This is a follow up to the post from last week about pasting adjustments in Screenflow. A tricky situation can arise if you are pasting adjustments from a clip that has a video action on it. 3 Different Pan/Zoom Settings Here we have two clips but there are actually three pan and zoom settings. There is the initial pan and zoom setting of the first clip. This consists of the x/y coordinate of the video and the zoom setting. Next we have a video action. All a video action does is allow you to set a new x/y coordinate and zoom setting for the clip. The video action then animates the transition between the original pan/zoom setting and the new pan/zoom setting to create the pan/zoom visual effect. The new clip has its own pan (x/y coordinate) and zoom setting. Let's say that we want to copy the zoom settings from clip 1 to clip 2. At the beginning of the clip (1) the zoom is set to 100%. At the end of the clip, after the video action the zoom is set to 300%. At the beginning of the 2nd clip (3) the zoom is set to 100%. What we want is to change the zoom setting of the 2nd clip (3) to 300%. The Wrong Approach Here I have placed the playhead at the end of clip 1. What I will see on the screen is a zoom of 300% because I have the playhead placed after the video action. So I might think that I am copying a zoom setting of 300%. BUT I AM NOT. The Edit > Copy command copies what is selected, not what is under the playhead. If I copy right now I will be copying a zoom setting of 100%. The Right Way Now I have the video action selected. If I select Edit > Copy I will be copying a zoom setting of 300%. Finish Now just select the 2nd clip and choose Edit > Paste Adjustments > Video and you will be applying the 300% zoom to the 2nd clip. Improve Your Customer Commnunication

Sometimes when editing in Screenflow I want to apply the zoom and pan setting of one clip to another. I just discovered an easy way of doing this. Setup Here is the situation. I have a clip that I have zoomed and panned (1). When the playline moves to the next clip (2) I want it to have the same zoom and pan settings. Select Edit > Copy With the zoomed and panned clip selected, select Edit > Copy as if you were going to copy the entire clip. Select 2nd Clip I now select the clip I want to apply the settings to (2). The clip I copied is just before it in the timeline (1), but doesn't have to be. Select Edit > Paste Adjustments Select Edit > Paste Adjustments and whatever attribute you want to apply from the clip you copied. In my case I am selecting Video. That will apply the zoom and pan settings to the new clip. As you can see you could do the same for Audio, Screen Recording and Callout settings.

Screenflow is a great screencasting application. But it doesn't offer much in the form of audio editing. In this post I will show you a simple method for editing your audio in GarageBand and bringing it back into Screenflow. A little background on this: I have been using this method for awhile with Screenflow and Garageband. Last week we wanted to get Trevor going creating some screencasts, so we purchased a Screenflow license and Trevor got started creating some videos. I whipped this lesson up in ScreenSteps to show him how to improve his audio. Setup: Before doing this you want to make sure that you have finished editing your video in Screenflow. This is the last thing you do before you publish your screencast. In this tutorial we are going to: Export our video Open it in GarageBand Edit the audio Bring it back into Screenflow Export Video Adjust Settings

Last week on Allison Sheridan's Nosillacast she did a review of Screenflow. In it she mentioned that she couldn't figure out why they have a "rotate video" option. We use Screenflow a lot and are one of the sponsors of the Nosillacast so I thought I would throw together a quick tutorial on why and how you would use the video rotation feature in Screenflow. Intro Video Setup Be sure to watch the video above so you know what we are trying to accomplish in this tutorial. To recreate the effect above you need to have first recorded your background video (in my case, a Keynote presentation).

Yesterday was adding the finishing touches to a marketing redesign of our screenstepslive.com site. This had been through many iterations but I felt that I finally had things the way I wanted them. ScreenSteps Live is entirely programmed in Ruby on Rails, both the web application and the marketing/sign-up area. We use Git for all of our version control.

The other day I was watching my 5-year old complete a connect-the-dots page. I was amazed at how such a simple concept could turn just about anyone into a semi-functional artist. All he had to do was draw one line at a time between two numbers. At the end he had completed a drawing that would have been far beyond his ability had the dots not been there. This is exactly how your documentation should be. Software is not art. It isn't golf. It isn't the violin. You shouldn't need to work years and years to master it. There is a task. It needs to be done. People are going to use your software to do it.

I don't ever plan my documentation. I used to. But not anymore. It's a waste of time. Maybe if I were on a documentation team and had 6 months to get the documentation ready then maybe I would plan. I could plan and then revise and then plan some more. But I am not on a documentation team. I run a business. I am the web programmer, accountant, custodian, sales person, system admin and business development director. I don't have time to plan my documentation. So what have I done? I have planned not to plan. I have created a system for documentation that requires no planning at all AND creates documentation that is much more useful to our customers. It really is quite simple. Just follow these simple steps: