Today, as technologies like HTML5 and CSS3 are slowly bringing advanced elegant and gorgeous display techniques to our websites, Flash banners are gradually being considered as the bane of the web-experience. Not only are they annoyingly obtrusive, they also lead to browser instability in some cases. Even so, Flash still remains the number one choice for exhibiting gorgeous banners on your website or blog. Add to this the IE’s constant ignorance of web standards, it’s going to be a while (read: never) before Flash will be wiped off the face of the earth.
We can curse Flash all we want, but for those who don’t care two hoots about web standards and just want a slick banner decorating their site, making one from scratch is next to impossible (not to mention the prohibitive cost of Flash itself). In most cases, these flash banners only serve the purpose of displaying a bunch of pictures and some text. This is where Banner Zest comes into the picture.
Banner Zest is a “hassle free banner animation software” from Aquafadas which requires absolutely no understanding of Flash. Creating a banner using Banner Zest is as easy as buttering a loaf of bread. Yes, all you need is a bunch of images that you’d like to use for the banner.
When you first launch BannerZest, it’ll first prompt you to drag and drop your source images into the container. BannerZest Pro also provides a Media Browser window with iPhoto and Aperture Library integration. The app will then quickly turn those images into a funky flash banner, along with the filenames as titles.
If you aren’t too happy with the banner or you just want to customize the bejeezus out of the banner, worry not. BannerZest provides a whole lot of themes along with the app with a variety of customizable options that you can alter to edit the banner to your liking. You can also crop the images to be used in the banner as per your need.
The banners created by BannerZest are also interactive, so you can use them as a Image Slideshow on a website with Forward and Back buttons and the images can also be hyperlinked, if needed.
Once you are settled on the banner design, publishing it is just as easy. BannerZest gives you the option to either locally or FTP it to any web-server. You can even set-up multiple servers in the app so it is easy to deploy your banners are different locations. The app will export the required flash files and the corresponding embed code into a HTML file. While I’m no flash expert, I did find that BannerZest will use absolute URL paths in the code that it generates, so you have to be careful where and how you export the banner.
Overall, BannerZest is a very impressive piece of software that provides a no-hassle way of using Flash banners to a whole lot of users on the web. Available in two versions of Standard and Pro, for $49 and $129 respectively, it still sounds like a pricey solution for a simple requirement. But for the ease of use that BannerZest provides, I wouldn’t mind spending on the license if I’m looking for some Flash funkiness on my site.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
As much as I like Aquafadas products, I am not found of their pro vs regular product distinctions. they seem to leave out too many features from the basic products and their pro versions are always too expensive IMHO. For eg in bannerzest, not being able to make the images clickable sucks.
I love BannerZest Pro! I use it for most of my sites I design, and once you know the program, the ease of use is amazing.
I have and use bannerzest pro, but right now the fact that it doesn’t support HTML5 banner creation, combined with the price, means that I wouldn’t recommend it.
I’d also say that for all the flashiness of the themes, the practical limitations of them mean that only a small core set are useful for banner creation; most of them are really about creating not clickable photo slide shows – which is a different requirement. In general you’ll be making 3 or 4 banner images and then transitioning them between them, which shouldn’t cost you $129.