FlairBuilder 1.7.2 – Best Prototyping Tool
Published by: SoftDistrict, in Reviews
October23rd2009
I have discovered this application while I was searching for a software application which could help me sketch the structure of a website I had been planning for a while. I needed something which could help me make the sketch as close as possible to what I had in my mind. I wanted a flexible, user-friendly and professional software application. A friend, Marius Deak, who is using very often this type of applications in his business, Green Pixel, recommended me FlairBuilder.
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It was exactly what I needed: I found a tool which can capture my ideas and render them in high fidelity circumstances. If I had few pages with few elements it could have been easy to use any other solution, but because I have a complex website, with a lot of buttons, frames, interactive elements, FlairBuilder is the perfect application.

FlairBuilder allows you to logically define in detail the structure of the project pages by grouping them. The entire structure can be easily modified or just updated by dragging and dropping the pages from one folder to another. The folders can also be easily edited or renamed by double clicking them.
Sketches are trendy nowadays, and this software is the best, in my opinion, for doing them. Paper is still used, but a digital medium, with all its features and facilities, is infinite more comfortable for designers and entrepreneurs. Even this software has a simple look, the interactivity and the wide range of tools offered can satisfy even the most pretentious user.

When developing and planning a project, you might want to change it over time. Projects become more and more stable in time, but they also should be flexible and easy to modify (update). This software has a mechanism which allows you to switch from one theme to another or from one version to another easily. The most important aspect in this switching process is that the layout remains the same.
The application is built around widgets, and the widget range is pretty wide, so you can use a lot of elements which could be present in your project. All widgets are perfectly looking the same as the "natural" ones, even if they are some sort of simulations. This gives you the possibility to create a precise plan for your project. It's easy to sketch the design of a website, when you have all the elements with their natural size, in the shape and form you will use when the project will be live.

FlairBuilder includes the "master" concept, like ASP.NET pages or in PowerPoint templates, and this is great because you can use the basic layout without having to redesign it again in every page. Another interesting thing is that you can add notes, which are very useful if multiple people are editing a project, and these notes can be about anything (for example, about how something should behave). The interactivity is great in this software application, because you can add events for buttons and hyperlinks, but you can also place a Video player somewhere. The beautiful thing is that the Video player will render the previously setup Youtube video in preview mode.
One key aspect I would like to mention for this application is that all elements can easily be handled with the drag'n'drop interface. FlairBuilder is very easy to use because of this feature, and most of the people I have talked to about this option agreed: drag'n'drop is cool in software applications. Another good point of this software application is that the design area is large, realistic, and another important feature is that you can easily switch between the preview and the design modes. Editing the content is really practical, because if you want to edit an element, all you have to do is to double click it and its properties will be shown.

Even if until this version hasn't been implemented a simple "print" option, you can export your layouts and print them afterwards, and in the future the possibility to export to .HTML will be implemented too.
I really liked that the prototypes you can create with Flair Builder have the entire range of characteristics and capabilities the real applications have, from input user interaction to page dynamics and transitions. This application is worth trying and I recommend it!
<-300x250 Medium Rectangle - center->
It was exactly what I needed: I found a tool which can capture my ideas and render them in high fidelity circumstances. If I had few pages with few elements it could have been easy to use any other solution, but because I have a complex website, with a lot of buttons, frames, interactive elements, FlairBuilder is the perfect application.

FlairBuilder allows you to logically define in detail the structure of the project pages by grouping them. The entire structure can be easily modified or just updated by dragging and dropping the pages from one folder to another. The folders can also be easily edited or renamed by double clicking them.
Sketches are trendy nowadays, and this software is the best, in my opinion, for doing them. Paper is still used, but a digital medium, with all its features and facilities, is infinite more comfortable for designers and entrepreneurs. Even this software has a simple look, the interactivity and the wide range of tools offered can satisfy even the most pretentious user.

When developing and planning a project, you might want to change it over time. Projects become more and more stable in time, but they also should be flexible and easy to modify (update). This software has a mechanism which allows you to switch from one theme to another or from one version to another easily. The most important aspect in this switching process is that the layout remains the same.
The application is built around widgets, and the widget range is pretty wide, so you can use a lot of elements which could be present in your project. All widgets are perfectly looking the same as the "natural" ones, even if they are some sort of simulations. This gives you the possibility to create a precise plan for your project. It's easy to sketch the design of a website, when you have all the elements with their natural size, in the shape and form you will use when the project will be live.

FlairBuilder includes the "master" concept, like ASP.NET pages or in PowerPoint templates, and this is great because you can use the basic layout without having to redesign it again in every page. Another interesting thing is that you can add notes, which are very useful if multiple people are editing a project, and these notes can be about anything (for example, about how something should behave). The interactivity is great in this software application, because you can add events for buttons and hyperlinks, but you can also place a Video player somewhere. The beautiful thing is that the Video player will render the previously setup Youtube video in preview mode.
One key aspect I would like to mention for this application is that all elements can easily be handled with the drag'n'drop interface. FlairBuilder is very easy to use because of this feature, and most of the people I have talked to about this option agreed: drag'n'drop is cool in software applications. Another good point of this software application is that the design area is large, realistic, and another important feature is that you can easily switch between the preview and the design modes. Editing the content is really practical, because if you want to edit an element, all you have to do is to double click it and its properties will be shown.

Even if until this version hasn't been implemented a simple "print" option, you can export your layouts and print them afterwards, and in the future the possibility to export to .HTML will be implemented too.
I really liked that the prototypes you can create with Flair Builder have the entire range of characteristics and capabilities the real applications have, from input user interaction to page dynamics and transitions. This application is worth trying and I recommend it!














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