If you had read my previous article on downloading Toufee flash movies as SWF, I would have mentioned that it was one of the top requested features of Toufee Pro (i.e Toufee 2.0 version). So, what was the most requested feature (and it still is)? You guessed it right, its uploading Toufee flash movies to YouTube

Download Toufee Pro (Convertor)
Before you can upload your Toufee flash movies to YouTube, you have to convert them to “compatible” video formats (AVI, MOV, MPG) that YouTube supports. We’ll this takes a lot of time and a lot of steps and patience to get this done all yourself. So we developed a standalone tool called Toufee Pro (Convertor) that fetches the movies from your Toufee Pro account, converts it into a video file that you can then upload to YouTube.

How to get the Toufee Pro (Convertor)?
Its just a click away - simply select the Export to YouTube option from the Publish menu and you are ready to go. Once you select the option, you’ll be presented a dialog window (shown below) from where you can directly download the Toufee Pro Convertor. The installation package is around 3.5mb and should download in no time. Installation is a pretty simple process and should you be up and running in no time.

Converting movies using Toufee Pro (Convertor)
Once downloaded and installed, you have to login to Toufee Pro Convertor using your Toufee account login ID and password. On successful login, all your movies created using Toufee Pro will be listed. Select a movie and the conversion process will immediately begin (as show in the screenshot below).

You might also see the Downloading Media Files message (as in the below screenshot) showing up after the conversion process is complete.

Once the conversion process if fully complete (i.e. including the Downloading Media Files process), yo’ll be prompted to save your Toufee flash movie file. The flash movie now gets saved as a .AVI file on your PC, but that is not all, there are still a few steps left to upload your movie to YouTube. Once your movie is saved to your hard drive, you’ll now be presented the YouTube upload screen

Here is where you enter a suitable description for your flash movie. You also enter Tags or keywords that allow your movie to be searched by other YouTube users. Make sure your description is comprehensive enough and your keywords closely relate to the content of your flash movie. You also select the Category of your movie in the above section. After completing all the details, click on Upload to YouTube button and you’ll immediately notice a popup message. Click OK.

A browser window then opens bringing up the following YouTube page

Click Allow Access button. In the following screen, you’ll be asked to login to your YouTube account. Enter your login details and once you login to your YouTube account, Toufee Pro convertor starts uploading the converted movie to your account. You’ll be able to view the progress as shown below.

That’s it. Once the upload is complete, you’ll find the new flash movie in your YouTube account. Please note that this involves quite a few steps and you’ll notice that it will take a while to convert depending on the size of your flash movies. The speed also depends on your internet bandwidth as Toufee Pro Convertor downloads your movie, converts it into a video file, uploads the file back to YouTube, all of these involve lot of data to be transfered to and fro Toufee and YouTube servers. So its imperative that you are on a good internet connection to avoid delay or timeout issues.

I know it was a long wait for thousands of users who wanted to upload their Toufee flash movies to YouTube, but not any more now!

Ganesh

One of the top features of Toufee Pro is the ability to download the flash movies as SWF file to the PC so that users can keep a copy of their work offline. This was a feature request that we regularly happened to get ever since we started work on Toufee Pro. We’ve finally got this incorporated into Toufee Pro and it just takes a couple of clicks to get your flash movie downloaded to your PC as SWF file.

Where is this option?
You’ll find the option under the Publish menu - select Export to Flash (Standalone SWF) and you are ready to go!

A few pointers though…
There are a few things that I would like you to look into to finish it up nicely. Firstly, open the Toufee movie by selecting File -> Open Existing. Let’s quickly look at some options.

Set Movie Size
Make sure have set the Movie Size to the ideal dimension. You can set this option from the Movie menu (Movie -> Movie Size). If you are making a presentation, you would ideally want to have a bigger in which case you chose HiDef (640×480). If you are simply publishing it to the web, or hosting it on your website you have two choices - you can either go for the Set Custom Size (ideal for creating banner flash movie for your website) or choose the Video (320×240). There is also the Web Page (800×600) option but let me keep it on hold for a while as I will be covering that in my future post.

Set Movie to AutoStart
All Toufee flash movies are set to autostart by default, however, if you had selected the Paused at Start option, you might want to change it back to autostart since when you are saving your flash movie as SWF you’d ideally want them to start playing automatically. You can set your movie to Autostart by selecting the Automatically after load of the Movie Starts Playing option under Movie menu (Movie -> Movie Starts Playing -> Automatically after load).

Configure Player Skin/Controls
Again, since you are saving your flash movie to an SWF file, you’d rather prefer not to have player controls (Pause/Stop buttons, timing bar, volume control), which is fitting if you are publishing the SWF file to your website or would just like to keep it stored on your PC.
Select Hide Players / No Controls of the Player Skin / Controls option under the movie menu (Movie -> Player Skin/Controls -> Hide Players/No Controls).

I can guess that most of you are raring to go and download your flash movies as SWF. Hope you enjoy making flash movies with Toufee. Have fun!

Ganesh

Hi

To all those Mac users, I assume you probably had problems uploading files (i.e. images/audio/video) to Toufee from your Mac.

Worry not, as we’ve now come up with a new way to upload particularly for Mac users. First of all, clear your browser cache to load the latest version of Toufee (clearing cache loads Toufee afresh from our servers). Open the Toufee Movie Maker (opens in a popup window). Now when you click on the Upload button on the right panel, you’ll find a new button called Trouble Uploading? button (please refer to screenshot below). This is an HTML uploader that we created for users who weren’t able to upload previously in Mac.

Hope this helps. If the problem still persits, please raise a support ticket via the Support Desk.

Ganesh

With Toufee Pro, we’ve introduced a number of new features, and the Support system has also undergone a major overhaul. Starting with Toufee Pro, we have introduced the Support Desk system (similar to a conventional helpdesk) which will replace the old support email help@toufee.com. We kindly request all our users to post their issues/feedback using the new Support Desk system.

The new Support Desk system can be accessed from the Help menu (Help -> Support Desk) as shown in the screenshot. The Support Desk will act as the single-point of contact for all Support-related communications to and from Toufee.

The new Support Desk allows users to easily post and track the status of all their queries.

Benefits to users:

1.) Easier, quicker way to submit support queries
2.) Easy to manage and track your support queries
3.) Ability to assign priority to tickets - users can now assign priorities like Urgent, High, Medium and Low.
4.) Track status of unresolved tickets - users can make sure that their query is properly resolved before being closed.
5.) Altert emails sent to user’s email address when a Support person answers/updates a submitted query
6.) Easy access to all the queries submitted to Support
7.) An integrated Knowledge Base where users can search for similar issues and view possible solutions

The new Support Desk system ensures that all your queries will be answered and you no longer have to worry about unanswered emails or your emails being not handled by Support.

The idea behind the new Support Desk is that users get answers to their query, quicker and easier. Please remember that as we move further, queries addressed to help@toufee.com will no longer be supported, hence we request all users to please use the new Support Desk.

Thanks
Ganesh

Hi there!

We’ve launched Toufee after many months of code rewriting, testing and hundreds of new features and tweaks that has finally shaped into Toufee Pro. But believe us, we’ve put in so many features into this new Toufee version that it will get a while to just have a look around the options. We thought we would make it simple by presenting the major elements first and so you see the First Time User window that pops up like this one every time you login (ofcourse if you didn’t click on Do not show this dialog again )

It is recommended that you take the 1 Minute Tutorial as its a step-by-step easy to do self-guided tutorial that quickly introduces you to the basic features and the common functions of Toufee. It also helps you get familiar with the new UI - a major upgrade that you’ll notice if you had used the previous version. The 1 Minute Tutorial covers all essential components of Toufee and its the first thing that you should try before you go ahead and make any movie.

Ok, you’ve gone through the 1 Minute Tutorial, so ready to get your hands busy with your new movie? Wow, that sounds really good, but won’t it be even better if you could see someone actually create a Toufee movie first-hand? You better see the Demo Video where San actually creates a complete Toufee movie using many of the new Toufee Pro features.

Hang on, I guess what you’re thinking? Probably, you had closed the First Time User window the very first time? Ho ho, well no issues ;), you can still access them from the Help menu. To launch the 1 Minute Tutorial, simply click on Start Tutorial option under the Help menu (Help -> Start Tutorial) . If you wish to launch the video of San creating a demo Toufee movie, then select Video Tutorials option (Help -> Video Tutorials).

I guess you have good material to get started - have fun making movies with the new Toufee Pro. Should you have any queries, you can log all your issues to Toufee Support using the new Support Desk system (Help -> Support Desk).

Ganesh

Toufee Pro – A quick overview

Toufee Pro is the much awaited version of Toufee, the most popular online flash movie maker application. Toufee Pro is built on cutting-edge Adobe Flex technology and utilizes the best of Flex technology to deliver superior features and functionality not available in any of the previous Toufee versions. Toufee Pro brings with it loads of new features, hundreds of preset effects, advanced timing controls, downloadable movies (as SWF files), direct upload to YouTube, new collaboration features, a new UI and a host of feature-rich options that make Toufee Pro a powerful flash movie making application.

What is new in Toufee Pro?

Everything is new!

Everything is new about Toufee Pro, unlike the convention where an update version would just mean some additional functionality or patching bugs in the previous versions. Toufee Pro is built using Flex, Adobe’s next generation Flash development platform. The technology is cutting-edge and Toufee is one of the first few applications to leverage the huge potential of the Flex technology. The source code for Toufee Pro has been completely rewritten from scratch and the core Toufee engine is more robust and highly scalable for quicker deployment of new features.

A sleek UI

Not only the code, but the UI has undergone some serious change (in fact, 360 degree revamp). Toufee Pro now sports a sleek and a highly functional UI. The new UI allows working with Toufee a breeze as things can be done quickly using the new menu-based options without needing to change too many screens. The UI also sports a functional expand/collapse windows so you can easily get it out of view when you don’t need them. One of the biggest enhancements has been the context-sensitive windows - these are automatically updated with the details of the movie object or item that is currently selected. When used in conjunction with the menu-based options, the new UI greatly increases productivity and helps you get your movies done quickly and without any hassle.

Hundreds of new effects

Toufee Pro comes loaded with more preset effects that you will never run out of effects to complete your movie. Not only does the new effect give you a huge list to choose from, but you can also add chain-effects (more than one effect to an object). The new preset text effects can also be applied to images, videos and you will be amazed at the end-result!

Advanced Timing Control

Timing control has been greatly improved in Toufee Pro. Users can now precisely control the timing of the objects and their orders in their movies. The timing controls are so powerful now that one can make complex flash movie animations. Synchronization is made much simpler but still has highly customizable settings. The new advanced timing control features turns Toufee Pro into a powerful flash movie maker that even seasoned flash designer would find handy.

Instant Collaboration

Collaboration is one of the new advanced features introduced with the new version that truly makes Toufee Pro a powerful online flash movie application. Collaboration is similar to your Remote Desktop feature in Windows. With collaboration, a Toufee user can directly connect to another user’s workspace and view all his work in live action! Besides, users can chat during their collaboration sessions. Flash design teams can now easily collaborate real-time, and senior flash designers can quickly review and monitor flash design teams or individual designers.

Download flash movies

Users can now download their flash movies as SWF files to their PC. This allows users to keep a copy of their flash movies so that they can use it on their business websites, corporate presentations, to develop custom courseware and even upload to third-party websites.

Upload flash movies to YouTube

Toufee flash movies can now be uploaded to YouTube, so users don’t have the trouble to convert their movies to YouTube-supported formats. Toufee flash movies can be the perfect way to sell your business or yourself and YouTube offers the perfect launchpad to make it public. With Toufee Pro, publishing flash movies to YouTube is done easily with a few clicks, something that can otherwise take you hours to do post your flash movies manually and in the correct format.

And that is not all…

Toufee Pro comes will more features than you will ever need which will be covered in my further blog posts.