Before GC Fielder Fiedler left this comment, I’d never even heard of ScreenSteps, a software application for creating tutorials like the one Cory Bohon wrote on screencasting.
Cory was sitting next to me in my office as he created the tutorial, so I can say that I’m pretty sure Cory was just first taking screenshots with the built-in function that Mac OS X provides for doing so and then pasting by hand the necessary tags for those images into the HTML of his tutorial. That’s how I’ve done tutorials like that, too.
But holy moley is ScreenSteps much, much easier! Once I heard about ScreenSteps I decided to download the trial version, and once I tried the trial version I decided to plunk down the $40 to purchase the standard version. (Later, I figured out that the academic pricing is cheaper: $34. D’oh!)
It’s not perfect, and I wish there were a few options that it doesn’t currently have, but I’ve already found it incredibly useful for creating quick tutorials that supplement (not replace!) my in-class instruction. Here are two drafts of tutorials-in-progress that I created using Screensteps:
- “Finding a meeting time with Doodle.com,” for my students, my colleagues, and just about anyone
- “Academic OneFile: an advanced search,” for my first-year writing students as a reminder of what was demonstrated in class.
Good stuff. I hope to write a more extensive review once I have more experience under my belt. Stay tuned.
So what tools do you use for such online tutorials?
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9 Responses to In praise of ScreenSteps: a brief encomium based on limited experience
Rhonda - October 15, 2009 at 3:54 pm
I love ScreenSteps… it’s a real lifesaver for me. One of my favorite things about it is that you can setup your own CSS for the HTML files. Here’s the look I set up for my tutorials: http://www.cuyamaca.edu/tlc/bb/docs/webadvisor-email.asp
This was the best $34 I’ve ever spent for software!
GC Fiedler - October 16, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Glad I turned you on to this app!
Two things to add. First, the app is cross platform. If you own a license, you can use it on a Windows and a Mac PC. This may be useful in making instruction sets for Windows users or apps that are Windows only.
Second, it’s “Fiedler”, not “Fielder”. :-)
Aaron P - October 23, 2009 at 11:09 am
I must have missed this article, but for what it’s worth, I’ve been using Skitch for all my little screen-snap and markup projects and found it to be amazingly useful.
http://skitch.com/
Mac only, but brilliant!
~ Aaron
George H. Williams - October 23, 2009 at 11:52 am
Yep, we’re fans of Skitch for certain purposes, but Screensteps is perfect for creating in-depth tutorials quickly and easily. Check out yesterday’s post on Doodle, for example, which I created fairly quickly using Screensteps.
George H. Williams - October 25, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Fixed! Sorry ’bout that.
George H. Williams - October 25, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Skitch and Jing are similar to each other in that they allow you to capture part (or all) of your computer screen and then annotate what you capture. And they’re both very cool.
ScreenSteps, however, will do those things as well as generate the HTML for your step-by-step instructions and then upload them as a web page or a blog entry. So in this way, it’s significantly different. I’ve authored 2 recent ProfHacker posts with Screensteps: one about Doodle, and one about Jiffle. When I’ve created similar tutorials using Jing instead, the process has taken me much, much longer because I have to write the HTML myself.
Pearsenk - October 25, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Is this program similar in functionality to “Jing” – http://www.jingproject.com
GC Fiedler - November 23, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Skitch rocks for quick and dirty annotations of screen shots! It’s slick and quick.
BTW, if you are interested ScreenSteps, it’s being discounted this week for Thanksgiving. If you buy it today, 40% off, but this decreases to 10% by Friday.
http://bluemangolearning.com/blog/2009/11/screensteps-2-7-preview-video-and-the-sale-that-goes-stale-up-to-40-off/
(No, I don’t have any affiliation with Blue Mango.)
Julie Meloni - November 23, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Thanks for this – I just purchased SS Pro for $48 because of this. Appreciated!