Category: Keywords: ScreenSteps.me, customer support, marketing, screenshots, ScreenSteps Desktop Status: draft

We just launched our public beta of ScreenSteps.me last week and the response has been pretty exciting. I have to say that I haven’t been this excited about a new feature in ScreenSteps since we released our integration with ScreenSteps Live and ScreenSteps Desktop. ScreenSteps Live solved a huge problem for me as a business owner. It let me support more customers with less time and effort. During the two weeks I have been using ScreenSteps.me, it has saved me hours time. Here are just a few of the ways I have been using ScreenSteps.me.

1. Communicating with virtual workers

We recently started working with a freelancer on Elance. She is doing some CSS work for some new templates we have coming to ScreenSteps Live. Elance has a message board where I can give job descriptions and provide feedback on the work provided. I have been using ScreenSteps.me to do two things:

• Describe the work I want done
• Provide feedback on the the work that has been submitted

The whole process has gone very smoothly. I have never had to send follow up messages to clarify what I need. Almost all of the “back and forth” that is usually involved in trying to describe how I want a job done has been eliminated. I ask for something and a day or two later I get a message that it is completed. It is wonderful.

View an example of one of our Elance posts

2. Bug reports

I use a lot of software products everyday in my business. Invariably I find bugs in the products I use (including the ones we develop). But describing bugs in an online chat or email can be tedious and usually involves a lot of back and forth communication as the company tries to understand the problem I am having.

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For quite awhile now we have had some great integrations between Zendesk and ScreenSteps Live. For those of you who don’t know, Zendesk is a web based help ticketing and customer community platform. ScreenSteps Live is a hosted CMS for visual documentation.

We have heard from some Zendesk users though who just want to use ScreenSteps Desktop to upload content to the built-in Zendesk forums. We are happy to announce that, as of ScreenSteps 2.8.7 (currently in beta), that is now possible.

But not only can you create forum topics using ScreenSteps Pro, you can also respond to forum topics using ScreenSteps Pro.

Check out the video below for an example. We think that you will agree that it sure beats uploading images in a web based WYSIWYG editor.

If you are a Zendesk user then try it for yourself.

Download the ScreenSteps 2.8.7 Beta

• ScreenSteps Pro + Zendesk Documentation

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

Whipping up an email to report a bug, provide feedback on a website or application or teach someone how to do something is really convenient.

With the new Export to Clipboard feature in ScreenSteps 2.7 you can quickly create visually rich, descriptive documents in ScreenSteps and instantly insert the it into a new email message in Outlook. The video below shows you how:

Evernote is a great note/information collection application. Not only does it sync across multiple devices but it will actually let you search for text inside of images you insert into notes. I like to use Evernote to store information about tasks that I perform on a semi-regular basis. With the new Export to Clipboard feature in ScreenSteps 2.7 you can now easily do your screen captures and authoring in ScreenSteps and instantly insert the lesson or document you created into Evernote. The video below shows all of the details:

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

ScreenSteps 2.6.2 is now available for download. This update fixes several bugs but also adds a few enhancements in regards to interfacing with ScreenSteps Live:

• You can now upload manuals and lessons to ScreenSteps Live as drafts.
• Editor and Author permissions are enforced in the upload interface (i.e. Editors and Authors must attach manuals to a space and must attach lessons to a bucket or manual).
• You can now jump straight to the web administration interface for your ScreenSteps Live account right from the File menu.

For non-ScreenSteps Live user:

• Exporting to Confluence now uses fileName property rather than URL property for image embedding. This makes pages portable between different urls.
• You can now filter by draft status on export.
• Holding down the option or alt key while dragging a lesson onto a manual now adds a copy of the lesson to the manual (also works with multiple lessons selection).

No major enhancements in this one. Just some small improvements to make your work with ScreenSteps easier. You can update by selecting “Help > Check for Updates” or downloading the full installer here:

http://www.bluemangolearning.com/screensteps/downloads

The full release notes are here:

Release notes

We are very excited to announce the release of ScreenSteps 2.6. This adds some of our biggest feature requests yet:

• Embedding of videos
• Export to Microsoft Word/Apple Pages (Pro only)

We have also added some nice updates for ScreenSteps Live users. Checkout the video below to get a quick overview of what is new.

This is a free upgrade to all 2.x users. As you may have heard, with this update the price of ScreenSteps Pro will increase by $20 to $79.95. We have extended the old price of $59.95 through Monday, June 22 so purchase a copy before then to save $20. The price of ScreenSteps Standard will stay the same at $39.95.

Download ScreenSteps 2.6

Purchase ScreenSteps Now

Since the release of ScreenSteps 2.0 a lot has changed. Over the past 18 months major enhancements have been added that have dramatically improved the usability and versatility of the product. Version 2.6 is going to be one of the biggest leaps forward yet with the new Microsoft Word and Apple Pages export options.

With this 2.6 release, the price of ScreenSteps Pro is going to be increasing from $59.95 to $79.95.

Does that mean that existing users will have to pay for an upgrade? No! All 2.x updates to ScreenSteps have been free for registered 2.x customers and the good news is that 2.6 will continue the tradition. ScreenSteps 2.6 will still be a free upgrade to all ScreenSteps 2.x users.

So how does this affect you?

If you are already a ScreenSteps Pro user then it does not affect you at all. The upgrade will still be free.

If you are a ScreenSteps Standard user, the only thing that will change will be your upgrade price (it was previously $20, but will increase to $40).

If you haven’t purchased ScreenSteps Pro yet then you have through next Wednesday, June 17th to still get it at the current price of $59.95. After that the price will go up to $79.95.

So, If you have been thinking about either upgrading or purchasing, the time to act is now!

You can even download a preview of version 2.6 to test out the new Microsoft Word and Apple Pages export options here.

The new pricing will not take effect for at least one more week which means there is still time to buy a copy of ScreenSteps Pro for $59.95 or upgrade to ScreenSteps Pro for $20.

Purchase ScreenSteps 2 Pro

Upgrade from ScreenSteps Standard to ScreenSteps Pro

Do you think that the only way to get images into ScreenSteps is to use the ScreenSteps Capture Tool? If so then you are missing out on some of ScreenSteps’ best features. We have prepared two screencasts that show you a plethora of methods for getting images into ScreenSteps. We even prepared two videos, one for Windows and one for Mac that highlight methods that are unique to each system.

Getting Images into ScreenSteps: Windows

Contents include:

• Capture Palette
• Integrating with Windows Print Screen
• Integrating with Windows Alt-Print Screen
• Integrating with SnagIt
• Capturing still clips from QuickTime videos
• Importing Photos or other Image files

Getting Images into ScreenSteps: Mac

Contents include:

• Capture Palette
• Keyboard Shortcut
• Capturing still clips from QuickTime videos
• Integrating with Snapz Pro X
• Integrating with Skitch
• Integrating with OmniGraffle
• Importing Photos or other Image files

These screencasts came directly from content we have prepared and presented in our weekly webinars. To get some more great tips on using ScreenSteps be sure to register for one:

http://www.bluemangolearning.com/webinars