Hello SnackTools friends,

We love sharing with you all the good stuff we find on the web.

Today we’re telling you about an extensive list of 100 useful tools for graphic designers, web developers and DIY people who want to learn something about design. The list has 100 resources in it and it covers all aspects of typology, graphic design, font design, colors and photos, all nicely organized in categories.

If you’re interested in improving your design skills and knowledge, this list is for you. It will help you get better in designing websites, ads and other types of images. You’ll probably gonna want to visit it again, so bookmark it.

Have a wonderful Friday!

Wix didn’t make the option unavailable, they just hid it a bit – but you can still embed SnackTools widgets (music players, slideshows, ebooks, polls, banners and more) and other types of widgets in your Wix website.

Here are all the steps:

1. Go to Apps – Free, and then scroll down the list till you see the custom iFrame/Embed option. Click on it.

2. Click Add to site. Then double click the object.

3. Change the mode from web address to “HTML code”, paste the HTML code and then update.

4. Drag and drop the widget wherever you want on the page.

 That’s it!

Create poll

Go to PollSnackand log in. You can sign up with Facebook or Twitter and connect to the app in seconds. Then just choose poll and enter the question and possible answers. Customize your widget, and at the very end, publish. You’ll see that you have an embed option. Click on “embed”, and then copy the code. You’ll need to paste it in IM Creator.

Add poll to IM Creator

IM Creator is both very easy to work with, with the friendliest type of user interface: drag and drop. To add a poll to IM creator, do this:

Click Add an Element, choose HTML.
Click “Edit HTML” and then paste the embed code.
Drag and drop the poll widget anywhere on the page.

Wasn’t it the easiest thing ever?

Public profiles contain all public widgets created with FlipSnack by each user, along with some information about the user. It’s the perfect place to showcase all your flipping books.

If you have flipbooks that you’d like to keep private and not show in your public profile, you have the option of unchecking the box for public link in “my FlipSnack”.

Here is how you can personalize your FlipSnack profile:

- Set your own custom URL: www.flipsnack.com/username. Use a custom URL that represents you or your brand, and use it in campaigns, on your website or even on business cards.
- Upload a small photography or logo.
- Set your full name, location and a short description about you, your business or your portfolio.
- Add your website and blog addresses.
- Add social media buttons: Fb, Twitter, G+, Youtube, Vimeo (you can choose which ones you want to show on your profile).

All these options can be edited from Account options, or by clicking the “edit profile” link that’s right above the username.

For our free users we’ll display all flips with limitations: watermarks, 3 pdfs/flip, 15 pages/pdf.
There are no limitations for Premium users. Everything they set as public will show on their profile without any limitation.

What’s great about public profiles is that when you share a flipbook, your visitors will be able to go to your profile page and check out other creations made by you.

Go to flipsnack.com and edit your profile page.
Here’s an example: http://www.flipsnack.com/flipsnack/ We can’t wait to see yours!

Would you like to know what we’ve been working on lately? We’ve made PodSnack fully HTML5 compatible.

If you’re not quite sure you know what it means, you’ll be happy when you hear it. This is good news, because now your players will work on non-flash devices and they will load faster.

All templates and players are 100% HTML5 compatible, and will work only with HTML5/CSS3 compatible web browsers. The new version works through iframe. This means that all players can only be embedded using the <iframe> tag.

This change will affect the download package as well, which will now be 100% HTML5.

All the templates are still there, unchanged, and you can use the application the same as you have before. We hope you appreciate what we’ve been doing here.

Here’s a PodSnack player. Let’s listen to some music now!

Online catalogs. Nowadays, companies are turning their print catalogs into online catalogs because there are many advantages in doing that: you can insert links, change or update them easily and as many times as you want.
There are many gorgeous catalogs built with FlipSnack already. Here’s one of them:

Pricing lists. Spice up the boring look of a long pricing list by making an attractive flip book of it and people will actually want to flip the pages and read it.

Portfolios. Present all your work, awards and your business information in a professional way:  build a flipbook.

Brochures & magazines. Make online brochures and magazines that look just as beautiful as those in print.

Client presentations. You can make great presentations for clients using FlipSnack instead of powerpoint slideshows and your presentation will look different (more creative). We have this new feature that will allow you to turn pages using a wireless pointer (in full screen mode). Check that option from Other settings.

What type of flipbook will you make?

Technically, what happens is that some highlights and effects aren’t recognized by the flash player and therefore they can’t be converted to SWF files (each page in your flipbook is a SWF file).

When this happens, the solution I personally use and recommend (it works every time) is to rasterize each page from the PDF file.

How to do that:

1. Open the PDF file with Adobe Acrobat Pro.

2. Save each page from the PDF file. File -> Save As -> Image->JPG.

3. Click on Settings and make sure that maximum quality is set for the JPG, then click OK.

4. Open Adobe Acrobat Reader again if you closed it and go to Create -> Combine Files into Single PDF.
Select all images, choose the maximum size allowed and combine the files.

5. Finally save the PDF file and upload it to FlipSnack. It will work like a charm.

Note: If you had links inside your PDF you will need to insert them again after you’re done with this process.

Obviously, you don’t need to rasterize the entire PDF if you have problems with just a few pages. If that’s the case, open the PDF creator program and rasterize the problematic pages only (or elements in those pages).
In Photoshop you can do that by flattening layers from a page.

Was this helpful to you?

So here are some of the changes:

1. Upload

You’re not limited to PDF files only anymore. You can upload JPG, JPEG and PDF files to your flip book.
The upload allows for up to 100 different files. Each PDF file is limited to 500 pages.

2. Settings

For the hardcover template there’s this new option of uploading an image for cover.
You can have hardcovers in all the other templates as well: the first page of your flipbook, or an image you choose to upload.
You can merge all files (PDFs, JPEG and JPG) to one flipbook.

Another cool new option is the Single page view, which will display only one page at a time. You’ll find it in the Other settings section. Click Show more to reveal the single page view option.

We have tooltips in several languages. If we don’t have FlipSnack tooltips in your language yet, please help us translate them by sending us an email.

3. Publish (Stats)

Now we’re showing advanced stats for each individual file. Click Show stats details, and it will show the number of views for each file.

What do you think about the new options?

Color issues

The GIF format supports up to 8 bits/pixel, allowing images to show maximum 256 distinct colors. BannerSnack limits the 256 colors to 128, for free users.

So what happens is this: the top 256 most used colors in your image will show just the way they should, and the other colors will “dither”. Dithering is the process of trying to match a middle color by using pixels from close colors and combining them. The result is a grainy, speckled look. This makes some photos look weird, especially if they have gradients in them.

Solution: If you have to work with photos making your GIF, choose small photos and solid color backgrounds. If you’re using a picture to cover the whole slide, look for gradients and try to pre-visualize how they will look like dithered. (The sky looks weird sometimes dithered, if it has gradient colors in it.)

Size issues

If you use many slides in your banner, your GIF will be big and slow to download.

Solution: To make lightweight banners, use small file size images. Be careful not to use too many slides as they will increase the banner’s file size. Pick the minimum number of images necessary.

Edit your images before you upload them in BannerSnack, having in mind the size and shape of your banner. After upload you shouldn’t modify the size, because it will affect the quality of the picture.

Effects issues

Built in effects and transitions won’t show in GIF banners. The banner will play its slides as regular images and the final .gif file will include a screenshot for each slide. Also, the buttons will not be animated and will not work like in the Flash interactive version.

Solution: Have this in mind when you design your banner. If you want, you can create a movement illusion in your banner, using small timings for slides: use 2 to 4 images/ second. The fast changing slides will make your banner look animated.

I love the fact you ask a question or write your opinion, leave it out there on the web and people from all over the world will see it and answer or comment on it.

It’s so exciting to me that you guys are out there somewhere, reading this blog and you’re the reason I’m writing this. Here at SnackTools, we care about our readers and what they have to say! If you have a website or blog, you probably feel the same way to some extent.

A great way of getting feedback from readers is to ask them questions, and wait for them to answer. But some people are lazy or hurried and won’t take the time to answer, unless you make it really really easy for them. The best and easiest way of getting feedback is by using a poll. Ask only one question, and offer a few possible answers.

You can set up a poll with PollSnack. It’s really easy and you can customize it (use the same colors you have in your website) and then embed it into your website!