Yes it's true! After more than one year of silence, Mandomartis is going to release Advanced Effect Maker 2 Beta which we aim for release in the second week of december. The final release is preliminarily scheduled for January 2006. It will be a brand new application with many new features and changes. We have been silent but we have certainly not been idle. A beta release will also be done for our online accounts.

As result of this, all Commercial Edition customers will receive download links for the new version including the new Advanced Effect Maker applets, no matter when you purchased the software. Hobby Edition customers will receive download links as well, but note though that only the same applets as before will be included (although many of them updated and with new features).

The big change is that the Advanced Effect Maker configuration application will now change name to Visual Applet Configurator (the "VAC"). This is done to conmemorate the old Visual Applet Configurator that was released back in 1996 by Demicron, and in which this application is based on.

Mandomartis has two plugins in work for this version of which we hope Anibal's Essential Applets will be available when the beta is released. The other plugin is All News 2 Flash, a RSS feed system with 20 effects developed by Aleksey Udovydchenko, which we think will be available when the VAC goes final in January.

Some features in this version:

The application is now plugin based and new plugins are in development.

Create, publish and sell your OWN applet packages using the new plugin maker. JavaScript and Java applets can be created easily and Flash applets requires Flash 5 with the Generator Extensions.

Full Java(TM) applet support in addition to JavaScript and Macromedia Flash effects

A new screenshot based applet menu interface with internal applet preview window

The software will be fully localizable now thanks to a new applet and vcs file translation system. The first language version to be released (hopefully for the beta release) will be the Swedish language version. Later on we plan on releasing a Spanish and maybe also an Italian version.

Over 20 new applets (in Commercial Edition) and 60 updates to existing applets. When regards to updates, this time we have aimed in improving the loadMovie compatibility of our applets (compatibility with Macromedia Flash projects), better hand cursor support and ability to disable URLs in slide shows or messengers.

Some other minor changes are that the tree field has been enhanced, you can now set the project folder, Mac version changes technology to Eclipse SWT to make it more similar to the Windows version, insert button has been added to the multiple file selection field, e.t.c.

If you are a Hobby Edition user you can upgrade to Commercial Edition for just the difference in price (40 USD, time limited offer until the beta release), in order to get the new applets when they are released. You can contact support by clicking here. Also contact us if you have questions or have any cool idea that we can implement. The online server accounts will also have access to the new applets but not the plugins (this feature will most likely be included later on).

No more talking, on to the screenshots!!

Here are some of the application itself (the VAC) (click on the thumbnails for a bigger picture):

You can still switch to the old view with the tree if you want, but the new view gives you a better overall look of the applets, thanks to the screenshots. In this screenshot the Effect Maker and the Essential Applets plugins are installed.	The Mac version looks almost the same as the Windows version except for the aqua look. This is thanks to the change of technology from Java (TM) Swing to Eclipse SWT.	Java support has been implemented into the software, here we have one of the applets from Anibal's Essential Applets package, MMBrickMenu, running in the internal applet viewer. Unfortunately, the Mac version won't support viewing of Java applet internally in the application, only Flash and JavaScript effects can be viewed there. Java applets will instead open up in a new browser to be viewed.
The tree field has been enhanced to support moving up and down menu items within a sub menu.	The VCS File editor of the plugin maker has support for all types of vcs commands and generator objects. Here we are showing the Flash applet creation dialog. Help and parameter output preview is always available at the bottom right window.	You never have to write a single line of VCS yourself using the powerful VCS Line editor, which is a dynamic dialog for editing single vcs lines. It greatly simplifies the work of inserting vcs lines and has help and preview functions. Using the variable browser you can look up variables in a Java applet's HTML parameters, in JavaScript code or in Flash ActionScript code. You can also browse a Flash file in order to find insertion points for texts, images, sounds and other swf files. Using the text or text field manipulation functions, you can change the font or color of a text field in an existing SWF file by just point and click.
	As you can see, you can even preview JavaScript effects in the internal viewer. If you notice above to the left you notice that the application also support animated screenshots and package icons.

Here are some of the upcoming new applets in the Commercial Edition or the Online Server Accounts (click on the thumbnails for a bigger picture):

ImageScroller2, our latest developer Johzen Barleta's first applet.	FadeBarMessage, a piece of art from Aleksey Udovydchenko	HexMenu, a strange menu hexagonical menu by Aleksey.
ClockLoader, a cool intro applet from Aleksey.	JigsawPuzzleGame, make a jigzaw out of your images, also from Aleksey.	LightMessage, an incredible Flash effect originally started by Igor Mazunin but finished and integrated into Effect Maker by Johzen Barleta.
WaterMeterMenu, Aleksey's experiments with Water.	ImageCircleMenu, a menu in which you have a bunch of rotating images with description text, also from Aleksey.	Space3DMenu, another strange menu from Aleksey. Simple effect but incredibly beautiful.