Step by Step
We tried out FlashBlaster to make a simple splash page. Before you get started open the ScreamDesign site in Microsoft Explorer. There seem to be some caching problems on the site with Netscape that, as of this writing, have not been squashed. Then you choose the general look and feel from four groups of templates: Free, Standard ($9.95), Deluxe ($19.95) and Premium ($29.95). Naturally we chose one of the free designs to get started, to get a feel for FlashBlaster and work out any kinks. We highly recommend that you do this also, since ScreamDesign doesn't include an undo button for you to use after you have downloaded and decompressed your FlashBlaster animation.

Work Around
We did stumble upon a work around for this "no undo" problem, but cannot guarantee it will work for you. To get back to the FlashBlaster you were working on before you accidentally spelled your company name wrong and downloaded the finished file: from the "Flash File Download" screen, just press and hold down the back button on your browser until you see the URLs of the previous pages you were on. Choose the link from the second page on the list. If you are lucky it should still have the interactive form used to build and change the final Flash .swf file.

More Steps
So by now you'll have chosen one of the three free templates you'll want to use as a test. Then you click on the "Modify" button. If all goes well a window will open that allows you to modify the template to include the words and link you want on your splash page.

In the Modify window you can change display text, text color, the URL that the live text link will point to, the background image (use theirs or upload your own JPEG which should be 400 x 400 pixles) and the sound. You get a choice of pre-fab sounds to use with any template, or you can attach your own sound. We chose the sound, "webzound", that was already associated with the template, "Gears", that we used to make our test splash page.