Re: [Usability] Re: Screenshots as videos

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gmail com>]

I'm going to reply en-mass to a number of points.  For people with
threaded mail clients, this will appear as a reply to Alan's post,
but it's not just directed at Alan.

1) My proposal for a seperate dialog for the screenshot utility
was independant of whether it should be able to take videos.
I really do think it's the right thing to do.  I makes all the
functionality of the tool exposed in the UI.  That means it can
be used under more circumstances (my crazy xnest usage), and
everything is more discoverable.

2) Just to reiterate, Printscreen and Alt+Printscreen should
continue to do exactly what they do now.

3) Though I didn't say so before, I think we should bury the
screenshot tool under Accessories or something.  But that's
not really relevant to the rest of my email.

4) I don't have a problem with *short* hints in the interface,
and I *am* the documentation team.  I would be concerned about
long narratives, but a one-line italicized tip is cool in my
book.  Mind you, I don't think we should go adding such tips
all over every interface.  A dialog of this sort is different
from, say, a Nautilus window, from my point of view.

5) If the tool got video recording, it should absolutely be
renamed in the interface.  Like "Screen Capture Tool".

6) I don't necessarily think that screenshots and screen videos
are that different from a user's perspective.  I think if we had
a "Screen Capture Tool" menu item, people would be able to find
that.  But that's just a guess.  I'm open to being proven wrong
with some user testing.  The only question that's relevant is
whether it makes sense to a user, not whether it's easy from
an implementation standpoint.

7) Don't like Point 6?  Fine and dandy.  I'm not going to push
it too hard.  But I stand firmly behind Point 1.

8) I remember somebody saying something once about using fancy
new X capabilities to do a quick shutter animation over the
desktop or window.  Make it fast enough to be unobtrusive, and
maybe mostly transparent, and I will consider the implementor
of said eye candy to be a deity.

--
Shaun