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Quark Does Flash!

By Pariah S. Burke On 26th October 2006 @ 10:55 In Features, News, Plugins/Xtensions, QuarkXPress | 8 Comments

A few weeks ago [1] we told you Quark was set to announce a brand new product. We also predicted what that new product might be—a Flash editor utilizing the familiar QuarkXPress environment.

Today Quark released Quark Interactive Designer (QID), an add-on module for QuarkXPress 7. With QID, designers may design media-rich Adobe Flash documents, including animation, sound, and interactivity, all while working in the same familiar QuarkXPress 7 environment, with the same tools and palettes. Similar to creating Web and print layouts in current XPress project documents, QID adds a Flash layout. Documents may be output to print, Web, and SWF formats all at once.

Originally created by FutureSplash, Corp., the Flash (formerly Splash) Web-based vector art and animation format has thrived since its initial debut in 1996. Snatched up by Macromedia to replace its designer unfriendly and commercially shaky Director multimedia system, Flash underwent constant evolution and change in the last ten years. Now, Flash SWF files are not just for Website decoration. Nearly every class of consumer display device now handles—or is based upon—Flash. From the Web, Flash jumped to PDAs, media center PCs, Point of Sale Systems, kiosks, digital signage, and cellular phones. In the latter especially Flash’s small file size and crisp vector-based artwork and text combine with animation to deliver advertising and user interfaces.

During all this evolution, Macromedia added flavored JavaScript (known at various times as ActionScript and FlashScript), retained a frame-based instead of time-based animation tracking system, limited Flash’s support for complimentary applications from competing companies (most notably Adobe’s Illustrator), and generally repeated the same mistakes with Flash they had made with Director. Flash became so feature rich and powerful, with a user interface built to be friendly to programmers rather than creatives, that graphic designers found it increasingly difficult to learn and work with Flash despite its growing importance even for traditionally print based studios.

Quark Interactive Designer is not being billed as a replacement for the Flash application, which was bought by Adobe in 2005 as part of a wholesale acquisition of Macromedia. It won’t build SWF forms or fully interactive, database-driven kiosks. Wisely, Quark is leaving those jobs to Flash and to programmers. Instead, QID adds to XPress only the tools typically required by creative and production designers in emerging cross-media workflows.

Features of Quark Interactive Designer

According to the documentation, QID offers the following features:

  • Design for Flash output intuitively
    Export projects in SWF (Flash) file format. You can design for Flash output intuitively and precisely without writing a single line of code or being tied to timelines.
  • Design simultaneously for multiple channels
    Create print, Web, and interactive layouts within the same project. The same designer in the same project can create the flyer, the Web site, and the Flash ad.
  • Interact with layouts easily
    Bring layouts to life without having to master timelines, ActionScript functions, or other complex features.
  • Work within QuarkXPress 7
    Use the familiar design and layout tools in QuarkXPress 7 for print, including transparency, Composition Zones, and in-the-layout image editing.
  • Choose a predefined action
    Assign predefined actions to objects. You can choose from a list of over 100 predefined actions, such as page transitions, button clicks, and features for playing media files and building menus. You are not required to program for every action.
  • Dedicate features for buttons, animations, and embedded movies
    Place buttons, animations, and embedded movies inside a QuarkXPress project. You can make sure your interactive elements within the final creation match the original concept.
  • Collaborate on projects
    Enable collaboration on projects by employing the Composition Zones feature in QuarkXPress 7. Quark Interactive Designer is the only Flash-creation application with built-in collaboration features.
  • Construct interactive buttons
    Create buttons with built-in design behaviors. For example, the built-in features define how a button displays when you click it down. With Quark Interactive Designer, it’s easy to create self-contained buttons you can share. These buttons work similarly to library items, but they stay editable.
  • Integrate HTML with SWF
    Design and integrate Flash and HTML content in an Interactive layout using the Composition Zones technology inside a Web page (HTML). You can use the synchronized content without first exporting it as a SWF file and then re-importing. One or more Quark Interactive Designer users can design the HTML page and its embedded SWF file in the same application using the Quark Composition Zones technology. At export, the complete page is ready to post with a single click.
  • Support scripting and expressions
    Provide simple, palette-based scripting and expressions support. You can rapidly build interactivity and more sophisticated expressions.
  • Support media files
    Embed or link out of QuickTime movies, audio files, and Flash video (FLV) files. Quark Interactive Designer can call files in response to user input or the outcome of rules built into the layout.
  • Animate objects with ease
    Enable designers to animate an object simply by drawing a path on screen or incorporating a predefined animation. Quark Interactive Designer includes Animation objects that allow you to build reusable animations with frame-by-frame control. You can also draw a path on the screen to animate an object.
  • Leverage true interactivity
    Build interactive buttons and menus enabled through keyboard commands, and user input. This true interactivity allows you to control interactive designs.
  • Ensure portability
    Export files as SWF Flash files or standalone Projector applications for Mac OS or Windows. Multiple export formats for cross-platform production ensure that the exported files are viewable by the intended audience.

Availability and System Requirements

As of today, Quark Interactive Designer is available for purchase at an introductory price of $99 USD. After April 1, 2007 Quark will sell the product for $199. Shrewdly, Quark is giving QID away free to qualified educational institutions, teachers, and students.

A time-limited evaluation version may be [2] downloaded from Quark’s Website. QID runs on both Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel-based) and Windows, and requires a valid installation of QuarkXPress 7.02, which is a free update to registered users of XPress 7.

8 Comments To "Quark Does Flash!"

#1 Comment By M Jenius On 8th November 2006 @ 09:46

Um…. this is the new product Quark has been hyping up, and here it is. I’m surprised at the lack of feedback. What does the Quark users have to say? I want to know what others think. As far I’m concerned I already use Flash, and I don’t see the point in using another software to create watered-down contents. But I’d like to know possible user’s views.

#2 Comment By Peter On 8th November 2006 @ 14:33

Have a look here:
quark.com/about/pres...?idx=848&alap=no
and here:
macworld.co.uk/mac/n...;pagtype=allchandate

#3 Comment By Samuel John Klein On 9th November 2006 @ 04:14

Well, marketings one thing though. True user feedback is another.

I haven’t had the opportunity to try QID yet, but as a long time paid user of both XPress and the Adobe CS, I’ve got to say that Quark has what may be a valid survival strategy here.

One of the biggest drawbacks to Quark as it is is that if you want to design for the web and produce and edit drawings and graphics, you have to use another application. I always thought that Adobe was genius in making thier flagships look and feel the same and tying them together with Bridge, making them a unified environment.

I think if Quark wants to remain competitive it must try to make it, in some way, a development environment that allows its users to do what they want to do without feeling as though they are leaving the comfort of Quark. With the QuarkVista in V6.5 and PSD Import, they’re giving us thier take on the design environment.

Will QID play with users? We’ll know as soon as we can figure out how many people would rather use a Quark application to do Flash. It just might work, in as much as Quark seems to be taking a “giving you just want you’re wanting to have without going the whole hog” approach that they did with PSD Import.

My personal opinion though is that we’ll have to wait and see if this attempt to “steal Flash from under Adobe’s nose” is successful.

#4 Comment By M Jenius On 9th November 2006 @ 09:45

Thanks for the reply guys. I guess we’ll have to see what people have to say after they try it out. Call me the skeptic but I seriously doubt Flash users will convert. Many of the web only designers I know doens’t even like InDesign. I can’t imagine them creating flash through Quark.

I can see it becoming popular with in-house deparments that are already using Quark. Since the additional cost is low compared to purchasing Flash. Sounds to me that it’s geared more torwards presentation-like flash rather than full-on animation. There are already many third party software that enables you to create Flash without learning Flash, and they are cheap too.

Still, I give Quark two thumbs up. They are a different company now. No longer resistant to advancement and the users.

#5 Comment By Martin On 9th November 2006 @ 13:37

Jenius,

when reading the press release and the reviews, then I think Quark doesn’t want Flash users to switch. It wants to attract the people who gave up on Flash, as they find it too difficult or need design features.

MacWorld gave Quark-ID 4 out of 5 stars and MacUser also 4 out of 5 mice. Here in Germany PAGE loved it too.

Maybe worth trying, I just haven’t gotten the nerve yet to download 400 MB.

Greetings
Martin

#6 Comment By Samuel John Klein On 9th November 2006 @ 15:01

I’d hesitate to say that Quark has got a chance to say it’ll be king of the hill again but I think it sure has saved its own bacon, at least in the near term.

I’ll go out on a limb here and say that I think Quark’s coming around to the Suite way of thinking. Like I said earlier: it’s starting to give us its take on what I call the “Designer Envrionment”, giving the Quark user all the tools they will need to design and produce from within XPress without having to fire up some other company’s product. I understand that the QID interface has a familiar experience with QXP.

I’d further go out on a limb here and say that Quark is taking more than one page out of the Adobe book in that regard; the new palette arrangement reminds me of the way InDesign treats its palettes, and now you can get all your QXP functionality through palettes if you want–just like InDesign.

I don’t see that as a lack of originality on Quark’s part; their implementation is hardly a carbon-copy of the Adobe environment. But it does seem to be a riff off it. I think this is just Quark being smart.

#7 Comment By Shellie Hal On 19th March 2007 @ 11:52

Just wanted to correct a statement about Quark Interactive Designer. Quark Interactive Designer is available as a free-download - it is not time or feature limited as stated on this site. It is fully functional, no time limit. However, this version of Quark Interactive Designer has a “watermark” that appears in the SWF file that states “Created with Quark Interactive Designer”.

#8 Comment By Shellie Hall On 19th March 2007 @ 11:53

Sorry - fat fingers this morning - wrong URL link and spelling of my name.

Thanks

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URL to article: http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2006/quark-does-flash/

URLs in this post:
[1] we told you Quark was set to announce a brand new product: http://quarkvsindesign.com/articles/a1/features/2006/quark-to-launch-new-mystery
-product/
[2] downloaded from Quark’s Website: http://www.quark.com/products/interactivedesigner/trial.html

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