Over the last few weeks we have been working on putting a new face on ScreenSteps. We wanted to give you a few glimpses at what the new UI will look like.
Our purpose in redesigning the UI is to make it easier for you to focus on the content you are working on. We also wanted to tidy up the arrangement of things to give the application a better visual flow.
This is what we have so far and would love to hear your feedback. The new UI will be available in the 2.8 update which will be free to all 2.x license owners.
During our webinar today on new ScreenSteps 2.7 features (learn more about ScreenSteps), a customer asked about Joomla integration. The question comes up every once in a while and I actually had investigated ScreenSteps and Joomla integration a while back. I remembered that one of our customers was able to get it to work after jumping through a number of hoops.
After the webinar was over Greg and I started discussing Joomla and I decided to look into it again. It turns out there is a great Movable Type plugin for Joomla. Since ScreenSteps uses the Movable Type API to post content to TypePad and Movable Type, the Joomla Movable Type plugin works perfectly with ScreenSteps.
I’ve posted a new manual on Integrating ScreenSteps with Joomla that will walk anyone through the process with Joomla 1.5. You will be publishing visually rich tutorials to Joomla from within ScreenSteps in no time.
I will mention that the ease of creating the manual in ScreenSteps while installing the plugin, and then instantly publishing to ScreenSteps Live brought a smile to my face.
ScreenSteps 2.7 is now available for download. Thank you to everyone who participated in the public beta. Your feedback really helped us improve the product.
View the video below to see a quick overview of all that is new.
We consider this one of our most significant releases ever. With the new Export Lesson to Clipboard feature, you can now use your ScreenSteps content in a wide variety of applications. Here is a short list of the applications that can now accept content created in ScreenSteps:
Outlook
Microsoft Word (on Windows)
Apple Pages
Mac OS X Mail
Evernote
Yojimbo
OmniFocus
Or any other application that will accept HTML pasted from the system clipboard
This means you can now:
Send visual emails
Insert ScreenSteps content into existing documents you are working on in your word processor
Use ScreenSteps to capture knowledge and store it in information collection applications such as Evernote and Yojimbo
We have also made improvements to the way your lessons look including:
We have scheduled two webinars to help you learn about the new features in ScreenSteps 2.7. The first one is this Friday, and the second one is in early January. We will also show you how you can implement these features into your daily workflow.
The 2.7 public beta is rolling along. Thanks so much to all who have sent in such great feedback. We have already incorporated a lot of the feedback that we have received, adding some new twists to the features we are introducing in version 2.7.
The video below points out some highlights.
Copy HTML or PDF to the system clipboard
HTML works great for sending emails to customers, colleagues and customers. But help desk ticketing systems often mangle HTML emails. We really think that ScreenSteps is a great tool to use when you are trying to submit bug reports so we had to come up with a solution. And thus was born the copy PDF to clipboard feature.
If you are submitting a bug to a help ticketing system, just select Copy to Clipboard > PDF and paste it into an email. This will also work for attaching PDFs to web based email systems such as Gmail.
In addition you can use the copy PDF feature to send lessons via instant messaging applications.
Searching with the Tags Palette
You can now drag tags from the Tags Palette into the search field to quickly filter your lessons by tags.
Improved: Set the Maximum Width for Your HTML/Blog/Wiki Templates
The other day we were preparing for our WordPress and ScreenSteps webinar. When using ScreenSteps with any blog or wiki you need to make sure that you set the maximum width of your template to the width of your blog/wiki. While preparing for the webinar we decided that the process doing that was too cumbersome. So we made it easier. You can now set the maximum width for your templates right in the ScreenSteps Preferences screen.
We are thrilled to announce the availability of the public beta of ScreenSteps 2.7. We think that you are going to be able to find some very creative uses for ScreenSteps with this new release.
The Biggies
Copy lesson to clipboard is the feature I am personally most excited about. I have been using this feature over the last couple of weeks and being able to insert pictures and text into an email is truly fantastic. It is great for sending a quick how-to to a client (or family member) or for submitting bug reports.
So far we have tested this feature with Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail and everything seems to work great. Entourage users – we are sorry but it doesn’t look like it is going to work out for you. We don’t know what Entourage does with rich content that is pasted in but it certainly isn’t what you would expect.
Drop shadows on annotations is a close second as far as favorite features. Annotations really stand out with the new drop shadows. We think that you will agree that everything looks much better.
Smart selections make working with annotations so much easier. You no longer have to switch tools to reposition annotations. Just click on the annotation and move it.
The Tags palette makes tagging your lessons a snap. Just select Window > Tag Palette. You can now drag tags onto any lesson in your library or in your manual.
Replacing content is also very exciting for our WordPress, TypePad, Movable Type, MindTouch and Confluence users.
Post a lesson to your blog or wiki
In the blog/wiki editor, add content before or after your lesson.
Change your lesson in ScreenSteps Desktop and repost.
Your lesson content is replaced but all other content is left alone.
Other Improvements
You should notice that ScreenSteps is a bit faster. We have added a lot of optimizations to improve launch time and other functions.
We have expanded the search options to allow you to sort lessons by status and also find all of your draft lessons.
Markdown has been added as a template style.
ScreenSteps Live users can now attach files to lessons they upload right after they post the lesson to ScreenSteps Live.
You may also want to register for our WordPress and ScreenSteps webinar next Tuesday. We will be showing off some of the new 2.7 features during that webinar.
Here is another video showing off some of the new features coming to ScreenSteps 2.7. In previous versions of ScreenSteps if you re-uploaded a lesson that had been added to your blog or wiki it would overwrite any changes or edits you had made to the post from your web authoring software. For example, think of the following scenario:
I create a tutorial in ScreenSteps
I post it to my WordPress blog
In the WordPress editor I add a section above the lesson content with some information about some event we are having.
I notice that one of the images in the lesson needs updating. So I update it and repost from ScreenSteps Desktop.
In previous versions of ScreenSteps the event information I entered would get overwritten. In ScreenSteps 2.7, only the content that ScreenSteps created will get updated. Everything else remains intact. This works with WordPress, TypePad, Movable Type, MindTouch and Confluence.
Watch the video below for a quick overview:
If you are a frequent blogger then this will be a great addition to your blogging system.
ScreenSteps and WordPress Webinar
Next week on Tuesday, December 8 from 12pm-1pm EST we will be hosting a webinar entitled Advanced WordPress with ScreenSteps and ScreenSteps Live. In this webinar we will be covering how to get the most out of using WordPress and ScreenSteps together including:
How to quickly create and publish visual blog posts and pages for your WordPress blog.
How to customize your ScreenSteps templates to match the format of your blog.
Inserting YouTube videos into your blog posts using ScreenSteps.
New in ScreenSteps 2.7: Updating ScreenSteps content on your WordPress blog.
Integrating ScreenSteps Live into your WordPress blog.
Here is another video previewing some of the features coming to ScreenSteps 2.7. We are getting very close to having a public beta available but we still wanted to show you some of the new stuff.
This preview is all about annotations. We will be highlighting two new features that may seem small but that will have a big impact on your day to day use with ScreenSteps: drop shadows and annotations.
Drop Shadows
In 2.7 you will be able to add drop shadows to any of your annotations. Drop shadows not only look nice, but they make the annotations “hover” above your screen captures or images. This makes it much clearer what part of the image is your annotation and what is the original image.
Smart Selections
Smart selections are one of those subtle changes that make a world of difference. In previous version of ScreenSteps, working with different types of annotations could be a little cumbersome. To reposition different types of annotations you needed to use the Select tool, or choose the annotation tool that matched the annotation you wanted to reposition.
Not anymore. In ScreenSteps 2.7 you easily select, reposition and resize any annotation, regardless of the tool you have selected. We think that you will really love this improvement.
The Sale Just Got a Little Staler
Today (Wednesday, November 25th) the ScreenSteps discount went down to 30% off. If you haven’t purchased ScreenSteps yet be sure to take advantage of the offer today (30% off is still a great deal). Just use the coupon code THANKS. Be sure to do it today though. Tomorrow the discount will drop to 20%. You can order ScreenSteps here
We wanted to show you a bit of what is coming in ScreenSteps 2.7. We are always trying to make it easier for our users to communicate visually and ScreenSteps 2.7 is going to make a major improvement in that area.
Two big features coming to 2.7 are:
Copy lesson to clipboard
Drop shadows
Below is a video showing off the copy to clipboard feature. You can now copy the contents of your ScreenSteps lesson to the system clipboard and paste it into a new email message.
This is going to help you use ScreenSteps in a completely new way. Some great uses of this feature will be:
Customer support
Submitting bug reports
Demonstrating the flow of an application to a colleague
Any type of visual communication via email
We hope to have a public beta in the coming weeks. With 2.7 we are still trying to help you do more than just capture screens. We want to help you communicate visually. This upgrade will be free for all 2.x owners so, if you purchase during this weeks sale you will be entitled to the 2.7 upgrade at no additional cost. We think you are going to love this.
Starting Today! The Sale that Goes Stale
Last month we had our biggest sales month ever and two weeks ago we had our biggest single sales day ever. Thank you so much to all of you who are using ScreenSteps and especially all of you who are telling your friends and colleagues about it.
To thank everyone for their support and to celebrate Thanksgiving we are having a Thanksgiving sale. But this isn’t your standard sale. It’s the “sale that goes stale”.
Monday and Tuesday – Fresh – 40% off of all Blue Mango Products
Wednesday – Like day old bread – 30% off
Thursday – Why are you shopping anyways? You should be eating turkey – 20% off
Friday – stale – 10% off
The sale begins now (Monday, November 23, 2009) and isn’t combinable with any other offers. The percentage off can be applied to ScreenSteps Standard, ScreenSteps Pro, or to the first three months of a ScreenSteps Live account.
For ScreenSteps Live the discount applies to the first 3 months of your plan. So, if you signed up for a Solo ScreenSteps Live account at $19/month you would only pay $11.40/month for the first three months. This applies to any plan.
All you need to do to take advantage of the sale is use the coupon code:
THANKS
We have just prepared a new video that shows how you can create a visual knowledge base in under 10 minutes using ScreenSteps Desktop and ScreenSteps Live.
Visual knowledge bases combine images and text to provide clear answers and instructions to your customers and users. Visual knowledge bases have the following advantages:
They have full text search – unlike video libraries.
They have clear visual information to help users complete tasks quickly – unlike traditional, text-based, knowledge bases.
They are easy to update when things change – unlike video libraries.
They are faster to create than either a video library or traditional knowledge base.
The video goes through the entire process of creating a visual knowledge base including:
Signing up for an account
Going through the new account setup wizard
Configuring your ScreenSteps Desktop software to post to ScreenSteps Live
Posting your first manual to ScreenSteps Live
Customizing the design of your ScreenSteps Live site
You can view the video below.
The new account setup wizard on ScreenSteps Live really makes it easy to get your ScreenSteps Live site up and running quickly.
Webinar – Creating Visual Knowledge Bases with ScreenSteps Live
A lot has been added to ScreenSteps Live over the last month. To help introduce existing users to the new functionality and introduce new users to ScreenSteps Live we have scheduled a webinar for this Friday, Nov. 20, at 10am EST. Topics covered will include:
The basics of creating visual knowledge bases
Understanding the difference between buckets and manuals on ScreenSteps Live
Introduction to the new “tasks” feature
Introduction to new color customization options for spaces on ScreenSteps Live
We will of course leave time for answering questions from attendees. You can register for the webinar here:
We are happy to announce a slew of new features that have just been released for ScreenSteps Live. The goals for this update were to help you:
Look better
Be more organized
Get more done in less time
The video below gives you a quick overview of all that is new:
Look Better
Until now, the only way to customize your ScreenSteps Live site was to add in some custom CSS or create a custom template. These are both great options but they require that you understand code. That can be pretty intimidating for most people. ScreenSteps is supposed to be about not having to deal with any of that messy code.
We are happy to announce that as of today you don’t have to anymore. You can now customize all of the colors on your ScreenSteps Live account without having to enter any CSS or HTML at all. Our new template designer lets you select colors from a color palette and then save your template. You can even choose a list of our preset designs.
If you still need the HTML templates, don’t worry, they will always be available. But for those of you who just want to change the colors around a bit but don’t want to mess with CSS or HTML this is going to be a great option.
Be more organized
ScreenSteps Live makes it so easy to create lessons that our users quickly find that they post a lot of content. But a lot of our users were having trouble keeping track of who was in charge of creating or updating specific lessons in their ScreenSteps Live account. Since we don’t believe that anyone should have to repeat work we are happy to introduce the new “Tasks” feature.
Tasks are simple to-do lists. You create a to-do for each lesson that needs to be created on your account. You can either assign it to one of your team members (they will get an email notification) or you leave it unassigned. Unassigned tasks can be claimed by any team member who logs in. Tasks offer a simple way to keep your team organized and let them know what content needs to be added to your ScreenSteps Live site.
Get more done
To help you get more done in less time we made ourselves look better. ScreenSteps Live has been completely redesigned with a clear, more polished look. We have also made it much easier to get access to public urls for your spaces and lessons as well as create new spaces, manuals, buckets, etc. on your account.
If you are current ScreenSteps Live user we think that you are really going to love the changes. If you haven’t tried ScreenSteps Live yet, sign up for a free 30-day trial. Our new setup wizard will have you going in no time. You will quickly see what a difference a visual knowledge base can make to your business or organization.
