Re: Screen Recordings...

[Don Scorgie <DonScorgie Blueyonder co uk>]

Hi,

On Thu, 2006-10-12 at 15:54 +0300, Jason (spot) Brower wrote:
> 
> У čet, 12. 10 2006. у 10:41 +0300, Jason (spot) Brower пише:
> 
> > I could create all the recordings and other what not. 
> > What do you think?  I think it would greatly improve the quality of
> > the all ready wonderful documentation.
> >
> 
> 
> I think that this can be great...
> 
> Can we use at-spi (via LDTP or dogtail) to automate the recordings?
> Then
> it won't be a hasle for translators to make recordings for localized
> documentation.
> 
> Also, I think we shouldn't depend on that in online documentation,
> users 
> with slow net connections may not like that. Maybe this can be
> provided
> as an alternative to static image inside DocBook file and we can use
> XSLT to display one inline and make a link to another.
> 
> Was there any discussions on this topic earlier? 

There was some discussion a little while ago about making dogtail
scripts for automatic screenshot creation (for translator ease and for
updating screenshots each release).  There is a demo screencast still
available at http://www.gnome.org/~dscorgie/autoshot.html

There wasn't really any discussion about animations / screencasts
though.  I personally think having screencasts would be distracting if
they were embedded in help pages.

In a similar vain / vane [1], there was some discussion a while ago
about adding a "Show me..." type comment for instructions which would
launch a dogtail script to open the desired application, go to the right
screen and highlight the control, or show a sequence of steps or ...
(you get the idea).  I have no idea when this discussion took place, but
searching the gnome-doc-list archives should reveal it.  Unless I dreamt
it up, which is quite possible.

Anyway, enough pointless ramblings from me.  I think getting a dogtail
script for screenshots, for 1 manual (as an experiment) would be a good
first step, if that's the road you are / anyone is interested in taking.
Maybe it could be part of the Grand Mallard Plan (tm).

Don

[1] I can't decide which is the right word here. [2]
[2] Although, writing these footnotes has actually taken longer than
Googling it