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Member since: Apr 2013Deals bought: 131
4 stars
4 stars
Posted: Dec 5, 2024

Good, has a lot of potential but not quite there yet

Fable is tough to review as it's already a relatively good tool but it has a lot of room for improvement.

First let's get one of the main issues out of the way which should be easy to fix and is related to maximizing embedded guides. If viewing the embedded guide on a larger browser window on your computer, there is a maximize icon at the top right which is too tiny and I have to assume a lot of viewers won't realize they can view the guide in full screen.

On mobile the situation is worse in that there isn't even a button anywhere to go full screen for embedded guides, despite the fact that viewing in full screen is even more important on mobile devices. At least you can write code to make your own button to take the iframe full screen but it's a hassle to have to do that for every guide.

There are also issues with audio. It will record some audio when recording the demo but not all audio. If it does record audio there seems to be no way to remove it, and given there are a couple issues with the playback of recorded audio that can be a problem.

Voiceover support is not the greatest and it sounds like using voiceovers consumers the rather low number of minutes included for audio/visual guides. For video you can at least use YouTube to avoid wasting these minutes, but there isn't any similar external/self hosting option for audio.

Similarly Quilly AI credits are one time and the credits included aren't enough to do more than basically demo it briefly. It does do an impressive job of describing steps/actions if you use it though. I will not be using it due to the cost.

Fable is strictly for creating HTML guides and clearly they have no desire to support video exports. I can live with that, just pointing it out for anyone reading the review.

However, what is a little disappointing currently is the fact they talk like interactive guides are very superior to simpler guide platforms based on screenshots and similar. In theory that is true but the level of interactivity currently possible is a little lacking. Sure the ability to change the text on the page (usually works but occasionally won't work for some elements) and remove elements is nice, but it feels like there are some missing opportunities here to make HTML guides truly interactive such as making elements clickable to take to it to the step/module, play audio or video, etc. As is there isn't that much reason for me to use this over screenshot based guides, mainly just has the neat trick of showing mouse hover animations.

Well there is one other potentially large benefit which is the mobile responsive feature. If the recorded website is responsive, the Fable guide will be responsible. However, this may or may not work well depending on the specific website being recorded.

Although I'm writing more about the negative aspects of Fable, it's still a product I would recommend for the LTD price with the assumption they will keep developing and improving it. Out of my many AppSumo purchases over several years this is actually one of the products I've been most excited to start using.

What I'd really love to see implemented is multilingual support so we can translate the guide into multiple languages with the viewer being able to select the language. Working around this on my side and creating copies of guides in multiple languages but really nice to have language switching capabilities built in.

Founder Team
Vikas_Fable

Vikas_Fable

Dec 12, 2024

Thank you for using Fable!

A few quick points to note:

1. You mentioned that "It will record some audio when recording the demo but not all audio". Fable does not record any audio at all during the recording! Looks like there's an expectation mismatch! :)
2. Voiceover is using our AI credits and audio guides are completely different. Again, looks like some confusion here.
3. On video export - absolutely right. We are not a video tool and have mentioned that too. Thanks for stating in the review.
4. On HTML vs screenshot - it is definitely superior and there's no question. Usage depends on the need of the user.

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