Topic: Review: stepshot 2.2 (Giveawayoftheday.com)

[devnullius]

This is a review for StepShot 2.2, given away for free the next 9 hours (http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/stepshot-22/).

The program starts with a wizard.

First you can chose to use the program as a resident-stay-active program allowing for screen recording and screenshot capturing. You can also chose to run StepShot only for screenrecording. In this mode, closing the program really means closing the program.

Next step in the wizard: check for updates? Also, the default auto save period is set to 1 minute and you can set your external image editor. For this, you have to manually browse to the executable of the  editor you'd like. Default is mspaint.

The last step of the wizard deals with global hotkeys. You can set to open the image editor after each screen shot made. It also offers the following options: * capture mouse up after mouse down timeout (I do not know what this does) * capture mouse clicks only if the following key is pressed: F11 * generate mouse click after each hotkey-made screenshot. Finally, you can set Left click & Right click to capture delay. By default, they are turned off. I will follow their advise :)

I now started a new document ('history') of clicking. The main program shows 3 groups of interest:

First group of 3:
Screen Play
Active Window Play
Start Magnifier (Vista/7/8: Aero only).

To create my example, I choose the first option: Screen Play.
This way, whatever I click with my left- OR right-mouse that spot / window will be recorded as a screenshot.
Active Window Play is the same, but only for 1 program window.
Start Magnifier: the default Windows Magnifier to zoom in on your screen. This works like it should: clicking the magnifier will count as a mouse click and a screenshot of your screen will be made.

Second group of 3:
Screen Once
Active Window Once
Screen Selection: screenshot of the selection you chose.

Third group of 4:
Up (select previous screenshot) and Down (select next:)
Duplicate (make copy of current screenshot)
Remove Current Screenshot

Then a separate option to Insert new Item: this will insert a blank image for you to edit.

Last group of 4:
Export to pdf/rtf/html/xls/mht (IE only)/jpeg
Share to Dropbox/ftp/mail
Document Options
Clear

There also is a seconds tab: Edit Current Image
By default you will work with the default editor. You can also launch the external editor here.
Basically if just offers draw errors, shape, text, crop, highlight. And this actually is enough too :)

Some remarks...
- in general: my system froze twice: once when starting Magnifier. The second time when I pressed the Export option (after just saving as pdf: +50 clicks, means +50 jpeg's to be saved). After again restarting my system, my history suddenly was empty - even after re-opening it. Still, the created pdf still was there and I decided to give the program the benefits of the doubt (to be fair, my vista is feeling shaky for a while) and I quickly created a new document.
- Active Windows (Once) only works for the last active program, not StepShot itself. This makes sense :)
- Recording the Edit Current Image tab of StepShot itself seems to be impossible? :s Luckily, you can just use the default windows screenshot feature (PrtScr or Alt-PrtScrn for windows-only)
- Exporting to pdf places all (my) screenshots on a seperate page. When exporting to html, no pages are needed and all is closely put below each other. In my taste, a little too close...
- After exporting you can either open the document, cancel OR copy the full path name. That last one is a smart option that I really appreciate. Only thing is, it contains a BUG. It ads a forward / in the path references before the file name. It should be a back \!
- Creating a screenshot yourself is a little annoying when you need this screenshot for ANOTHER program (like... posting a review about this program WITH 2 screenshots:). The way around is to go into your StepShot documents folder. Go to the history you are currently working with and look in the subfolder *files. There, you will see a bunch of images. In detail view (add Modification time to the details list!) you can sort on date and pick the latest screenshot (you just made).
- Screenshots are made in .png

All in all I will keep this program around and a lifetime license indeed is appreciated. For I have to write many software instructions helping my friends helping themselves ; ) And this kind of programs really speed up the process. Basic, but it gets the job done. I just hope I can add lots of text in the description fields. And I miss a document lay-out system that actually makes chapters etc to which you add (as a bonus) screenshots. How this will work out for me in the long run...? We will see!

Some links and examples I put online with min.us:
http://minus.com/mn0eI6ROi/ Big Pdf - just screenshots
http://minus.com/mbpGgoDhZs/ Re-created pdf - with comments (= final example)
http://minus.com/mOIjw38P7/ Same example, but exported to mht - and with applied theme Blue

Some screenshots:



As always... Peace!

Devvie


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All spelling mistakes are my own and may only be distributed under the GNU General Public License! – (© 95-1 by Coredump; 2-012 by DevNullius)

[devnullius]

Re-thinking my article...

I just hope I can add lots of text in the description fields. And I miss a document lay-out system that actually makes chapters etc to which you add (as a bonus) screenshots.

The program would be rather easy to re-build to a full documentation system. Basicly, one only needs to add a 'comment' field on the top of each page. At the very minimum, one needs to be able to set font properties and colors. One can "itemize" and add 'chapters' by hand. I could work that way

Peace!

devnullius

[devnullius]

I did some research after the options I did not understand.

First: capture mouse up after mouse down timeout

Copy-Paste:
"On Click and drag of a window, show both the before and after locations in 2 screen shots.

Kevin , 26.09.2011, 12:50
Idea status: under consideration
Comments

StepShot, 26.09.2011, 14:47
It's implemented. See Settings-> Hotkeys-> Advanced-> capture mouse up after mouse down (timeout)"
From: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jxDjb1nQ7t4J:stepshot.idea.informer.com/proj/%3Fia%3D32579+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk

Secondly, I still don't know what "generate mouse click after each hotkey-made screenshot" would do. Best I can imagine is that when you manually create a screenshot you can automatically press your left mouse button. Click action will be carried out on the object the mouse pointer is pointing at on that moment??

[devnullius]

Feedback received by email:

Oleksandr Reminnyi ✆ stepshotapp@gmail.com
7:28 AM (3 hours ago)

to devnullius
Hi there. I'll send you the license during one week.
Only one point as for your review - why do you need to go to working directory to get single file? You can go to edit current image and press Save as->png.

So.... :> Thank you and Peace!

devnullius

[Samker]

hmmm... this App look "to complicate" for me.   

[devnullius]

if you have to write software manuals... You will catch on quickly enough. And got me a lifetime license now - so I anticipate some updates really soon ; )

Peace!

devnullius