Casting an eye on Viewlet

Demonstrating your software to people is easy if they are in the same room as you. However, in the age of the 'Net you'll find a huge need for Web-mediated product demos.

One product demo system I came across recently, and which impressed me mightily, was Viewlets from Qarbon (www.qarbon.com/).

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Viewlets are implemented as Java applets that play movies in a Web browser. The clever part is how you build those movies.

The construction process involves running the Viewlet Builder and the target user interface. The Viewlet Builder is a Java application that runs on Solaris, Linux, and Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000, and sports a very nice user interface. The builder monitors what you do in the application and creates content from it. The content can be edited so the mouse movements captured can be modified, added with HTTP and e-mail links, and inserted with dialog bubbles.

Viewlets are handled as a streaming media format that allows playout to occur as soon as enough data is buffered on the client. This makes performance acceptable on low speed connections. The end result is pretty slick and seems, at least from my testing, to be very robust.

This product is so cool that I'll be reviewing it in detail in my Gearhead column in Network World (www.nwfusion.com/columnists/gearhead.html) in the next couple of weeks.

The Viewlet authoring system is available as either freeware (banners advertising Qarbon are the price you pay, but they are not really that intrusive), or as a professional version for $99. Volume discounts are also available.

Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, and columnist. He writes the weekly Backspin and Gearhead columns in Network World.

Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, and columnist. He writes the weekly Backspin and Gearhead columns in Network World. Gibbs is also co-conspirator of the Vitally Important Information Web site.

Gibbs can be contacted at webapps@gibbs.com. Press releases to pr@gibbs.com.