Filed under: Software, Productivity
ScreenSteps 2.5 takes screen-based documentation a step forward
ScreenSteps, the invaluable tool (mentioned here many a time) for writing software documentation quickly and easily, has updated to version 2.5. Among the new features is improved annotation capabilities, including a text tool and keyboard shortcuts for speedy duplication and repositioning of annotations.
You can set a status on lessons to remind yourself what's ready to publish, and what needs a little more work. Lesson steps can be more easily manipulated and reordered in the lesson inspector. Also, compiling lessons into full manuals is significantly easier, including the ability to quickly filter which lessons are included at the time of export.
I use ScreenSteps extensively in training clients on the websites I work on. It's not expected of me in most circumstances, but a PDF instruction booklet or an HTML export embedded in the content manager does wonders for reducing support calls. If you write any kind of screen-based documentation and haven't taken a look at ScreenSteps, it would be worth its price in the time it could save you. The best part of the system is that you can easily re-use and update manuals without much hassle, allowing a skeleton manual to be quickly turned into a custom manual for a client, or making it easy to add a step you didn't think of until you were in the middle of a training session.
You can try out ScreenSteps for free, and pick up one of two versions if you dig it: Pro for $59.95US, or Standard (lacking export of full manuals and support for MindTouch Deki and Confluence export) for $39.95US. There's a full feature comparison on the Blue Mango site.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
blakecr said 9:39AM on 4-27-2009
Way to come out with this 2 days after Mac releases the fact that the new OS will have video screen shot capturing capabilities. Its like deciding to do a mission to the moon after we already landed.
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Murphy Mac said 9:52AM on 4-27-2009
I doubt the screen capture capabilities of SL will equate to tools like iShowU and ScreenFlow. There's a lot more to making training materials or demos than just the initial screen capture.
It would be nice if ScreenSteps let you embed mini screencasts for each step in a tutorial. I definitely consider it if they did.
brandon said 9:52AM on 4-27-2009
Blakecr - Be nice.
trevor said 10:18AM on 4-27-2009
Screen recording in SL doesn't really affect ScreenSteps. ScreenSteps is centered around using still images to rapidly create customer support documents. For the type of content that ScreenSteps is used to create we feel video is too slow to produce and too awkward to update. (Disclosure: I'm a ScreenSteps developer)
Joseph said 9:18PM on 4-27-2009
Way to be sarcastic on the internet way after sarcasm and the internet were invented.
Logic me this captain obvious: Why does apple announcing a new feature for an unreleased product affect the here and now?
Joseph said 9:19PM on 4-27-2009
another thought:
It is like someone going to the moon, after apple announced they were going to take a trip.
Harvey said 10:29AM on 4-27-2009
blakecr: The new feature will just make life easier (hopefully) for developers of software like ScreenFlow.
Personally, I own a copy of both ScreenSteps and ScreenFlow. It's not an either-or decision. Sometimes, a video is the best explanation and sometimes you can't beat the convience of a PDF produced from ScreenSteps. User's can't print a video.
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blakecr said 10:26AM on 4-27-2009
Ok ok, I really just skimmed the article. I just thought it was funny. Sorry for being an idiot.
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