Amara Flash Slideshow Software Editor's Review

Amara Flash Slideshow Software is a cute application which can help you create exquisite standalone image slideshows and Flash albums. With just a few clicks, you can obtain a nice flash slideshow with minimal effort.

The program is quite easy to use due to its tabbed interface. There are no complicated menus where you can get lost, all is done by shifting through tabs from general settings to slides' settings.

In order to create a slideshow you need to go through the six configuration steps. First, you need to choose the dimensions of you future slideshow. Here you can also choose borders, customize the background and add a SWF (Flash) foregroung clip. Effects can be also added to the slideshow: you can select from a list of seven effects and you can customize the effect's duration (in seconds).

Besides the imagery, you can add sound to your slideshows. MP3 or WAV audio files can be played along with the shifting images. You can also add a volume bar and play/pause/stop buttons for sound control. The buttons can be customized as well in terms of position, size, colors.

Slideshows can be designed to be viewed as standard slideshows, as albums with navigation buttons or with thumbnails. You can also add links and formatted text to each slide. I like that you can pickup a template for your slideshow. That template can be customized and you can later save your templates. The users, who want to change how the slideshow works, can do use the options in the 'Effects' area very easily.

The image formats supported are bmp, jpg/jpeg, png, and gif. I didn't get the impression that something was missing, because I found everything I wanted from this kind of application. The slides are very easy to add and you can even add a hyperlink with every slide. You can also set where the frame should target.

Pluses: Very intuitive interface and easy-to-use, low resources, high stability, and the application saves the last settings that you have used, so you won't lose any of your work in case you accidentally shut it down.

Drawbacks / flaws:

In conclusion: This is a nice and handy tool: you can use it for home presentations as well as for office presentations.

version reviewed: 3.2