New Toll Free Phone Numbers for USA, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Rob

We now have a new phone system setup for taking calls and answering your questions. This new system includes toll free numbers for USA, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. You can now call us toll free from any of these countries, and we will add more countries as demand in those countries grows. Our new contact numbers are as follows:

Toll Free (USA/Canada): 1-866-235-4807
Toll Free (United Kingdom): 0-808-189-1227
Toll Free (Australia): 1-800-768-136
Local Phone: 1-902-812-1024
Local Fax: 1-902-812-1016

 

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Press Release: DemoWolf announces “Custom Tutorial Center”

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Rob

(Halifax, NS, Canada) After several months of development and testing, DemoWolf is announcing the availability of a new tool, the “Custom Tutorial Center”.

The Custom Tutorial Center is designed to streamline the process of having custom tutorials produced for online businesses. Clients can use the Custom Tutorial Center to upload the content they want in their custom tutorials, which may include scripts, background images, scenes, special instructions and even sound clips. Clients can upload as much or as little information as they want, for example, they do not have to upload background images if their instructions instead provide us with URLs to record the screenshots ourselves.

At the heart of the Custom Tutorial Center is the “Scene Editor”. Tutorials are made up of different “scenes” and clients can define what is to be displayed in each scene using the scene editor. Add and organize notes, upload images, and provide additional instructions like where to show clicking, typing or what areas to highlight. All these can be done for every scene, and you can add or remove as many scenes as you want for each tutorial.

“We are extremely excited to finally roll out the new Custom Tutorial Center”, says Rob Moore, founder and president of DemoWolf. “By using this new tool, clients will be able to have DemoWolf produce custom tutorials for them at a fraction of the cost as in the past. Now you can have a custom tutorial in Flash or Video format produced for less than $100 instead of $400 or $500. These savings are huge, especially if you’re wanting several custom tutorials.”

The Custom Tutorial Center will basically allow clients to almost build their tutorials themselves, and when ready, submit them for final production by DemoWolf Tutorial Developers.

The ultimate goal of developing the Custom Tutorial Center was to provide DemoWolf clients with a less expensive option in developing custom tutorials. By using this new tool to pre-populate much of the content and deliver instructions to DemoWolf in this streamlined and consistent manner, the costs of production will be reduced significantly… savings which are being passed on to the client.

Existing clients can start using the Custom Tutorial Center immediately by logging into their existing DemoWolf account. New clients will have to sign up for a DemoWolf account first (which is free to do)… instructions for which are included on their website. Once logged in, clients can immediately start building out their tutorials using the scene editor, and organizing multiple tutorials in “Jobs”.

For more information, go to http://www.demowolf.com/custom-tutorial-center.php

DemoWolf is a Nova Scotia, Canada based internet company, having been in business since 2005. DemoWolf provides ready-made rebrandable tutorials for the web hosting industry, and is also a production house for custom tutorials for any industry. For more information, go to www.demowolf.com, or contact DemoWolf directly either by email, live chat or telephone.

 

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An Overview of the Scene Editor

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Sean

At the heart of our new Custom Tutorial Center is the Scene Editor. You don’t have to use the Scene Editor at all; if you simply want to provide us a basic outline of your tutorials, we can work with that. But, if you’d like to lower the final cost of your tutorials, you can use the Scene Editor to provide detailed instructions and even screenshots which we can copy and paste into your tutorials. (Remember: The more information you can provide us, the lower your costs will be.)

This article is just an overview of the main features of the Scene Editor, and not meant to be a thorough guide. Any unanswered questions? Let us know in a ticket!

Once you’ve created a new tutorial in the Custom Tutorial Center, you’ll see a blue button next to the tutorial leading to the Scene Editor.

The first time you access the Custom Tutorial Center, you will be presented with a Sample Job and Tutorial. We felt this would be the quickest way to show you what can be done in the Scene Editor; when you no longer need the sample job/tutorial, feel free to delete them.

Tutorials are split up into scenes, which typically show how to do one specific thing in your tutorial (such as entering a username). You have two options for creating new scenes in the Scene Editor:

1) Upload all the screenshots at once using the black Autocreate Scenes from Screenshots button. (Obviously this assumes that you will be providing us the screenshots, rather than having us capture them for you.) One new scene will be created for every screenshot you upload.

2) Create scenes one at a time using the large New Scene button in the timeline, and optionally upload the screenshots as attachments (as described below).

Once you have some scenes in your timeline, double-click on a scene’s thumbnail to edit that scene. For every scene, you can add a New Note or New Comment using the green buttons. Notes are instructions meant to actually show up in your scene, whereas Comments are your instructions to DemoWolf and will not be displayed in the scene. Once you’ve added multiple notes or comments to your scene, arrows will appear allowing you to rearrange them. You’ll also notice an X at the top right corner of the notes/comments, which is what you’d use to delete them.

Other noteworthy buttons that appear in the scene editor when editing a scene include:

  • Upload Attachments, which allows you to upload several files at once… files you’ll want us to use when creating your tutorial. Acceptable formats are listed in the attachment uploader, but in general include any common image format as well as MP3 audio files.
  • Set Background Image: For choosing a background image or screenshot for the scene from the attachments you’ve already uploaded.
  • Delete Scene: Self-explanatory, and permanent.

You can also give each scene a title using the field at the top of the scene editor, but this is not required and is really just for your benefit.

To move a scene around in the timeline, click its thumbnail and drag it where you want it to be. You can also move a scene to the trash by selecting the scene in the timeline then pressing the Delete key (or one of the delete buttons at the top of the screen). Also, you might want to check out the Helpful Tips link at the top of the Scene Editor for a few tips to make reordering and deleting scenes go faster.

When finished with a tutorial, you should click the blue Mark as Ready button at the top of the Scene Editor. This will help you keep track of which tutorials are ready for us and which you still need to enter into the system.

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Getting Started with the Custom Tutorial Center

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Sean

Available to all registered DemoWolf clients to try out in our Client Area, the Custom Tutorial Center was designed to streamline the process of having custom tutorials produced by DemoWolf.  To access the Custom Tutorial Center, you will first need to be registered in our Client Area and logged in. You can register via this link.

Once logged in, the Custom Tutorial Center is accessible here.

Custom Tutorials are split up into  jobs. Each job can have any number of tutorials. All the custom jobs and tutorials you have us produce from now on will be listed in the Custom Tutorial Center. Which features of the Custom Tutorial Center you’ll use depends upon whether you want to provide us a basic outline of your tutorials, or want to be more involved and provide detailed instructions and even screenshots which we can copy and paste into your tutorials. (This will also affect your costs: The more information you can provide us, the lower your costs will be.)

At any time, you can create a new Job or Tutorial by clicking the Create a new Custom Tutorial button. Fill out the form with the tutorial’s title and description, and choose whether to assign the tutorial to an existing job or create a new one. Each custom job also has a title and a description, which you can edit using its Edit button. You can also set which if your Logos to use for the custom job, if any.

The first time you access the Custom Tutorial Center, you will be presented with a Sample Job and Tutorial. We felt this would be the quickest way to show you what can be done in the Scene Editor; when you no longer need the sample job/tutorial, feel free to delete them. If you’d like instructions in addition to the sample, check out the article titled An Overview of the Scene Editor.

When you’ve finished providing all the information and files you want to give us, let us know your custom job is ready to be produced by clicking the Lock & Submit for Quote button. We will then provide you with a quote for the job, and a link to pay a small deposit should you decide to proceed with the job. We will also provide you with a delivery estimate.

We will update the status of the tutorials as we produce them, so you can always have a good idea where we are in the production process. Once we’ve completed the first draft of a tutorial, you will notice a Preview button appear next to the tutorial. This will enable you to see the tutorial draft so you can give us your feedback.

Once a custom job is all finished and you’ve paid for it, you will see a Download link appear next to its title.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. We hope the new Custom Tutorial Center and integrated Scene Editor will greatly increase our custom  production efficiencies, as well as provide you with the most cost-effective way to get custom tutorials on your website!

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Announcing the Custom Tutorial Center

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Sean

After many weeks of hard work and internal testing, today we are finally ready to announce our new Custom Tutorial Center.

Available to all registered DemoWolf clients to try out in our Client Area, here, the Custom Tutorial Center was designed to streamline the process of having custom tutorials made by DemoWolf. At the focal point of this idea is the Scene Editor, a new tool that can be used to provide us with all the notes and instructions we need for to create your custom tutorials.

We even have a way for you to upload the screenshots we’ll need on your own, which will cut our production times & costs, a savings we will gladly pass back to you :-)

The more information you can provide us, the lower your costs will be.

Want to learn more? Check out these accompanying articles:

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WHMCS Integration: Logged-In Users Only

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Sean

If you only want users that have logged into WHMCS to be able to view your tutorials, you’ll need to make some minor modifications to the dw-tutorials.php file (or whatever you now call it).

Change this code…
initialiseClientArea($pagetitle, $pageicon, $breadcrumbnav);

$templatefile = "dw-tutorials";
$smartyvalues["dw_content"] = $dw_content;
$smartyvalues["dw_head"] = $dw_head;

outputClientArea($templatefile);

…To this:
initialiseClientArea($pagetitle, $pageicon, $breadcrumbnav);

if (!empty($_SESSION['uid']) || !empty($_SESSION['adminid'])) {
  $templatefile = "dw-tutorials";
  $smartyvalues["dw_content"] = $dw_content;
  $smartyvalues["dw_head"] = $dw_head;
} else {
  $templatefile = "login";
  $smartyvalues["goto"] = "?goto=dw-tutorials.php";
}

outputClientArea($templatefile);

Make sure to replace ?goto=dw-tutorials.php with the correct name of dw-tutorials.php.

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PHP Integration GUIDE

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Sean

If you have any experience whatsoever with PHP, you’ll find it a breeze to integrate our Tutorial Viewer script with your website after you’ve read this article. The Tutorial Viewer script is free for all DemoWolf customers, whether they subscribe to their tutorials or purchase them outright, and PHP Integration is a feature of that script.

This article assumes you have already downloaded and extracted the latest Tutorial Viewer ZIP file, available in the My Subscriptions and My Purchases section of our Client Area. If you have not yet configured or downloaded your Tutorial Viewer and need help getting started, please see this article.

  1. Upload all the Tutorial Viewer files to a new folder on your server. For the purpose of these instructions, we’ll use /viewer/
  2. On your local computer, find the Tutorial Viewer files and navigate to the resources/integration/php/ folder.
    1. The file dw-tutorials.php is what you will upload to your main site directory. Use this file as a basis for creating one with your own site header and footer, and feel free to rename it to whatever you want.
      • There are two variables at the top of this file that you may need to edit: $uri_to_dw and $path_to_dw. If you have your Tutorial Viewer script uploaded anywhere other than a subdirectory of the your main site directory called viewer/, you WILL need to customize both of these variables.
      • There are three other variables in the file you should know about:
        • $dw_page_title contains the default title, or the title of whatever series or demo is being viewed. Put this in your site’s <title> element.
        • $dw_head contains the code to include all the necessary CSS and Javascript into your page. This variable should go at the very end of your <head> section.
        • $dw_content contains the list of tutorials. Put this in your <body>, inside your main page elements.
  3. After making any modifications to dw-tutorials.php, upload the file to the root directory of your site.

That’s it! Your Tutorial Viewer has now been integrated with your website!

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Guide to Tutorial Viewers for Purchasers

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Sean

1) What is the Tutorial Viewer?
The Tutorial Viewer is a tool we offer to all our clients, free of charge, that makes it easy for you to add a list of your tutorials to your website. There are two versions of this tool: the Dynamic version, which requires PHP 5.2 or higher to be installed on your server, and the Static version, which is just plain HTML and has no special requirements. We prefer the Dynamic version, and it is by far the most widely used version of the Tutorial Viewer. The Static version of the viewer does NOT support the MP4 and Text/Image formats; only SWF is supported at this time.

Don’t want to mess with setting up the Tutorial Viewer or integrating the script yourself? Our Integration Service has you covered!

2) Creating a Tutorial Viewer
Tutorial Viewers are created independently of your orders, so if you place multiple orders you can easily display ALL tutorials within your viewer, not just the ones from a single order. To create a Tutorial Viewer, click the Manage Tutorial Viewers link at the top of the My Purchases page, then click New Tutorial Viewer.

By default, the Tutorial Viewer will display ALL the tutorials you’ve purchased, but the “Which Tutorials to Display” option combined with the “Assign to Domain” feature next to every order lets you create viewers displaying different tutorials on different websites.

There are a number of Display Options that change the layout of the tutorials. You’ll find a preview of all the different Display Options here.

The Dynamic Run Mode is a setting that only applies to the Dynamic viewer. Which one you should use is dependent upon how you plan to integrate our Viewer with your website. If you use WHMCS, Kayako, or WordPress, you’ll find guides detailing how to integrate with these scripts here, as well as a guide on how to integrate using basic PHP.

You can also approach the integration from a different direction and instead customize the templates/tutorials.tpl file, adding your site’s header and footer HTML, in which case you’d leave the viewer set to Standalone mode.

The field labelled Static Version – Demo Path only applies to the Static version, and allows you to enter a URL or relative path to the folder containing your tutorial files. For example, if you plan to upload your Tutorial Viewer to viewer/ and your tutorial files to a subfolder named tutorials/, you would enter tutorials/ here.

The final option when creating a Tutorial Viewer allows you to choose which formats of tutorials to display in your viewer. This ONLY applies to the Dynamic viewer, since the Static viewer does NOT support any formats other than SWF at this time.

3) Installing Your Tutorial Viewer
Once you’ve created a Tutorial Viewer, when you return to the Manage Tutorial Viewers page you’ll see a link titled Download Tutorial Viewer. Download and extract this ZIP file, and upload all the files it contains to a NEW folder on your server (you could call it viewer/, or whatever you like).

3a) Extra Notes for the DYNAMIC Tutorial Viewer
When you first access the Tutorial Viewer in your browser, the script will attempt to auto-rename the includes/conf.new.php file to conf.php, but if this fails you will need to manually rename the file.

The Dynamic Tutorial Viewer will expect the tutorial files to be in a subfolder named tutorials/ by default, but you can change this by editing the $_CONF['demo_path'] and $_CONF['demo_uri'] values in the includes/conf.php file.

4) Uploading Your Tutorial Files
When your tutorials have finished generating and you can download them, extract those ZIP files to your computer. You will need to upload the series folders to your server to the following locations, depending on the format of the files:

  • Series folders for SWF files should go in tutorials/
  • Series folders for MP4 files should go in tutorials/mp4/
  • Series folders for Text/Image HTML files should go in tutorials/html/
  • Series folders for Text/Image image files should go in tutorials/images/

—

Any remaining questions? Please don’t hesitate to open a support ticket!

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Getting Started Guide for Purchasers

Posted on July 13, 2012 by Sean

Thank you for your recent purchase of DemoWolf tutorials! We’ve gone to great lengths to make getting your tutorials up and running on your website as quick and painless as possible. A quick read through the guide that follows should answer most of the questions you may have.

You’ll find a list of all your orders on the My Purchases page of our Client Area. This is where you’ll go to provide a logo to use for your tutorials and then generate and download them. Until we’ve approved your order and your logo, you won’t be able to generate your tutorials, but there are a few things you can do while you wait.

1) What does “generate” mean?
We frequently refer to the word generate. This refers to the process of branding the beginning and ending frames of the tutorial files with your logo. You’ll only be able to generate your tutorials one time, so you should use the Preview feature to make sure you like how your logo image looks in the tutorials. If you plan to have a new logo designed soon, you might want to wait to generate your tutorials, since there is a charge to re-generate your tutorials with a new logo.

2) Upload a Logo
Before you can generate your demos, you must upload a logo. Go to the Domains/Logos page of the Client Area, then click the Add a Logo button. Browse for a logo image on your hard drive. (For the Text/Image format, images on transparent backgrounds work best.) Submit the page, then return to My Purchases. If you’ve purchased your tutorials in either SWF or MP4 format, you can now use the Choose a Logo feature to assign the logo you just uploaded to your order.

2a) For Text/Image format: Create a Preset
If you’ve purchased your tutorials in the Text/Image format, the process is a bit different than for the other two formats. Your logo will appear as a watermark in all the images within the tutorials, so you must specify how you want your logo to look. At the top of the My Purchases page, click the Manage Image Settings Presets button, then the Add a Preset button. The first section of this page, entitled General Settings, allows you to give your preset a name and set a maximum width or height for the images themselves (not the logo watermark). The second section, Watermark Image Options, allows you to set the position, opacity, and scale of the watermark, and choose which logo image to use. The Opacity and Scale attributes of the watermark range from 0.0 (not visible at all) to 1.0 (the full opacity/size of the image).

Now that you’ve created a preset, you can return to My Purchases and assign it to your order using the Choose Image Settings Preset link.

3) Time to Generate!
When a new logo or Image Settings Preset has been assigned to your order, our staff members are notified by email. You won’t be able to generate your tutorials until we approve your logo / preset. Logos and presets need to be approved to ensure tutorials will not be unbranded or white labelled; all tutorials must be branded for the company who will display them.

You’ll receive an email when your logo / preset has been approved, and then it’s time to generate your tutorials! Each format you’ve purchased – SWF, MP4, and/or Text/Image format – is listed at the bottom of each order’s section. There are three possible actions listed next to each format: Preview, Download, and Generate. REMEMBER – Be sure to Preview each format before generating, since as mentioned above you won’t be able to Generate more than once. Also, tutorials in the MP4 format take a SUBSTANTIALLY longer time to generate than the other two formats (typically an hour per series), so you should be doubly certain that you’re ready to generate this format.

You won’t be able to Download without Generating first, so let’s do that now. Pick a format and click its Generate link. On the next screen, click Proceed. Your generation request will now be placed in a queue. As soon as any existing generation jobs complete, yours will begin. If generating in SWF or Text/Image formats, you will receive status updates, eventually ending with the words Rebrand Complete (that’s how you know the generation process has finished). If generating in MP4 format, keep an eye on My Purchases for your order’s status to change to Generated and the Download link to appear.

While you’re waiting, you might want to set up a Tutorial Viewer for your tutorials. Using the Tutorial Viewer is completely optional, however; feel free to come up with your own solution for displaying the tutorials!

—

Any remaining questions? Please don’t hesitate to open a support ticket!

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Subscription Promotion: 10%-30% off all plans

Posted on July 11, 2012 by Rob

Do you want tutorials on your website to help cut down on support tickets, but find them too expensive to purchase? Then you should consider the DemoWolf Subscription Service. With a subscription your costs are vastly reduced, and you get the flexibility to get updates and change which tutorials you display free of charge.

We have over 5,500 ready-made tutorials available to be branded with your logo, all of which are available as a monthly subscription instead of having to purchase them. Display these tutorials on your website for as long as you remain a subscriber, and feel free to cancel at any time.

For a limited time, all of our subscription plans are available at a discount… use the following coupon code and get 10% off the monthly subscription prices, for as long as you remain a subscriber!

Subscription Coupon Code: TENOFFSUBSCR

To order, go to http://www.demowolf.com/buy-subscribe.php and scroll to the bottom of the page. Then click the “Sign Up Now” button for the subscription plan you want (Note: the prices listed will be discounted by 10%). Then on the Shopping Cart page, choose your billing period (monthly or annually… annual subscribers get an extra 3 months free), and whether you want to add the “voice tutorials” to your plan, or just have the non-voice “silent” tutorials. When ready, click “Update Cart”. Enter the above Promotional code, then click “Validate” and complete the sign up process.

Advantages of Subscribing vs Purchasing

  • Ability to change which “tutorial series” you display on your website at any time, from your control panel
  • Ability to regenerate your tutorials with a new logo at any time, from your control panel
  • Access to all new and updated tutorials as soon as they’re released
  • Track how many views your tutorials are getting from your Client Area portal

 

“Switch-Over” Special

In addition, we are offering a “Switch-Over Special” to all existing DemoWolf customers who have purchased our tutorials in the past. If you want to switch to the subscription model to take advantage of the additional services available to subscribers, we will give you an additional discount as follows:

  • If you’ve spent less than $500 in the last 12 months, we’ll discount your subscription fees by an additional 10% (so 20% off total)
  • If you’ve spent between $500 and $1000 in the last 12 months, we’ll give you an additional 15% off (so 25% off total)
  • If you’ve spent over $1,000 in the last 12 months, we’ll give you an additional 20% off (so 30% off total)

If you’re an existing DemoWolf customer wanting to take advantage of the Switch-Over special, you’ll need to contact us so we can first verify your account, then give you a special copuon code. You can contact us by responding to this email, or contact us by Live Chat on our website.

Thanks for your time, and as always, let me know if you have any questions.

Regards,

Rob Moore

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