The Autoboard 5 - the very finest in drag & drop soundboard creation

[jackulator]

here is an introductory video to the Autoboard V:

http://www.jackulator.com/smf/index.php?action=downloads;sa=downfile;id=226

anyone interested in testing it out?

[Iceman]

nevermind.....

[jackulator]

any requirements ? 
yesterday u said that anybody who doesnt know anything about flash could learn it really fast and i dont know shit 
well anyways if its okay then just lemme know

it would be cool to have at least 3 other testers, some people who u trust

btw is there a limit there? like when u make a soundboard with macromedia flash 8, theres a limit how many audio files u can put (50-150?)

and now im getting too excited............ guuuuuuuuuuuuzfrabaaaaa

 

no requirements that I know of - never tested it on mac though... there IS a limit to how many audio files you can have - if you made all of the popup loaders as small as the tool allows you to resize them, and completely filled every square inch of the screen with popups that'd give you about 500 popups, assuming they were just a dozen characters apiece - if you did the same thing within each popup - and made the child buttons inside as small as possible and filled the stage, you'd have 500

so, 500*500 is the limit of how many audio files you can have on the board, so 250,000 audio files

[Iceman]

whatever

[RussW]

I will test it out I should have near 1k sounds by tuesday

[WhiteDragon103]

Epic work Jack

[jackulator]

I have to fix it now - I decided that popup loaders shouldn't turn blue until not only are there mp3s associated with them, but there is ALSO a popup page made - until then they are really light green once they are created, and dark green if there are mp3s associated with them, and then blue finally when you make the popup page for them - that way you can tell at a glance not only which popups you've made need mp3s added, but also which ones you have added mp3s to but haven't made the popup page for....

I almost had it working but then band practice started so I had to stop - and now it's too late and I'm exhausted (12-hour session again) - so I'll do it tomorrow - roy wants to do calls tomorrow too, so hopefully I can get it fixed quickly, otherwise I'll have to wait until after we do calls grr. I hate leaving something undone

but after I finish it russ I'll upload it for you to test out - I think you'll like it better than the hybrid III setup - but remember, this thing will load into the hybrid 3 as a replacement for the jackboard core - so you can still have all the stuff around the edges - the random shit, backgrounds, sound fx, and the top section for making sentences and crap

I'm also making a smaller one for designing business pages that is better than the current system - that goes on the hybrid 3 too

[CallMeBronco]

Epic work Jack

Indeed 

This is awsome! Even though I also enjoy making soundboards the tedious way (because i'm weird) this will get the job done in no time. thanks very much.

I've decided to start teaching myself action script. With the autoboard5 i'll have a mega board done in no time. (I downloaded the Hybrid 3 template (and its really great also btw) but I think I'm going to try and make a "BIG BIG BIG jumbo" sized board by myself. I just love using Flash. Is that crazy? 

[jackulator]

not really crazy - just maybe you like punishment

Flash is very useful of course, but it's not without it's headaches 

it's kind of ironic that the two tools I made specifically so people would not have to learn Flash to make soundboards has inspired you to learn Flash to make soundboards hehe 

[CallMeBronco]

I have a question:
can you edit the board your making with flash? I mean in a swf format? Since the autoboard is a exe file i wasn't sure if thats possible. Plus; will we be uploading the boards as an exe file?

[jackulator]

I have a question:
can you edit the board your making with flash? I mean in a swf format? Since the autoboard is a exe file i wasn't sure if thats possible. Plus; will we be uploading the boards as an exe file?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'can you edit the board you're making with flash'

you just drag the edit console out onto the screen and - just follow the directions in the first post in this topic - maybe watch the video too - also in the first post in this topic

but as far as uploading it, you can either zip it up for people to download, or you can use the AUTOBOARD5.swf (that I forgot to include in the zip...  ) and as long as you include all of the files that come with it, you can post the board on the internet like so:

http://www.jackulator.com/flash/AUTOBOARDV/JesseVentura/JesseVentura.swf


for some reason it won't embed in the forum properly though - I'll have to look into that - and of course I'll update the zip file to include the SWF - gonna hit the sack right now though - been up wayy too long trying to put the on-board editing ability of the A5 on the H3

[CallMeBronco]

thats fine, i tend to get too anal about something when i get excited about it. I'm just going to start making my board with this and then probably use the Big Hybrid template to put it all together. I'll figure it out. I really appriciate the templates and stuff.
I doubt i'll be making a big board on my own without the autoboards right now; I'm still practicing how to drag objects in flash.

I'll upload a small version of my board first so everyone can see it and if some people don't want to use a REALLY big. (I could see it being intimidating to some people. I still can't beleive- over 1,000 files!)

[jackulator]

remember to save backups of the 'boardConfig2.txt' file after you do anything major - just incase there is a glitch or something - this thing is still in beta and I wouldn't want you to lose a bunch of work because the board config file got overwritten or something

[Iceman]

spam post
100 posts yeah !

sorry, i just had to 

[jackulator]

congrats Iceman 

[cheeseman007]

When it comes to naming the MP3 sounds can there be spaces and special symbols in the names?

[jackulator]

I think most of them yeah - maybe try a few first just to make sure and let me know if you have any problems

[horrified]

Hiya,

Um this might be a dumb question but i was having a look at the autoboard tutorial vid and all it shows is many pages of symbols and stuff, what program am i missing?
Im like a 3 yr old lost at the mall help!

[jackulator]

not sure what you mean by 'many pages of symbols'

you mean the video doesn't look like a screen capture of me using the autoboard 5 to make a soundboard? if that's the case you probably don't have the right video codec to watch the vid - I'd suggest using VLC player - I can play just about any file with that

[horrified]

ill give it a shot thanks mate

[CallMeBronco]

something even more lovely about the autoboard 5 is that it integrates seamlessly with the hybrid 3 template - so you basically build your own core however you want, but when you launch the NEW hybrid 3 (no core), it loads your custom core into the center, and you've still got all the randomizing boxes and shit around the outsides of the core!!

I read the directions for both programs and couldn't find any instructions on this; How exactly do you do this?
(If this isn't talking about the template i have (H3Alpha... i guess not (just realized this now but i'll try anyway.) than forget it, or if it's different with the new template you said u were making soon than i'll just wait instead.) Sorry i know i'm slow at this. "Gee i'm doing the best I can."

[jackulator]

yeah this is for the autoboard 5 - the thing I used to whip up the christian bale fuckfest board - much easier to use - there's a readme file that comes with the zip - in the download center

[showtime2kx]

iThis is awesome. I used it last night after watching the tutorial movie, and it's really easy. A long time ago, I made an Anger Management Jack Nicholson board, but it took a long time and I actually lost it eventually because I didn't have a place to upload it. This auto board makes it a lot easier though now.

[jackulator]

yeah - I was wondering if this thing would ever catch on - some people have recognized its potential but not as many as I thought would have by now  - I"ve made about 8 boards with it already - tiny little boards with less than 50 audio files, but it only takes 5 or 10 minutes with this tool

[CallMeBronco]

yeah shame, it's the best soundboard program i know of. (well the only the soundboard program i know of! (besides others of your's)
Maybe you should make a video and put it on youtube!... of course u probably already did that, i haven't been to youtube reacently.

Im gonna make a small Brad Pitt one with it soon and after that maybe a John Belushi. btw, I'll update my Dennis Hopper board when i upload my Hybrid template.

[jackulator]

actually thanks for reminding me - I made a video for one of the older autoboards but not for this one - the older ones were considerably more complicated, so I should make a new vid so people can see how easy it is to whip up a board

[Sir? what do ya think?]

yeah, i've made a rather cluttered soundboard of a voice actor i like (version1) and the only problem i have with the autoboard is that there is no way to like extract the whole thing to a single .swf file like can do with flash made soundboards.

this would be damn near perfect if it had that feature

also, it would be great if you could change text colour and also popup colour, but i can't.

[jackulator]

Do you mean you'd like to be able to change the color of the popup loaders and the regular buttons on the stage?

You can still change the color of the buttons inside popup windows right?

If yes to both, yeah that'd be a good feature, except I've found that having all the popup loaders be one color was the way to go. That way you don't confuse them with regular buttons. So following that idea, it makes sense that all non-popup loader buttons be the same color as well, so that the ones that ARE popup loaders aren't lost in the colors. But writing this I realized, why not just have the popup loader buttons be underlined instead of a specific color. That way you could make any button on the main stage any color you wanted, just like the ones inside popup windows. I bet I could have the next version do it that way.

As far as compiling everything into a single SWF file, that's where we run into problems. The AUTOBOARD 5 isn't really a program like Macromedia Flash is a program. It's just a construct made in Flash that simulates some of the functionality you have in Flash -- specifically making movie clips and buttons. It works as a soundboard making program because anybody's MP3s will work with the same AUTOBOARD 5 file. The AUTOBOARD5.EXE file is published as an EXE file because Flash security measures prevent regular SWF files from launching programs like the ones inside the fscommand folder that the AUTOBOARD5 uses to save and load button positions and popup configurations. So it's a little misleading because the fact that it's an EXE file makes it seem like a regular application, but it's not really.

Long story short, unless I am wrong the only way to compile SWF files is from within the Flash IDE, or maybe with Swish or some of the other Flash knock-offs.

But, if all you want to do is use your board over the Internet, you can use AUTOBOARD5.SWF (I can make this available as part of future autoboard packages) instead of EXE - that takes away the user's ability to edit the soundboard, but they can still play it. You just have to upload the whole folder for the board to a server somewhere and point people's browsers to the SWF file. But there is a downside to that:

Because a user's browser will only load the mp3s in the MP3FILES folder once they've been clicked, depending on the speed of a user's connection there is a pause each time a new button is clicked while their browser loads the MP3 file into their cache. Once they click a button though it will play instantly from then on because it now resides in a folder on their harddrive and does not need to be re-downloaded. This is the case with the jackbox too if you've noticed. I can make a preloader that will load all of the sounds on the soundboard so that they don't have to click each one to get it to play instantly. Just remember though that like soundboards published with Flash that means it will take time to load the entire board.

The reason this functionality isn't already built in is because the AUTOBOARD5 is designed to be as small or as big as you want it. Once you start getting over 500-1000 MP3 files and corresponding buttons on the stage, Flash starts to bog down and it takes a lot longer to publish SWF files. Eventually when you get into the thousands of files and buttons it actually can take 30 seconds just to register changes like if you moved a button here to there. I ran into this problem building the Jackulator 9000, so I found that having everything load on demand from an external location is much more preferable, but the unfortunate side effect is that you have to provide ZIP file packages for people to download if they want the board.

But like I said, I can make a preloader that will load in all the MP3 files on your board so that you can upload the whole folder to a server and point people to the SWF file. That way the soundboard would appear to be a regular Flash soundboard in that it would take some time to load but the sounds would play instantly. The only problem with that is that you can't upload your boards to other people's websites as one file. You'd have to provide a ZIP with instructions as to how to which file to point browsers to.

[Sir? what do ya think?]

"except I've found that having all the popup loaders be one color was the way to go"

problem is blue text on blue background, pain in the ass to see.

Also i only really thought that having it all compiled as an SWF file would be useful for making miniboards, however, for large soundboards the current way the autoboard works is perfectly ok for me.

The biggest problem i have run into is not being able to change the colour of text, there really only needs to be one option in my opinion

* set button and loader text colour

You wouldn't need to set the text colours independently, just that changing black to another colour and blue to another, depending on the background template you used, i only realised that the blue text for the popups was bad for the jack9 template i was using after i had got all the files out and until i get more lines to add to the soundboard, i didn't want to start over.

Sorry if all that sounds confusing, i will be making a v.2 of my current board soon, first i'll probably test and upload calls for my current one i think, then get back to finding more audio (which i have a ton of).

[jackulator]

yeah I can do that for ya - make all the popups and regular buttons a color you choose

[cgamer2021]

To get the soundboard up here, what exactly in the Autoboard folder do I have to upload and where? 

Can someone give me a little step by step tutorial of what I have to do now?

[jackulator]

sorry man - I should have included those instructions in the README.txt file in the goodies folder

you just have to put everything in a zip file