Watch the ProtoShare Video

Features

Frequently Asked Questions

General ProtoShare Questions

Do I have to download and install ProtoShare?

No, ProtoShare is a SaaS (Software as a Service) product. It’s accessed through your Internet connection and is entirely browser-based. There is no software to download or install and no upgrades to run. You can access your ProtoShare account from any web browser on any computer. However, it is highly recommended that you have a broadband connection.

Back to top

What platforms and browsers work with ProtoShare?

The Review section of the tool, which is where clients and stakeholders interact with and comment on dynamic prototypes, is supported by Internet Explorer 6 & 7, Firefox 3.0 and Safari on both PC and Mac.

As of now, the build and edit functionality of ProtoShare, which is where developers build prototypes, is supported by Firefox 3.0 on PC and Mac. If you don't already have Firefox, you can download a free version at www.getfirefox.com.

ProtoShare is no longer compatible with Firefox 2.0 on either the PC or Mac.

Back to top

I am using Firefox 3.0 but ProtoShare says I need to upgrade from 2.0. What's wrong?

This is usually caused by a Firefox Add-on that is overwriting the browser's User Agent string. This is not recommended behavior for add-ons, but sometimes it is done, usually to force compatibility with a newer version of Firefox. To find which add-on is causing the problem, enter about:config into your address bar and search for Agent. You should see a line where the User Agent string is being overwritten. Once you find the add-on that is causing the problem you should try upgrading the add-on. If that doesn't work, you can either disable the add-on or disable the about:config entry that is altering the User Agent string.

Back to top

How rich can I make my prototype?

Most users can easily build an interactive, wireframe prototype in minutes. If you want to add more fidelity to your prototype, you can upload images, PDFs, text documents, edit and style the CSS, and simulate website functionality.

Back to top

Can I collaborate on Design Comps?

Yes. You can upload design comps (gif, jpeg, png and Flash) to a page for collaborative review and comments. Comps appear in a tab next to the wireframe tab. Here you can compare the design comp to the wireframe and see the evolution of the project. You can upload unlimited versions or overwrite previous uploads.

Back to top

How secure is my work?

ProtoShare uses industry-standard SSL security, similar to eCommerce sites, financial institutions, and other web-based business solutions, such as Salesforce.com. All pages on your site, including the interactive wireframe, are password-protected and require the login to access. Additionally, all of your information is hosted by a national service provider in a certified safe and secure environment.

Back to top

What happens to my project when I'm finished?

At any time during your project, you can export your ProtoShare website prototype (including comps, assets, decisions, comments, etc) into a Word document. Under Manage>Export you can select and include all project attributes for export, you can even upload a separate document (like a cover page) to include in the final document.

Back to top

How can I change my email address and project notification options?

Click on the My Account link in the upper right corner of ProtoShare. Here you can change your email address and password and e-mail preferences.

Back to top

Is ProtoShare a Flash-based tool?

No, it is HTML and Javascript.

Back to top

Can I put our company logo on ProtoShare?

Yes. From the Home page click on the Settings link. On the Settings page, you will find an area to upload your logo, where it will appear directly to the right of the ProtoShare logo in the main header. Logo dimensions should be 300 x 50 pixels or smaller.

Back to top

I am trying to add or archive a project, but it says I have reached my limit? What do I do?

You are most likely on an older pricing plan and will need to upgrade to the new pricing plan. This is done on the Billing page.

Back to top

ProtoShare Billing/User Questions

How many people can use ProtoShare?

ProtoShare has two kinds of users: Reviewers and everyone else, including Developers, Project Managers, Company Managers and Billing Managers. The number of Reviewers is unlimited. Reviewers do not count as Licensed Users. Licensed Users are billed at the monthly rate of your selected plan ($26 for 2 users per month for Personal,  $69 for 5 users per month for Team and $129 for 10 users per month for Network).

There is no limit on how many people can simultaneously access ProtoShare, but Page and Template editing are intended to be single user activities.

Back to top

What is the difference between a User and a Reviewer?

Licensed users include the Billing Manager, Company Manager, Project Manager, and Developer roles. Licensed users are charged a monthly fee and might have certain resource restrictions depending on their ProtoShare plan. The Reviewer role is free of charge, but can access only the prototype and review and comment functionality.

Back to top

What can a Reviewer access on a ProtoShare project?

When you invite users to ProtoShare, you assign them access privileges. Reviewers can only access the prototype and comments.

Back to top

What is the difference between the Licensed User roles of Developer, Project Manager, Company Manager and Billing Manager?

All of these roles have access to the Prototype section. The base Licensed User role is the Developer. Developers can create and edit pages. Project Managers have Developer privileges and the ability to invite Reviewers to a project. Company Managers have Project Manager privileges plus the ability to create Projects and add Licensed Users. Billing Managers (there can be more than one) have access to the billing method and records for the account. In smaller organizations, all the developers might have the Billing Manager role, but in a larger company, there may be only one or two Billing Managers.

Back to top

What is the difference between Active and Archived Projects?

With the Personal plan, the number of active and archived projects is limited. There are no limits in the Team and Network plan. A Project is something like a web site, email campaign, or even print campaign. A project is anything that you want to work on. In some cases, Projects could be clients with sub-projects, or they could be internal projects. An Active project is one that you are currently working on. An Archived project is something that you are done with, but you might want to come back to later. Archiving a project will store all pages, templates, comps and discussion topics and comments, but you will not be able to access it. You can restore an archived project at any time.

Back to top

How do the user entitlements on Pages and disk space work?

In all 3 plans, there are limits on Pages and disk space. These limits are per account, for example if you are on the Team plan, you have five Licensed Users and your account as a whole can create 1000 pages and you have a total of 2GB of disk space.

Back to top

How am I billed?

We will bill your credit card monthly. Unless you have an annual or quarterly agreement, your obligation is month-to-month, with no cancellation fees. We also offer Purchase Orders for larger enterprise clients.

Back to top

How do I cancel my account?

You can easily cancel your account within ProtoShare. To cancel your account, select Billing (Under Account in your ProtoShare site), and in the plan details section, you'll see the "Cancel My Account" link. Click this link to begin the cancel process.

Back to top

Navigation Questions

How can I have my home page in the same navigation as the sub-pages?

When you add the Navigation component to a page, it excludes the Home (root) page by default. You can include the Home page with its subpages by using two Navigation components, and arranging them in the Page Editor so they appear to be the same navigation. One component will display the subpages by using the default settings. The other component will display only the Home page by configuring Starting Pages to Home, Visible Levels to 0, and Hide Starting Page to No.

Back to top

How can I have different navigations on the same page?

You can add as many Navigation components as you want to your prototype pages and templates. Simply drag them them onto the Editor Canvas, and configure them to suit your needs. For example, you might want to add two Navigation components to a global wrapping template: header navigation and footer navigation. By default, the navigation begins at the Home (root) page, uses a horizontal list style, and includes subpages as dropdowns and flyouts. Use the component properties to configure a different list style and starting page.

Back to top

I have long page titles and there are carriage returns in my navigation. How can I change the width of my navigation items?

By default the Navigation component uses a link width of 100px. You can customize the default styles to change this width. To do so, use Firebug to discover the appropriate styles. For example, to specify a width of 200px for a component with ID mynav, create the following styles in the ProtoShare stylesheet:
#mynav ul.x_horizontal a {width:200px;}
#mynav .x_flyout ul ul.x_vertical {width:200px;}

Back to top

How do I keep a page in my site map out of the navigation?

When you create prototype pages, they are visible by default. Visible pages can be part of the navigation and are available in the Review screen. To hide a page from from the navigation, open the Build screen, select the page in the Site Map, locate the Visibility menu under the Properties tab, and select the Hidden from Navigation menu item. The page name in the Site Map will turn gray to indicate the new visibility state.

Back to top

How do I create subnavigation?

Subnavigation displays the child pages of the current page. You can create subnavigation in ProtoShare by configuring the appropriate settings for the Navigation component. For example, suppose you create a wrapping template that contains horizontal header navigation and vertical subnavigation. The header navigation uses the default component settings, and the subnavigation displays the first level of subpages for the current page. To configure the subnavigation, follow these steps:

  1. Set Starting Pages to blank and Hide Starting Page to Yes,
  2. Set Start Level to blank. The starting level is defined as the first level of subpages below the current page.
  3. Set Visible Levels to 0. This setting specifies that only one subpage level of will be displayed.
  4. Set List Style to Vertical.

Back to top

Pages & Templates

Why can't I make changes to certain areas of pages?

When you edit a page, you might not be able to edit certain areas. This occurs when a page is assigned a template. If a page template is assigned, you can change only content-related areas when you edit the page. To edit all other areas, you must explicitly edit the template. You can edit a template from the Page Editor or from the Templates screen.

Back to top

What is a wrapping template?

Wrapping templates wrap pages or other wrapping templates, and typically include common elements such as a header and footer. To create a wrapping template, you can use the Page Editor or the Templates screen. To assign a wrapping template to a page, edit the page and choose the template name from the Wrapping Template menu. When you edit the template, your changes automatically propagate to every page that’s assigned the template.

Back to top

Can I make changes to a page after I assigned a template to it?

If you edit a page assigned a page template, you can edit all content-related areas. To edit other areas, you must edit the template. Alternatively, you can detach the page from the template. In this case, you lose the advantages of the template but gain the ability to make any changes, including adding new components.

Back to top

Can I copy and paste content from one page to another?

No. Currently, the only way to share content across pages is via templates.

Back to top

How do I create a pop-up window?

To create a pop-up window, you create a unique page that contains the pop-up as part of its wireframe. For example, suppose you're wireframing a pop-up help window. The general workflow is that a user clicks on a help icon and a pop-up window is displayed. To create this behavior in ProtoShare, you create two pages in the Site Map. The first page contains the wireframe with a help icon that's linked to the second page. The second page contains the same wireframe, but with the pop-up window added. One approach is to create the wireframe for the first page, duplicate that page to create the second page, and then add the pop-up to the second page. Another approach is to create a wrapping template that contains all the shared functionality, and then add the pop-up to the second page.

Back to top

Pages Editor & Components

How can I select a component that is under another component?

When placing components on the Editor Canvas, it's possible to hide one component behind another. To select a component that's behind another, you can:

  • Use Shift + click in the Canvas
  • Select it in the Component Listing. To open the Component Listing, click the left-most icon in the Canvas toolbar.

 

Back to top

How can I upload more than a few images at a time?

On  the Assets page, under the Project menu, zipped files of images can be uploaded and then unarchived.

Back to top

The IFrame doesn't seem to be working properly.

The IFrame component does not work with sites that “break out” of iframes. When a site breaks out of an iframe, you cannot access the associated page in ProtoShare and the page must be deleted. Therefore, you should verify that the IFrame component works with the specified URL before building the rest of the wireframe.

Back to top

How do I create an image map?

There are several ways to create an image map in ProtoShare. One way is to slice the image using your favorite image editing tool, upload the slices into ProtoShare, and use an Image component for each slice to display the image and to create a link. The other way is to use the Hyperlink component to create the image map links. This method does not require that you slice the image. Instead, you can upload the entire image and use as many Hyperlink components as there are links in the image map. To configure each Hyperlink component:

  1. Drag the component over the appropriate area of the image, and resize to the required dimensions.
  2. Click the Link to setting and specify the link target.
  3. Configure the Border setting to No Border.
  4. Configure the Background setting to No Background.

 

Back to top

How do I dynamically resize components?

Certain components such as Rich Text and Breadcrumbs have the ability to dynamically resize based on the content displayed. To configure this behavior, open the Position + Size properties and select Auto for the Width or Height properties.

Back to top

How do I create a line?

To create a line in ProtoShare, use a Rich Text component, define an ID or class name, and create styles so that only one border is displayed. To create a horizontal line, display one horizontal border. To create a vertical line, display one vertical border. You then stretch out the component to create the desired line length. For example, the following style defines a horizontal line for a component with the class name hline:
.hline {border:0; border-top:1px solid black;}

Back to top

How can I create a table?

You can create a table using the Rich Text editor. To do so, edit a page, add a Rich Text or Box component to the canvas, open the Rich Text editor, and click the table icon in the Rich Text Editor toolbar. Alternatively, you can click the HTML icon and create a table by typing in the HTML code.

Back to top

Export

Can I export jpegs of my prototyped pages?

To export wireframe images, open the Export screen, select the pages of interest, select the Screenshots check box, and click the Export button.

Back to top

How can I backup my data?

ProtoShare does not have a backup feature. Your data is safely stored in our secure server environment.

Back to top

Customer Support

I don't see an answer to my question here. What do I do?

Fill out the contact form at http://www.protoshare.com/Support/Contact-Us/

Back to top

Review

How can I make the wireframe area larger for viewing on a small screen?

The border bar between the comments area on the left and the wireframes on the right is resizable. You can drag it to the right to resize either panel. And double-clicking on the border bar in Review hides the left column entirely. Click the double arrow icon in the far left bar to re-open it.

Back to top

Projects

How do I duplicate projects?

Go into the My Projects section of ProtoShare. Select the project you wish to duplicate, and click the "Duplicate" button at the top of the menu. You will then be prompted with an option to either keep or remove ALL comments, topics, etc contained in the discussion area. If you are presenting work to a client for teh first time, you may want to duplicate a project without any comments.

Back to top

CSS

Where can I find the "default" CSS, so that I can use that as a basis for my own customizations.

Many components use default styles. For example the Navigation component makes extensive use of default styles to generate dropdowns and flyouts.To customize these styles, you should use Firebug to identify the appropriate styles and then use the Stylesheet interface in ProtoShare. (http://getfirebug.com)

Back to top

What is the default stylesheet for the components?

You can access the default CSS stylesheet by adding "/launch/viewer/theme-viewer.css" to the end of "http://yoursite.protoshare.com"

Back to top