HANSJOERG  I owe BannerZest Pro version 1.xx since June 2009. In September 2009 version 2 came out. Despite the good 3 months that I have owed this software, Aquafadas did not provide a free update but wants to charge $59 upgrade fee.

Well, I think I should be considered a very good customer of Aquafadas products since I owe ALL Pro products and those products that don't have a pro counterpart version.

In summary, Aquafadas service is absolutely disatisfactory and surely not honest in this sense. This is also proved by the fact that they ignore my complaint when I even suggested that I'd be willing to pay the upgrade price like the non-pro version.   
(Version 2.0.1)

PEDRO FARDILHA  Hummm... so strange.

BannerZest, as the name implies, is targeted to those who need to, among other things, quickly do some banners.

As a lazy person who only makes flash banners out of necessity, I was quite interested in this app, but the more I read about it the more it surprises me.

How is it that BannerZest cannot support industry standards clickTAG or clickTARGET vars?

Let's face it, most of us out there who have to do banners, will integrate it with some sort of ad server, yet we have this banner making app that simply doesn't work with ad servers... strange indeed.

Pedro Fardilha  
(Version 1.5)

BUMBLEB  $129 for the Pro version, and $49 for the Standard version.

They must be nuts. I need to create three banners out of necessity. Wanted to try this, but the price puts me off.

If I was a pro banner developer, the prices are fair enough, but then I'd use Flash CS4 anyway, to have more control.

I think they would sell more licenses for this app, had the price been more reasonable.

Who *loves* banners? Who *loves* to create them? They are, at least to me, just a necessary evil.  
(Version 1.5)

BOSSA-NOVA  I haven't found out how to

1. Add audio to a slideshow for publishing it to a website;

2. Make the slideshow automatically load a specific URL at the end of it.

Can someone help me?  
(Version 1.4)

CHICKWRITER  I design brochure-type websites and purchased BannerZest Pro to be able to add small flash bits to my sites. I'm pleased with it overall. Here's one of the sites I used BannerZest on and, combined with Google AdWords, this company has had been receiving some good sales leads after I added flash to the site: houstonsprayfoaminsulation.com. For one thing, not everyone loves flash-heavy sites, but I can add just a bit of zest without being overpowering with this application. For another, Adobe is just too expensive and the learning curve is too steep for me anyway. My only suggestion/complaint is that the I can't add html links into it.  
(Version 1.2.6)

CHAOTICPIXEL  Even though I have barely used this app, I can tell there is a lot of potential. Unfortunately, I am not going to be interested in it until I can get my hands on the SDK that I hear so much about. As a web developer, I need to be able to modify some of these themes, so they fit seamlessly into my websites. I cannot do that when all I can choose is bg color. I need to be able to select custom bg's.

Here is where I am slightly let down. I have tried to contact the developer two times now (one through the website, and another direct email to sdk [at] aquafadas [dot] com) trying to get info about the SDK, but with no luck. This is my third time trying to get his attention. So, if you are out there, please let me know how to contact you, so I can get this ball rolling. Thanks and hope to hear from you soon.

[Cerebrl]  
(Version 1.2.6)

JKT  This is an absolutely fantastic app for what it does, but like IAMDORIAN, the price is a little steep for the current feature set. However, as long as aquafadas keep updating it for free for some more point updates, until the number of themes is higher and the current ones are further enhanced*, then it will change from being a little too pricey to being incredibly good value for money. If the theme SDK is ready, then we should also start to see some third party themes in the future, thus improving its appeal further.

Iincidentally, it integrates incredibly well with RapidWeaver (especially in conjunction with the Yourhead Blocks plugin and the BlocksBox theme) and makes adding banners or slideshows to your sites exceptionally easy.

On the negative side of things, I am also in agreement with IAMDORIAN about the restricted size of the media pane of the info palette, which is not so good. Also, the fact that the app quits whenever you close your banner is another annoyance at the moment. Aquafadas have added these to their database of feature enhancements, so hopefully they will address these shortcomings at some point.

Summary: this has good potential to be a 5++ star app, but at the moment, the price and the few GUI annoyances limit it to being a 4 star app.

* The 1.2 update adds one of my requests to the cover flow theme - the ability to adjust the spacing of the media in the flow - so I am very happy with that.  
(Version 1.2)

IAMDORIAN  Pros: Continually being updated. Recently (v1.2) added new themes. We need a lot more (50 nice ones is a good goal), but these are generally solid and mostly tastefully done.

Cons: A few problems in the new themes, however. It seems that "Sticker" cannot handle large images, and at least one theme basically just looped when asked to handle 35 images+.

Cropping/resizing, although nicely implemented is still clumsy. We need numeric entry (at minimum) in order to fine tune positions and sizes.

The Inspector settings window is fine small (where one is simply choosing parameters), but some windows - like the media selection and cropping windows - do need a lot more flexibility. After all, why did I buy this 30" monitor, and 16 Gb of RAM, so I could futz around in a 200 px x 400 px window?? I could do that on a Mac SE!

Overall a bit too pricey (especially the pro version) I suppose, but I bought it anyway. Developers do need to eat, but not steak and lobster! Overall, a nice package. Keep up the quality Mac programming.  
(Version 1.2)

ARGENA  Making flash banner for this price is not so expensive if you considere that without BZ, you need to buy Flash, learn the way it works and that is really much more expensive.

According to me, BZ save me a lot of time. I can add to my website some very cool flash banner without spending hours to work!

So for a such a good product, the price is just fine.   
(Version 1.0.3)

RADDLE  I bought the Pro version, and am using it happily - it works well and fills a gap in the market for user-friendly animations of this type, though there's a few niggling interface issues to be worked out. I went Pro because I wanted to be able to attach URLs, and also in anticipation of a wider array of themes in this version, as implied on the website. Actually, there's just two more. The developers promise this will be augmented in further releases, but it does make this version feel outlandishly expensive.

On the upside, a weird problem I had - and which turned out to be an issue with the Flash security procedures - was resolved by quick and patient responses from the developers.

So if you want what this does, it does it, and the company itself is responsive. But yes, the Pro version is simply *way* too expensive - unless new themes and features start coming on thick and fast.  
(Version 1.0.3)