming to KoolMoves from other applications.

The KoolMoves User Guide has some original content regarding the KM interface, but for the most part the content is based on the Help manual. It is a work in progress and will evolve over time. How fast it evolves depends on how much time I have to devote to it.

The immediate concerns, as expressed in the forum, were 1) some questions were posted that were addressed in the Help manual, 2) the Help manual wasn't formatted for printing, and 3) users wanted a User Manual/documentation. I really didn't want Bob distracted from adding more new features to KoolMoves, so I stepped in. I hope I've addressed these concerns to some extent.

My goal is to have User Guide updates coincide with KM upgrades, time constraints permitting.

Peter

[gusmus]

I'll get to work on a Spanish translation of it if you like.

[pherbrick]

Thank you, Wiliiam. That would be great.

[Lisa Anderson]

Thank you for working on this. It has been a great help!

[nigella]

Hi guys, if you want i'll try to put it into hebrew.

nigel. :p

[tmoore935]

Why not put it in "leet" also? :p

[pherbrick]

Bob has posted the final version of KoolMoves User Guide 0.3 to http://www.koolmoves.com/support.html. Highlight of changes from 0.2 are:

1) It is now 1.6 Mb, 105 pages
2) Added entries on the AS Editor and features introduced with KoolMoves release 5.0.2
3) Miscellaneous updates and/or editing, including but not limited to the entries on Grid, Score Data View, Sounds and Actions, Dynamic Text, and the Shortcuts List
4) Updates and/or corrections to Appendices A, D, and E
5) Added Appendix G - Library Listings (Motion Scripts, Text Effect Templates and Web Interfaces)
6) Added Appendix H - Frequently asked Questions
7) Added Chapter titles to the footer
8) Added miscellaneous images

Index should be available with 0.4. Enjoy :).

Peter

[gusmus]

[QUOTE]Why not put it in "leet" also?

Have to put it into perspective as well.

[tmoore935]

[QUOTE]Why not put it in "leet" also?

Have to put it into perspective as well.

I cound not resist :)

[gusmus]

I can only suggest that an OHM or two will increase your resistance, but as you surely know: Leet, written as "1337" in leetspeek, is an online culture and/or attitude among the Internet population. The word itself is derived phonetically from the word "elite", and is a cipher, or cryptic form of English spelling. This is commonly confused with B1ff, which replaces only some of the letters with numbers. And taking this back to a certain post a week or so back regarding translations. I can only sit here on my ass in amazement and wonder "WHY?"

[pherbrick]

Hi William,

Re perspective, should I beef up the introduction to address the evolution of Flash and its current uses? Ahhhh! I think I see what you're getting at. It doesn't replace HTML or dedicated art tools, and at its most powerful, works with CGIs and server side scripts. Am I close?

[gusmus]

Hi William,

Re perspective, should I beef up the introduction to address the evolution of Flash and its current uses? Ahhhh! I think I see what you're getting at. It doesn't replace HTML or dedicated art tools, and at its most powerful, works with CGIs and server side scripts. Am I close?

I'd be inclined to leave everything as simple as possible. Don't go into the future possibilities because the majority of the help users will be people who wish to learn the ins and outs of the program. The rest of us oldies can probably work out the complicated bits for ourselves or at least post on here for inmediate help.

PS. you should have the first draft of the Spanish version in about 10 or 15 days, the only bug will be the screen captures which will have to be changed when and if the KM Span version is released. Sorry for the delay but it's bleedin 'ot 'ere and not conducive to playing about with internetically orientated television sets. In other words,,, "It's Holiday time"

[tmoore935]

I can only suggest that an OHM or two will increase your resistance, but as you surely know: Leet, written as "1337" in leetspeek, is an online culture and/or attitude among the Internet population. The word itself is derived phonetically from the word "elite", and is a cipher, or cryptic form of English spelling. This is commonly confused with B1ff, which replaces only some of the letters with numbers. And taking this back to a certain post a week or so back regarding translations. I can only sit here on my ass in amazement and wonder "WHY?"

I am only joking. I got off work early today.

It was the past thread that made me think of this. I know older hackers used this to describe what they were doing so as others could not understand them and look Elite.

As for a spanish help translation, I did use some software to translate a 10 page rules and regs. Then I had to pay someone to 35USD to redo the software translation. All in all it worked well. :rolleyes: Mabye next time I will look you up.

[blanius]

How about an exlaination of the symbol libraray and examples of it's uses.

[gusmus]

[QUOTE]I did use some software to translate a 10 page rules and regs. Then I had to pay someone to 35USD to redo the software translation. All in all it worked well. Mabye next time I will look you up.

Hi Tim. The online and most pc based translation software is little more than useless. It's ok for single words and very simple 5 word (max) phrases but above that they cannot assimilate any nuances within any language let alone spanish and especially anything using technical terms. When I started out on the web design thing I tried using an online translator thinking that it would be quicker but in the end I found that it was easier and a lot faster just to translate on the fly. The proof of the pudding with any software based translation is to translate a longish phrase, feed it back for translation to a third language and then translate the result back to the original. The results are sometimes hilarious.

[pherbrick]

How about an exlaination of the symbol libraray and examples of it's uses.
The Symbol Library functionality is still evolving, but there is a straightforward explanation of it in its current state on page 55 in the KoolMoves User Guide (KMUG) 0.3. The next KMUG will have a slightly expanded explanation and include an example of how to import symbols from another fun file.

As for examples of its uses, I didn't have time to flesh out the entry, but right now the uses are either very basic or very advanced. Basic: Movie clips in the Symbol Library can be edited or pasted to the current key frame. Advanced: Movie clips in the Symbol Library that have been given a Link Name can be used dynamically (see a good ActionScript manual - commands to look up provided on page 55). By dynamically, I mean they can be attached, duplicated, and have behaviors applied to them via ActionScript in the timeline they are loaded into.

I hope this helped :).

[marinebro0306]

Nice job.

[pherbrick]

Thanks, Marinebro. Bob has posted User Manual 0.2 to the KoolMoves support page (http://www.koolmoves.com/support.html). It supersedes and replaces the User Guide in its entirety.

Changes from User Guide 0.3 are:

1) The Manual is 2.7 Mb, 172 pages
2) Lots of new entries and additional topics covered
3) Better organization of topics
4) Has an Index

I hope you all like it; its a major improvement over the guide, but Bob and Wilbert were coming out with so many improvements, I couldn't keep up with everything. The User Guide, when it comes back, will focus on examples and step by step guides. Comments on the manual can be posted to this thread, or you can private message me. Thanks in advance for you feedback. :)

Peter

[pherbrick]

I was busy at the time the User Manual was released, or I would have done a better job explaining the contents of the manual. I'm still relatively busy, but I've noticed a few posts in the last week where the answers are addressed in the manual, so I'll take some time to cover the contents of the manual.

Before I forget, the attached zip file has two pdf files, KM_Manual-0.2-Index.pdf and KM_Manual-0.2-TOC.pdf, containing the Index and Table of Contents for the manual.

The manual is very light in the ActionScript department. I felt that the highest priority was to educate new users on available features and capabilities. From there they could experiment or check out the examples and online tutorials.

Part I – KoolMoves Environment: covers the KoolMoves Environment. A must read for all new users.

Chapter 1 – KoolMoves User Interface: Updated for 5.1, very similar to the coverage in the User Guide. Addresses the Configuation Wizard, User Interface settings, and has descriptions of the Interface components.

Chapter 2 - Preferences and Options: Describes all the menus that control P&Os, including movie preferences and export settings.

Chapter 3 – Help Features & Tutorials: Where to find help within KoolMoves and online, including Wizards, Tutorials, and context sensitive help.

Part II – Menu Toolbar and Menu Commands: Following the design of the Menu toolbar, these chapter cover these buttons and related menu commands. Major expansion in coverage over the original User Guide.

Chapter 4 – File Operations: File Menu commands, Working w/ Website editing tools, and working w/ Midi Sound Files.

Chapter 5 – Data Views: One of the most useful chapters for non Action Scripters, because so much is done through the Data View dialogs/windows (like renaming frames). Properties, Score Data, Movie Overview, Actions and Sounds, List of Shapes and List of Frames.

Chapter 6 - Modifying the Canvas: The last of the menu toolbar commands are covered here, along w/ related menu features. Undo/Redo/History, Pan Canvas, Zoom, and Magnification.

Part III – Tools Toolbar (Toolbox): These chapters cover the functions addressed by the Toolbox. Some chapters include guides/examples that were in the KoolMoves help files.

Chapter 7 – Selections and Selection Scope: Explains how objects are selected, and effect of the change scope on objects in the authoring environment.

Chapter 8 – Drawing Tools: Lines, pre-defined shapes, moving/adding/deleting shape points, "bones", tracing images and selecting the same color.

Chapter 9 – Buttons: Creating, adding, adding sounds, adding actions, getURL, printing from within a movie, and Tell Target actions.

Chapter 10 – Toolbox Libraries: Screenshots of the interfaces with explanations of the various libraries contents. Web Interfaces, Text Effect Templates, Clip Art, Animated Clip Art and Button Gallery.

Chapter 11 – Importing Images: Static images, vector graphics, SWFs, FLVs and animated gifs are covered. Where an image type can't be imported, work arounds or acknowledgment that it can't be done are noted.

Chapter 12 - Text: Static and Dynamic. All interfaces, properties and related menu items are covered, but this chapter could have benefitted from some solid examples - sorry, time constraints. There are plenty of related posts and examples in the FlashKit forum and on the KoolMoves support page.

Chapter 13 - Movie Clips: ditto Chapter 12. Good coverage of MC interfaces et.al., but no coverage of ActionScript aspect. There are plenty of related posts and examples in the FlashKit forum and on the KoolMoves support page.

Chapter 14 – Tranforms: An introduction to the simple techniques that go into making transitions.

Part IV – Advanced/Additional Features: The complicated stuff, and a listing of shortcut keystrokes.

Chapter 15 - Action Scripting: Where and how to create/edit/find ActionScript.

Chapter 16 – KoolMoves Components: All interfaces, properties and related author time actions covered. APIs from the Examples folder included. Due to time constraints, examples/guides not included.

Chapter 17 – Symbols and Sounds: Symbol and Sound libraries covered.

Chapter 18 – Shortcuts: Shortcut keystrokes

Appendices: Useful additional info, some relating to topics covered in prior chapters, but not essential to getting started with KoolMoves.

Appendix A – Known Issues and Error Messages: Largely Flash Player issues.

Appendix B – Unimplemented ActionScript: A listing of the AS1 commands that don't work (mostly Flash 4 deprecated commands). Thanks Wilbert!

Appendix C – Programming / Coding Advice et.al.: Culled from forum threads and help files; thanks Senior forum members!

Appendix D – Useful 3rd Party Software: Culled from forum threads and help files; thanks Senior forum members!

Appendix E – Toolbar Library Listings: Text listing of available Motion Scripts, Text Effect Templates, Web Interfaces, Clip Art, Animated Clip Art, and images of the available Buttons.

Appendix F – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) : About 25 FAQs, from the forum and gusmus (Thanks William and other senior members!).

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Peter

[jamnden]

I know this took a lot of effort but this will be extremely helpful for me. I just have to have a bunch of inkjet cartridges on hand as I print this bad-boy out. Thanks!

[Bob Hartzell]

Peter, do I need to change the download on the support page?

[pherbrick]

You're welcome, jamnden :).

Bob, the support page has the latest version, so no changes needed. It even has the TOC and index; I just posted this info because it seemed like forum users weren't checking the manual before posting questions.

Peter

[pherbrick]

Hi All,

The 0.3i User Manual and the 0.1 User Guides (first posted in February) have been updated on the KoolMoves support page (http://www.koolmoves.com/support.html). These versions were exported to PDF through Open Office Writer; this allowed the export of bookmark links and hyperlinks. So now when the manual says "see such and such in chapter so and so", you can click on the link and go there (assuming there is a link - I think I did a pretty good first pass-thru). You can also open the bookmarks tab in the Adobe Reader on the left hand side and use the TOC links to jump to a specific entry in the manual.

If you download the manual and guides, please store them in the same folder so the (relative address) hyperlinks between them function properly. :confused: Oops, doesn't work - I'll have this resolved by 0.4 if not sooner.

Some paragraph styles didn't come through, and the page numbering is now continuous (but that makes it less confusing when you print out specific pages, and don't worry about the index - it repaginated as well), but the content has not changed. The next user manual (0.4) will probably be released shortly after KoolMoves 5.3 but I can't guarantee that - delays happen, that's life :( (and no, I don't have an ETA for 5.3 release).

As mentioned earlier, comments and feedback are welcome - private message me recommendations for new index entries, sections that need to be updated (e.g., useful third party software), ideas for new user guides, etc., and I'll add them to my list of things to review/do. Highest priority is given to fixing errors, of course.

New Users, if there is anything confusing/irritating about the manual, please private message me (click on pherbrick to the left and select "Send a private message to pherbrick"). The number one goal of the user manual and user guides is to get you up and running with KoolMoves as quickly and as easily as possible. Check out the FAQs and troubleshooting in the appendices, just to be pre-emptive.

Best regards,
Peter

P.S. Wilbert and Bob, thanks for the feedback :grouphug:

[DiGiMac]

I'd be interested to know how many registered Italian users there are. If there are quite a lot, I'd be prepared to look through the machine translation and correct it. If not, I live over here but I'm English so the original suits me just fine.

[pherbrick]

Hi All,

Thanks for the offer, DiGiMac; that is very generous.

Manual version 0.4 is available at the KoolMoves support page (http://www.koolmoves.com/support.html). The pdf file is a little under 5MB, and at 220 pages is 16 pages longer than 0.3.

Appendix B has a new entry called Menu Structure. This is a listing of the menu commands available in KoolMoves. Most commands have links to their respective manual entries. 0.5 will have links and entries for all menu comands.

Please Private Message me if you have any questions, comments or ideas.

Best regards,
Peter

[XareoX]

i dont have adrobe reader could u change the file format so people who do have that software can view the contents

[Bob Hartzell]

The User Guide, when it comes back, will focus on examples and step by step guides.

-> this is a great idea and much needed

[jimventola]

i dont have adrobe reader could u change the file format so people who do have that software can view the contents

If you don't have Adobe Reader because it is huge, slow, and intrusive, you might take a look at Foxit Reader. Much leaner and faster and reads the KM manual just fine.


for those googled challenged the link is http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

[XareoX]

i dont realy like waisting my memory even tho i could free it up in later days but it would be better if the manual was on the site in swf or html format

[XareoX]

ok thanks bob

[pherbrick]

The KoolMoves User Manual (for version 5.6) was recently posted to the KoolMoves support page (http://www.koolmoves.com/support.html) (still in PDF). Changes largely consisted of the following: documenting new features, a few corrections, a couple sections expanded, many images updated, and web references to MacroMedia updated to Adobe sites.

I'm currently working on a User Guide for buttons.

Please private message me if you find any errors - I've already identified that the export settings shortcut needs to be replaced (old and new icon attached).

Best regards,
Peter

[XareoX]

stuff all readers i just got adrobe reader it should come already installed with my computer yarr

[pherbrick]

A Buttons tutorial has been posted to the KoolMoves support page (http://www.koolmoves.com/support.html) under Tutorials > Overview. It supersedes "Chapter 7 - Buttons" in the latest (v. 5.6) KoolMoves User Manual. Chapter 7 was 10 pages, while the buttons tutorial has about 50 pages of material (plus 8 pages of administrivia and intentionally blank pages). The new content includes step by step examples, some simple ActionScript sample code, guidance on using the Symbol Library w/ buttons, etc.

Please private message me if you have any questions, comments or corrections. Feedback on the User Manual and the Blend Mode and Filter User Guides are also welcome.

Peter

P.S. I've attached a pdf of the administrivia, including the Table of Contents.