We just posted build 14 of the ScreenSteps 2.8 beta. In addition to numerous bug fixes, we also found time to add a couple of enhancements:

• The tag widget for a lesson now expands to show all tags.
• Holding down the Option key (Mac) or Alt key (Windows) when exporting a lesson or manual to PDF or DOCX will open the file in the default application rather than revealing the file.
• You can now customize the “Table of Contents” bookmark label for PDF templates.
• ScreenSteps now looks for a preference file alongside the application when launching. This allows you to store ScreenSteps and your registration/pref info on a USB drive.
• Links are no longer carried over to the next line when adding a carriage return to lesson description/step instructions.
• Updating a lesson on WordPress now overwrites existing images rather than making new ones (you will need to upload your lesson at least once with 2.8 for this to work).

This build of the beta has the final revision of the UI. At this point we are preparing for release and will be focusing on any bug reports we get. Test away!

Download the ScreenSteps 2.8 Beta

We recently discovered that Squarespace supports publishing content using an XML-RPC blogging client. What does this mean for ScreenSteps users? That’s right, YAO (Yet Another Output). By configuring a WordPress Web Export account in ScreenSteps you will be adding visually rich journal posts to Squarespace in no time.

Check out the following screencast showing how it works. To configure ScreenSteps, check out the instructions showing how to configure ScreenSteps to post to Squarespace.

Version 2 of ScreenSteps has been out for just over 2 years now. During this time, ScreenSteps has had numerous updates that improved workflow, added new features and extended the number of export formats. Now it is time for ScreenSteps to get a facelift.

Today the ScreenSteps 2.8 Public Beta is available for download. The primary focus of this release will be graphical changes to the user interface. As with any graphical change the aim is to make the software look better. It is more important, however, that the graphical changes improve how we interact with the software. We feel the UI changes in 2.8 do just that. Here is what the new UI looks like:

As you can see we have darkened the colors used in the toolbar, the left column and the footer. This helps focus the eye on the content that is being written. We have also reworked the lesson editing UI to improve object alignment and spacing. We think the writing process is much more enjoyable now.

Download the ScreenSteps 2.8 Beta

During the ScreenSteps 2.8 beta testing period we hope to get feedback from our customers on the new look. The big question is this: Does the new UI improve your experience when working with ScreenSteps?

Let us know.

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.

Lesson Library

Manuals View

Lesson Editing

Every once in a while we get an email in support asking whether or not a Linux version is planned. We’ve been going back and forth as to whether or not we want to support another platform.

On one hand a new platform adds new support issues and while we use Linux on some of our servers we don’t use Linux on the desktop at all.

On the other hand companies that have to train employees that they migrate to Linux definitely had a need for a program like ScreenSteps.

Last week Greg and I decided that we were going to determine whether or not a Linux version of ScreenSteps made sense. Thanks to VMWare Fusion, an Ubuntu image from VM Planet and Revolution (our development environment) we now have a build of ScreenSteps that runs on Linux.

So today we are announcing the “Experimental ScreenSteps for Linux Beta”. What is the “Experimental ScreenSteps for Linux Beta” you ask? It is a version of ScreenSteps that (mostly) works on Linux but with no guarantee that we will ever release a final version. Our goal with this release is to gauge interest in a Linux version, see if ScreenSteps works reasonably well on the different flavors of Linux out there, and get feedback from Linux users.

We invite you to download ScreenSteps, test it out and email us any feedback you have concerning problems you experienced or successes you had. You can download the ScreenSteps executable and accompanying readme file at the following url. Note that you need to have ImageMagick installed for screencapture to work. See the accompanying readme file for additional details and installation instructions.

http://www.bluemangolearning.com/download/screensteps/2_0/beta/screensteps.tar.gz

If you would like to learn more about what ScreenSteps is you can get more information here.

One of our core beliefs here at Blue Mango Learning Systems is that documentation must be a process, not an project. Documentation has to be something that is constantly evolving if it is going to be of any use.

We regularly add to our documentation to help our customers out. But we don’t always do a good job of letting people know about new lessons that are available.

From here on out we are going to post a list of newly created ScreenSteps lessons every couple of weeks just so you are aware what is out there. Maybe one will pop up that could be of use to you.

ScreenSteps Lessons Created in January

• How to Add Whatever Font You Want to Your HTML Template
• How Do I Make The Image Appear To the Left of the Text in an HTML Template?
• Installing/Sharing Templates
• Enabling Remote API (Joomla)
• Hiding Attachments in Google Sites
• Configuring ScreenSteps For Google Sites
• Posting To Google Sites
• Configuring Movable Type Plugin (Joomla)

If you have any lessons you would like us to add please just let us know in the comments below.

During the holidays things slow down a bit. There aren’t as many phone calls to make or emails to answer. Most people take the time to read a good book or catch a movie. Not Trevor though (the lead developer of ScreenSteps). Free time means time to polish off one of those projects that he has had on the workbench for awhile.

Publish to Blogger and Google Sites

Blogger support has been a big request for awhile so we are happy to announce you can now publish your ScreenSteps lessons to your Blogger blog (Standard and Pro versions). You can also now publish to Google Sites (Pro only).

Here are some lessons that will help get you started:

• Configuring ScreenSteps to Upload to Blogger
• Working with ScreenSteps Desktop and Google Sites

New Joomla Integration Manual

In one of our recent webinars we received another request for Joomla integration. After poking around on the internet for a few minutes we found a nice Joomla plugin that adds support for creating content using one of the methods already supported by ScreenSteps. As a result we have some new lessons that will show you how to easily integrate ScreenSteps with Joomla.

• Integrating ScreenSteps with Joomla

We hope that you enjoy the new export options. You can download the latest version of ScreenSteps here.

A couple of weeks ago I tried out Posterous. I was already familiar with the service as some of my friends use it for their blogs. When one of our customers started using ScreenSteps with Posterous I decided to give it a try.

What a great service. Posterous has removed all of the unnecessary steps from posting to your blog. I’m going to be experimenting with it more over the coming weeks but here is my first post showing how to make my favorite hot chocolate (tutorial made with ScreenSteps).

It turns out that ScreenSteps makes creating screen capture based tutorials in Posterous really easy. Here is a screencast showing how to integrate ScreenSteps and Posterous using the new copy to clipboard feature in ScreenSteps 2.7.

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With ScreenSteps 2.7 it is now much faster to upload ScreenSteps PDF files to web sites. You no longer have to export a PDF file, save it to disk and then find it again in a file upload box. The video below will show you how to complete this common task in two simple steps using ScreenSteps 2.7 on Windows.

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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.