SF 7 = Lots of great options!

[Intrigued]

Well, I have read about a fourth of the user guide for SF 7 and I just noticed the breath of options avaiable to us for any given file via the File Properties dialog.

Now that I have time (somewhat) to really ***** into SF 7... I am starting to really see just how flexible SF 7 can be!

It makes me want to go register www.setupfactoryuser.com

:yes

[Ted Sullivan]

Go for it!

Tell all your friends. Tell a whole bunch! (I just had a hippopotamus for lunch).

Seriously though, to me that is the best thing about Setup Factory 7.0 - it's super easy to get a basic installer project put together, but when you need to really go in there and tweak the installation process to meet whatever requirements you have, you can do it! That's where other installer builder products just can't match up.

[Intrigued]

Well, I just went to download.com and shared my opinion of SF 7 and now the rating says 50% positive, ack! (noooo, bad joke on what is really a good day).

:yes

...Positive feedback left and a much smaller paragraph of "how I like the program, etc." (in hopes they post my comments for you all)

No matter what that site does, say, or does not say... you guys/gals rock and that IS my final answer! (ah, maybe a life-line...)

[Corey]

Glad to hear you've got SUF now Intrigued. You won't regret it. Even if it's just for providing your clients with installers for the AMS projects you build for them, it'll be a great investment. The possibilities are seemingly endless.

One fun thing to try out is making your own theme. Just create a copy of one of the existing themes in the themes folder, replace the graphics with your own, and then go into the accompanying XML file and give it a new title. (once you open the XML it wil be obvious how to do this) Then the next time you open up SUF, your theme will be available in the themes dropdown menu. Cool way to kill 15 minutes.

[Intrigued]

That's pretty cool Corey! I am going to check that out.

Yes, I plan on using SF 7 for AMS and more. Very excited about the professionial looking opportunities now available for installing those various pieces of software.

:yes

[Corey]

Exactly. Being able to take company X's presentation theme all the way to their installer theme is something that, prior to Setup Factory 7.0, would have been essentially impossible for a non-programmer to achieve. I know because I've wrestled that demon a few times and it basically came down to how much time it takes. Now you can do it in 20 minutes instead of a day.

Another thing to note here. Themes from Setup Factory are completely interchangeable with themes from all our upcoming product releases which employ themes, such as TrueUpdate 2.0 and Visual Patch 2.0. Not trying to get ahead of you here, just saying that as you grow, we've got you covered.

All the new products have the same scripting engine BTW, and are cross-compatible with the action plug-ins, etc. That was essentially the whole beauty behind the new Lua engine which we introduced in AutoPlay Media Studio 5.0. Again it all comes down to time spent, we wanted to make sure that our entire suite of tools offered some sort of compelling workflow advantage which was all at once cohesive, yet still individually relevant.

Anyhoo, barrel of monkeys. :yes

[Intrigued]

The topic of themes came up just today between myself and a co-worker. He was not really listening to me about the merits of SF 7 until... until I said there is the ability for custom themes. He said he will have to take a look at SF 7 soon.

[Corey]

The best route is always to create a dazzling theme which is particularly relevant to something the doubting Thomas likes, i.e. video games or whatever, and then show it to him.

I've been relying on "wow factor" like that for a long time. Works very well. In fact once I get the new sites done and am ready to start dedicating my time to promoting AMS, the majority of what I do will follow that model, i.e. make people go "Wow" and then when they ask how I did it, give them the code and project assistance here in the forum. I'm gambling that this could potentially double our AutoPlay Media Studio user base this year. Keep your fingers crossed, it's a lofty goal. Then again I've got *a lot* of lofty stuff up my sleeve, so...

Anyhow your feedback on this one is intriguing (hyuk!) because we sort of knew since day one that the ability to theme your Setup Factory installers would be the competitive pivot point for most designer-developers. We actually invested quite a bit of time into developing the theme system and creating the theme gallery in Setup Factory... :yes

[Intrigued]

Oh! Oh!

I like that you can Preview each screen!

and...

I like the extent of ActionScripting ability on each screen (ie. On Ctrl Message)!

:yes