Sothink Quicker for Silverlight

Sothink Quicker for Silverlight provides a helpful collection of tools to help users build a Flash film or Web site. Although prior knowledge is helpful, anyone can learn to use Flash with this program.

Sothink's intimidating interface is a cluttered collection of boxes and tools spread around a central screen. The Help file's instructions proved to be indispensable, since we are far from experts at Flash imagery. While it's extremely difficult to build a smooth film without some Flash background, we were still able to move forward and learn a lot. We created layers and scenes with various colors, texts, and shapes and strung them together using the program's movie-making timeline tool. This allowed us to view, edit, and ultimately export our work to our destination. The most helpful aspect may be the way Sothink helps you learn on the job and better understand what elements make up even the simplest Flash program. It also offered a feature for importing .SWF films and converting them to Silverlight-friendly file types, but it seemed of little use. Although managing all the tools to create a graceful Flash program took more talent than we had, this program will appeal to novices as a learning tool.

Sothink Quicker for Silverlight has a 30-day trial period. It comes as a compressed file, and you need Microsoft's free Silverlight software to use it. While mastering it takes an artistic hand and a bit of practice, this program appeals to all skill levels, and we recommend it.