This has worked a treat, everything is running so much quicker.

Eltima Support,
can this program be configured to optimize automatically upon download from the internet?

To all:

If you experience problems with Flash Optimizer, please e-mail our support department: support@eltima.com

Kat #65, Be sure you are putting in the registration name, which is giveawayoftheday

I was just about ready to DL.I'm dissapointed in this vender (love GAOTD). I really do not see the purpose of giving away software if you can not use it for your small biz. I, like most people are small biz guy's and gal's that are looking for a few good free things, to help keep our overhead low. But here you come, people spend hours trying to figure out how to best use your software ,only to go back and tell of how great of an ap your stuff is.

Then you go stick the illegel sticker on you stuff. I'm glad I did not DL your stuff, and just because of the bad taset you left me I'll make sure to knock you stuff at every turn. You don't burn the little guy (or gal) in my book. Oh thanks for the waste of time.

I still really, really , really love this site

To NO:35,
Why HUNT for where a file or folder has been installed.
Just use search.
That IS what it is for.

Downloaded and installed just fine (Win xp sr2)- and it gives you the registration code in the 'read me' file. I compressed a test .swf file, and it went from 35k down to under 8k, a savings of about 22%. If you upload movies or do web work or have your own web sites with .swf files, this program will save you a ton of bandwidth as well as speeding up visitor viewing of your file. Plus, this program lets you preview the movies, before and after. First rate in my book. Get it before they come to their senses! Thanks, GAOTD!

I just downloaded the software & entered the registration code, but every time I start the program, it wants me to register, purchase or continue demo version. I restarted the puter just in case & it still asks for a code. I can enter it & then nothing shows it is accepted. I can enter it over & over & it acts as if nothing was ever entered. I will close out the program & re-open it & it still wants a registration code. Anyone know how to solve this issue without having to uninstall & re-install?

Downloaded and installed the program. Every time I try to run it I get the following:

Error: Access violation at 0x0043C82C (tried to read from 0x00000000), program terminated.

I am unable to use it.

Having downloaded the programme and used it I think it will take a while before I find the ultimate settings. However I have to agree with about the GUI. I cannot see the following very well
The “Select a flash movie…” and all the other titles for the tabs. Plus I cannot see all of the file locations in the white boxes underneath. At the end of the bar which illustrates how far the flash file has run for also does not show up too well.
The compression buttons do not show their respective titles very well. Under these buttons the slider information does not show up to their full extents.
I am using Windows XP, Philips LCD set to 1280x1024, if that helps.
Glad to see that the incorrect windows information from your own web site has been removed.

To: Eltima Support Thanks for a great program and actually taking the time to come here and help in answering our questions, thanks gaotd

#49 GT

Try increasing your screen resolution to at least 1024x768
(instead of 800x600)- 96dpi

I was quite excited about Flash Optimizer, but alas, the type of artwork I'm currently busy with loses too much quality in the process.

Vectorizing the images didn't help either - the designs are quite intricate. The "Basic" setting increases the file size and worsens the quality.

This will probably be good for animations made with primitive shapes only (&no bitmaps); will test again when I enter my "cartoon phase" - Thanks anyway.

`_~

Hey, where's CS Odessa been lately? I'm ready for another top-notch drawing program like ConceptDraw. That was a true GAOTD!!!!

Thanks GAOTD for the opportunity but this doesn't work for me. I've tried several of my flash files and most of them actually increase (!) in size unless I render them so small they look horrible. I use a lot of video and higher resolution graphics so that's probably the cause. This might work great for vids or games using lo-res graphics like gifs. As it stands I need to put more time toward flash creation rather than learning to fine tune an optimizer, nice idea though...

I am so glad this is a giveaway. $99.95 for an 8MB program is ridiculous, no matter how useful it is.

Oh God another one I cannot use, I'm still on win 98 I know its not your fault. I come here everyday hoping to see something I can use,although it does happen sometimes,its getting fewer and fewer it seems.Anyway can't wait to get my other computer,see you lucky guys who can take advantage of these freebies later when I can also enjoy. Have a great downloading day.
Suzanne the downloading freak ! :-)

To #44 - Judith / Making the Complicated Simple
Regarding your "one question" which is really two:

1. "What does personal use only mean?"
Well, it's not all that complicated. In fact, it's quite simple, really: "personal use only" means you can't use it for anything commercial or related to business.

To further simplify the "commercial" bit: if there's money involved, it's commercial.

2. "Are we allowed to use your program if we sell the end .swf we’ve optimized?"
The simple answer is "No." That is, no, not with the GOTD version being licensed for free today. Whether you would be allowed to do so with the paid version would depend on what that license says.

I have Flash MX 2004, and I can't afford CS3, so this is perfect for me! Thanks!

"Craig" complained that it saved only in Black & White, and Eltima
responded with "You probably didn’t register the software using the
registration name and activation key provided."

So I took great care to do exactly as Craig was told he had not done.
I registered precisely as told, yet when I loaded a .swf file I'd
created using the Wildform "WildFX" program -- no matter what
settings I chose, my final "compressed" file was not only in B & W,
but had somehow gone from being Animated to being a Still Image!

The program appeared so intuitive and easy to use that I admit I
did not read the Manual -- yet after several tests with different
settings, you'd think that at least once I'd end up with animation
and/or color images -- since they were that way at the start.

I will go back and read the Manual -- although I seriously doubt it
will have any useful info on my problem. If Eltima would like to
make a comment, I'm sure we all would appreciate hearing it.

My thanks to GOTD for all the other software I've found here, and
even for this one -- if I can get it to work.

this software works nicely, i used it to compress a flash file that i made with anim-fx and it worked very nicely, it flash file is smaller and it is as they say, no quality loss.

At 33% compression on a purely video swf, it reduced just over half, no detail change. Even 10%, down to 900k (which is more than at 33%), its really good.

Everything on 10%, it saved 3k off a 45k games swf. Took a 59k game to 24k.

Misleading(the numbers aren't anywhere near the file size change), but still brilliant.

Installed and registered the software. No minimize or close botton on the application so can't remove it from my screen (should these buttons be in place?). My OS is Win2kPro,

I can understand why this software would not appeal to all users, but personally, I think this is one of the highest quality programs GOTD has offered to date. Admittedly that is coming from a freelance developer, but all the same, quality is quality.

Thanking GOTD goes without saying, but an extra special thank you is due to Eltima. It is refreshing to see such top level software featured here, even if, as some people legitimately state, it is more the developer community who benefits.

I believe it an objective comment and not a complaint to state that not all the software GOTD offers is of equal quality, a point that honestly risks affecting credibility. Really, it is better to have fewer offerings but higher quality than to feature everything including the kitchen sink with little to no QC. Honestly, some programs are not really worth downloading, much less purchasing.

Eltima earns high marks in a mutually beneficial exchange. I have a high quality piece of software downloaded free of charge and for that very reason, I am now interested in Eltima. This software speaks of quality and motivates me to look into purchasing other Eltima products or versions for other OS as well as recommending Eltima to others (and it also keeps me coming back to GOTD). Personally speaking, the very fact that you do develop for more than MS speaks well in my opinion--anyone who has used Mac of Linux well understands my sentiments. My main computer, in fact, runs OpenSUSE 10.3 as its main distro.

Regarding #43: I decided to download it a second time, and this time the extraction went smoothly without needing a password.?.

To developers: GUI is bad!!
1) when 120 DPI is set half options (sliders) are unavailable/unaccessible/hidden. Captions are Bes/ Custo/ etc.
2) switched to 96 DPI. At least I can see all sliders but captions are still "few letters short" and texts in boxes are cut at the bottom.

I forgot when I was using 96 DPI last time. And I haven't seen any program nowadays, which is not taking in consideration adjusting graphics/fonts etc. so it can work at least in 2 basic default DPI settings.

Switching back to 120 DPI. Sure I ma not expecting an update with screen resolution "Optimization 2" :-).
This is sad, actually.

Nice, I think the only thing it is missing is a built in manager. Starting off the program by gathering Flash file info would have been a nice option.

Thank you Eltima Software for allowing GOTD to offer this free. I downloaded and registered the product EZ-ily!

Your program is very intuitive and no I didn't read the manual as I didn't need to.

I ran it through it paces and found I like the custom to be the best fit for me when optimizing.

I thought Viewlet Builder program optimized pretty well but I was pleased to see, I could reduce my .swf file even more without losing quality.

But I do have one question. What does personal use only mean?

Are we allowed to use your program if we sell the end .swf we've optimized?

Judith
Making the Complicated Simple
http://www.agoodread.com

I am being asked for a password to unzip this. I see nothing in the readme, or website about this. HELP!!?

To: Eltima Support

Thank you for the prompt reply. I used the "Preview" button numerous times to check the different levels of file compression -- hence my comment I couldn't tell any difference (even on the max settings) and my comment that because of this, I couldn't tell if the file was being compressed at all. I then used the "Compress" button to create a compressed .swf file to compare file sizes. I used the "Preview" button and "Compress" button numerous times on three different .swf files. This was AFTER reading through the Flash Optimizer User Manual provided. I was "doing it right" according to the manual -- just none of the three files saved to the folder.

I appreciate GAOTD and Eltima for providing the program, and you for your gracious appearance to answer questions and provide support, it just didn't work for me. Thanks again,

John

Thank you very much. I am in the field of teaching and training. I find this software extremely useful.

To John38111:

First of all I would like to recommend you to view through Flash Optimizer User Manual in order to find the answers to your questions.

The fact is that there are two buttons in Flash Optimizer: "Compress" and "Preview". When you click "Compress" button, the optimized file is saved to your hard drive. If you click "Preview" - it is not. You can also perform batch conversion: go to "Compress many files" tab. If after starting the conversion process you haven't received any error messages, then you will find the optimized file in destination folder.


To Fib:

Please, send this file to support@eltima.com and we'll test it.

I got it registered now, didn't notice that I had to use a particular name. guess that is what I get for reading the readme too fast. don't really have anything to test it with, just keeping it in my tool set just in case I find a use for it. Glad it was my oversight and not a bug.

To Max, #17:

We have performed tests with the SWF file you have given us a link to. The problem was caused by the fact that SWF file is created incorrectly originally. So, in order to optimize this SWF file successfully apply the following settings: choose "Basic" compression settings, enable ZLib compression manually, disable shapes optimization, enable images optimization (ratio 0, jpeg quality 70).

Hello,

Thank you for offering flash Optimizer as GiveAwayOfTheDay.
I installed the software and tried some optimization. The swf file I'm trying to optimize were all made with Camtasia Studio v4.
Flash Optimizer managed to optimize an swf file of 6.2 MB to about 6.1 MB (settings = "Basic"). When I try with settings "Good" or "Best", the CPU of my computer goes to 100% and stays there. The software seems stuck, and after 5 minutes I have to abort/stop. ? How much time would be needed, to optimize an swf file of about 6MB ? I don't know what goes wrong. Any suggestions? Fib (Using WinXP, P4 3Ghz, 1GB memory)

Thanks. I'll be using this a lot. And I'm gonna call my sisters right now and get them to dl it too! Will be great for sending family videos back and forth to one another.

The program installed fine and shows being registered. I had to hunt for the Program file folder to make a shortcut for a desktop icon. It's frustrating not having the option to install one during program installation -- especially when the program is nested in a different-named folder (Program Files/Eltima Software/Flash Optimizer 2).

Having done that, I was eager to revive some .swf files I created with Firestarter and see if I could optimize them for my personal website. The files loaded and played fine in Optimizer 2 and I could tell no difference between the original and optimized files -- to the point I could not tell if they were being optimized or not. The only way to tell was to save them -- and alas -- NOTHING saved at all. I rechecked the target destination folder (which was the same as the source folder)... verified a different file name (_opt.swf _test.swf, etc. added to the end of the original file name)... and nothing. After two hours, I'm thoroughly frustrated. I'll presume it's my fault for not figuring out the program, but I was smart enough to create my own website, create the .swf files, and put it all together both online and on my HD. I was also smart enough to go to the Flash Optimizer Manual and read the correct steps. Still, nothing. I'm sure it's a great program for professionals, but not for an amateur like me. (My system: an HP, 2.1G CPU, WinXP (SP2).)

John

Let me first say that I LOVE GOTD!

Secondly, I have to agree with #20. We, too, have small SWFs that feed off of much larger FLVs. Maybe it's something that I did wrong, but I took one of our SWFs that was like 60 KBs and used your program on it; it actually doubled the size of the SWF file. So like I said, I have to agree with Point #20, because it would be great if we could compress FLVs with this program.

Moreover, I do feel that Flash CS3 does compress pretty well. The vids on our site, www.spotfellas.com/portfolio seem to load rather quickly IMO, but you tell me. Do you experience lag when trying to watch them?

P.S. I'm NOT trying to knock the program. I just think that it doesn't help my unique situation. Obviously others are saying that it benefits them a lot, which is cool and what GOTD is all about.

To Nick:

We haven't performed tests with SWF files created by this application yet. Please, download free Flash Optimizer and try it yourself. If you'll experience any problems, please contact us.

Surprisingly, after a optimized a flash file, it grew in size. At worst case I thought that it would stay the same size.

Must say it is good to see the software support responding. It seems to have stopped all of the nonsense of posters saying I can get this or that for free. I am going to try this software as a result; I have more trust in this software.

I do have one comment though, Eltima responded to Dave Creek saying there was an error on this web site about what systems are needed to run this programme. I would like to bring it to your attention that your web site also says it will run with Windows 95, 98 etc. Is this where GAOTD got its information from?

To Craig:

You probably didn't register the software using the registration name and activation key provided.

just download and it installed fine, have not gave it a test drive yet.

It's of no use to me as this version saves in B&W

To UKJim and Messenger:

We do not have any products featuring FLV compression.

I use flash all the time, this is a helpful tool to add to your toolbox... The best features in this are the preview. You can do a lot of this in CS3 exporting environment, but this program makes it easier and faster. That said I save about 1/4 the size on a large file which improves loading for end users and clients. Not to mention disk space, bandwidth usage. One tip if you could add a feature to allow the insertion of meta information to help search engines find content in flash files (perhaps insert off stage text or something that they pickup) it would be a killer app. Note Google does search flash files for text information now... GOOD job keep up the work.

I use SwishMax2 for my Flash movies, this program already compresses (BMP) graphics into JPG when importing etc... But I'm sure gonna give it a try...

Wow, more Eltima software, this is great! I've gotten a lot of use out of the Flash Decompiler they offered back in July. Sadly, I don't actually make much in Flash but it is still a useful piece of software to have. And at a $100 price tag is one of the more expensive pieces of software GOTD has offered.

Thanks Eltima and GOTD!

I converted a small basic Flash photo slideshow that fades in and out - 1.5MB - using the default settings and it compressed it to be exactly 1.5MB - no change in quality or size. So I adjusted the setting several times and did get the file size smaller, but unfortunately no matter what I tried the quality of the images was terrible, and I mean terrible. I think I'm better off continuing to resize images for web in PhotoShop before creating the slideshows.

A question for Eltima Support ...

Would this software be able to compress a SWF file created by an application like CamStudio: http://camstudio.org ??

These SWFs contain mostly bitmaps (video) and ADPCM or PCM (audio)

Thanks!