Background music is Copyright © 1996, 1997 by Michael D. Walthius. All Rights Reserved.
esktop
Support Factory is an interesting authoring application that
promises to combine a wide variety of elements to create a
comprehensive information source. It is designed to allow a user to
create detailed, comprehensive support for any windows based computer
application. It is produced by the Useabilty
Sciences Corporation. It installed easily from its CD-ROM and
consumed less than 25 MB of hard drive space on my Windows 95
machine. Desktop Support Factory also offers the option to install
Microsoft viewers for Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It includes Lotus
ScreenCam 97 which consumes less than 10 MB of space. ScreenCam is
one of if not the best screen recording application available for
Windows based computers. Lotus released an NT version of ScreenCam in
early 1998. ScreenCam allows a user to combine as many as 20 clips.
It supports sound and caption boxes. Desktop Support Factory supports
Windows 3.1, 95, NT 3.51 and NT 4.0. Desktop Support Factory has both
16 bit and 32 bit capabilities. Desktop Support Factory also installs
a screen grab application that allows the user to capture any or all
portions of the computer screen. Each screen capture may have its
palette reduced to 256 or 16 colors. A captured image may also be
cropped. The captured image may be saved as a .bmp file and/or printed.
esktop
Support Factory does not ship with a manual. That does not make me a
happy software reviewer. Call me old fashioned if you want but I have
been reading the printed word a whole longer than I have been looking
at the computer screen. To paraphrase a line from a movie I once
watched: "SHOW ME THE MANUAL"!! That said, how is one
expected to learn this application? When Desktop Support Factory is
first launched the adjacent dialog box is displayed. There are 4
ScreenCam movies that describe Desktop Support Factory's features and
operation. These movies are also available via Desktop Support
Factory's help drop down menu. They also show up in Desktop Support
Factory's help file. After getting into Desktop Support Factory the
user is greeted with the interface below. The icons across the top do
not have bubble help. Each icon's purpose is described in the window
just below the icons.
Another thing that Desktop Support Factory has to assist the user is
something called a quick card. 
Users
may create quick cards within Desktop Support Factory. Since Desktop
Support Factory doesn't have a tutorial or any sample files I decided
that to wring Desktop Support Factory out I would have to create some
information on a computer application. I determined I would select
some simple application and attempt to use several of Desktop Support
Factory's features. I settled on the Windows Paint application.
All pages copyright© Roger A. Moncrief, Indepth Reviews, 1996, 1997, 1998
Thanks to Judy Gefter, !LuM! and Charles Blaquiere for their advice and counsel, some I heeded and some I didn't.