[Usability] Re: Screenshots as videos

[Jonathan Blandford <jrb redhat com>]

jeroen xs4all nl writes:

> I don't intend to change the behavior of the (Alt-)PrintScreen keys. That
> functionality should definitely stay the same. What i intend is to display
> a dialog like the one i did in glade
> (http://www.xs4all.nl/~jeroen/screenshots/Screenshot-Screenshot-2.png)
> when gnome-screenshot is launched without any parameters. The default
> option would be to take a screenshot of the entire desktop. So if a user
> wants to take a screenshot of he/she has to do is press ENTER or click the
> OK button. After that he/she would get the same dialog they now get.

That's the step I don't want and am arguing against.  Right now, you
press Printscreen, you get a screenshot.  There's no 'hit Enter' step,
no confirm what you want.  It's really powerful to be able to have a
key/action just do something, and this improves the overall desktop.
Same with Alt-PrintScreen to take the window screenshot.  Any dialog
that comes up is going to alter the screen (and mouse position, and..)

It's pretty analogous to the instant apply situation in the
control-center.  Sure, we can have apply buttons, but it's more powerful
to remove a layer of indirection.  It's really nice when something
happens when you press a button.

For the video capture, I fear that the dialog is essential[1] in some
form.  If nothing else, the user needs to know what's going on so that
they don't fill up their harddrive and CPU unwittingly.  The bottom half
of your mockup looks good to me, though I don't have a strong opinion on
it.  

> If the user however wants to record a video (note that i don't think
> binding that functionality to a keybinding is a good idea) he/she can
> initiate that from the dialog. After OK'ing the dialog, a notification
> area icon would appear to indicate it's recording. The user can press the
> icon again to stop recording (or have some sort of key combo to do the
> same). After stopping the recording the user would get a dialog asking
> where to save the video (basically the same as the current screenshot
> dialog, maybe even with a thumbnail of the video).
> 
> Seth has some nice ideas about cropping the video (start & endpoint) after
> recording, but that won't be in 1.0 if it's up to me (start simple).

Yeah, that stuff was pretty cool.  I'd love to see all that happen.  I'd
certainly use it to demonstrate things.

> So that is basically what i have in mind.
> 
> Some use-cases:
> 
> - Alice wants to record some cool new feature/how to do something no her
> desktop for Bob who runs Linux/Windows/Apple. She starts gnome-screenshot
> (via panel) and selects "record video". She also selects the type of video
> depending on which OS Bob runs ("Apple video (Quicktime)", "Windows video
> (AVI)" etc). After recording she saves the file to her desktop and mails
> it to Bob. Bob watches it with Windows Media Player/Quicktime/Totem.
> 
> - Jane doesn't know very much about how to use a computer/GNOME/a specific
> application. She records a video to send to her son who happens to be a
> GNOME hacker to explain what she is trying to do. Same principle as above.
> This can also apply to a helpdesk, or when demonstrating a particular bug
> in a piece of software (append the video to a bug report in bugzilla).
> 
> Vino/vnc is a little more "hands-on" help. That isn't always an option
> (distance/firewalls between people etc.).

I would argue that the two biggest uses we'll actually see of this in
real life are:

1) GNOME Hackers showing off cool stuff

2) Part of any bug reporting scheme that we might see.  For example,
   making bug-buddy aware of it could be pretty powerful.  Though I
   don't know how well attaching a bunch of videos to bugzilla will do..

> I haven't look at Lutz' patch, but i plan to.
> 
> >From a real-world point-of-view: most cameras today can take photographs
> but can also record small videos. The thing i'm trying to achieve is a
> single location from which you can do a screen capture. Either in the form
> of a screenshot (static) or a video (dynamic). If people have issues with
> my mockup, it's just that: a mockup.

Taking this analogy further, wouldn't it be annoying if every time you
tried to take a picture, you had to select still 'image or video' in a
dialog on the camera. (-:

Analogies are pretty dangerous, though.  I haven't really seen a
digital-camera that acts as a good video camera, and vice-versa.  Those
that have both functionality tend to have different interfaces (or a
really obvious way of switching between the two modes.)

Here's what I'd like to see:

1) A screenshooter like we currently have.
2) A standalone video-shooter, similar to what people have already
   written.
3) Similar appearance and feel between the two (as with the rest of the
   GNOME desktop), but distinct launching mechanisms.

Additionally, I'd like to see:

4) No menu item for either.

This last thing is more a bigger picture item, and is probably
innappropriate for this thread.  It feels like we've gotten menu
expansion again, and neither of these feels like they warrant a menu
item.  I don't think the criteria for menu items is defined, though, and
we can't really discuss individual menu items outside the context of the
menu as a whole.

Thanks,
-Jonathan

[1] Though, in the brave new world of render, it would be awesome if we
could avoid this.  Imagine that while we're recording, we have a slight
overlay over the window that's not captured letting us know how long
we've recorded and how to stop.