Feature Requests
Let us know what you want to see in the next version of ScreenFlow.
Please look over the features that others have contributed, and VOTE on the ones you’d like to see. Or if you don’t see what you want, feel free to ADD your own in a comment.
113 Responses to “Feature Requests”
September 15th, 2009 at: 10:47 am
A template system would be great. Right now I record my screencasts and then have to resize and move things just right, then insert my “branding” intro and change the pointer. Only then am I ready to do the real editing of the actual screenflow I recorded. Would be a time saver if this was automated.
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September 15th, 2009 at: 10:49 am
The ability to save a clip edited in SF to its media board. I’m tired of having to railroad split clips to the end of the project in order to insert other clips in between. This way I could take a single recording, split it into say three segments, then save each segment under a different name and clear my timeline. I’d recommend adding this “save as” feature to the contextual menu in the clip, where the only current option is “delete.”
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September 15th, 2009 at: 10:53 am
The ability to create and save presets for callouts and actions! I use the mouse callout all the time, but I prefer to change the size, build-time, opacity, etc. It slows me down tremendously to have to re-build this every single time I want to add a callout.
Please, please, add callout presets!
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September 15th, 2009 at: 10:54 am
ability to blur text
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October 1st, 2009 at: 1:40 pm
I would like to be able to blur out parts of the screen in a simple way, so that I can record sensitive data and then blur it while editing.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 1st, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Excellent suggestion, Jorgen. Thank you!
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October 1st, 2009 at: 2:20 pm
Chromakey. You have it in VideoCue, so I know you can do it.
Also support for Elgato’s H.264 USB-stick would be great.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 1st, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Excellent, Henk. I’m hoping to do a blog post soon about how to use VideoCue & ScreenFlow together… so stay tuned for that. (Your ideas for specific topics would be very welcome!)
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October 1st, 2009 at: 2:57 pm
The ability to adjust the length of the transition in seconds (by typing in the the actual #) would be great. Allow 1/4 increments if possible.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 1st, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Excellent feedback. Thank you.
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October 1st, 2009 at: 3:03 pm
Better/easier/less-buggy cropping of videos would be my first request. Though maybe that’s coming in 2.0 already.
Also would love to be able to draw lines/objects, for use with text callouts.
More audio control would be great, specifically a noise/hum remover.
Thanks for a great 1.0… can’t wait for 2.0,
Dave
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 1st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Great input Dave. Thank you. We do have some cool new audio features coming in 2.0 – so stay tuned to hear more about those
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October 1st, 2009 at: 6:10 pm
Ability to group clips, please! A huge and fragmented video is almost impossible to handle.
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October 1st, 2009 at: 10:41 pm
The 3d Transitions looks a littlebit like the Transitions in Wirecast…
Will it also possible to use this with Titels like in wirecast?
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October 2nd, 2009 at: 9:21 am
I second Jörgen Olsson’s feature request: “I would like to be able to blur out parts of the screen in a simple way, so that I can record sensitive data and then blur it while editing.”
But let me add some detail: The shape and size of each blur overlay needs to be infinitely adjustable, and the movement of the blurred area over time should be keyframeable. Areas to be blurred can range from a column of text info on a web page, all the way to a face moving across a screen in a video a la COPS.
Thanks, folks! You do great things!
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October 4th, 2009 at: 2:57 pm
It would be great if screenflow remembered the last location of where you saved a file, so that you didn’t have to go through the process next to “where” when you want to export a file… It defaults to “desktop”.
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October 5th, 2009 at: 5:47 pm
Wow, I hope this post does NOT mean that all the good suggestions made over the past year in the Forums have gone unnoticed! There have been so many good suggestions posted there.
Off the top of my head I have two big requests. I never leave my audio recorded “as is.” So exporting the audio easily out of ScreenFlow would be fantastic. Currently I have to do this kind of awkward export as a PCM quicktime movie. This has several disadvantages. A simple export as AIF or WAV would do the job.
The second current problem is that after I enhance my audio in some other program I can’t just drag it into Screenflow. (Well, I can, but at my own peril.) Specifically SF does not import/store the media file within a SF project. I’ve learnt to create a folder for my SF project so all the external “stuff” (audio, images) stay with my project. But sometimes it’s very easy to forget to do this. So embedding these external files would make for a much quicker and smoother workflow.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 6th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Mathew,
Don’t worry, the Feature Requests within the Forum have not gone unnoticed! We very much appreciate the input- in whatever manner it is submitted. We created this page within the blog so that we could have an easy-to-find area, where people could make suggestions and vote on others’ suggestions (by clicking on the “thumbs up” icon). This will help us evaluate not only all the feature requests, but also the popularity of each feature request.
Thanks again for your suggestions and input.
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October 8th, 2009 at: 12:59 pm
1. It would be useful to have a set of standard canvas size presets to choose from – such as web, youtube, ipod, etc. – and the ability to define a preset. Maybe also a constrain checkbox, so it keeps a 3:4 or 16:9 when you change the width or height.
2. The canvas video and imported images should scale in proportion from their corner points without the need of holding down the shift key. There is very little I intentionally scale out of proportion, so to me the current set up is not intuitive.
Thanks.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 8th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Rachel – excellent feedback. thank you!
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October 13th, 2009 at: 5:46 am
When screencasts of our products, I don’t want to have a ScreenFlow icon in my dock during the recording or in the menu bar if possible. I want to showcase my product only in the screencast. Will that be possible in ScreenFlow 2?
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 13th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Hi Pat,
It’s possible now to hide the ScreenFlow icon in your dock and on the menu bar.
In ScreenFlow, go to preferences, and unclick the “Show ScreenFlow options in menu bar”. This will remove it from the menu bar.
To hide your dock, you can go to your Mac’s system preferences/dock and check the option that says show/hide menu dock.
This will also be available in ScreenFlow 2.0 Enjoy!
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October 15th, 2009 at: 4:22 am
Right now the only thing I can think of that isn’t going to be available in 2.0 and that I would like is direct blog integration.
Similar to the YouTube feature only where by a completed screencast could be posted directly to a WordPress or other such blogging platform.
I think for blog demonstrations, productive reviews, tutorials etc this would be a nice addition.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 15th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Great idea, Paul. Thanks!
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October 15th, 2009 at: 8:08 pm
Hi Lynn,
Another great feature would be to export in HD format (as a preset). At the moment it’s by scale% & custom, it would be kind of cool to just be able to click one option… like “export in HD format 1280×720″ or True HD etc.
Then, if you’re uploading to video sharing sites – the size fits the players without any blank/black bar at the sides…
Cheers
Dave
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Great idea! Thanks for the input
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October 16th, 2009 at: 2:19 am
Hi Lynn
Looking forward to your blogpost about how to use VideoCue & ScreenFlow together.
/Per
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 16th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Me too! It will be ready soon
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October 17th, 2009 at: 5:44 am
Definitely, support for the Elgato H-264 USB video processor would be a great way to improve the video conversion speed on my MacBookPro.
I love this product (screenflow) and it has made by Facilitator job so much easier.
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October 17th, 2009 at: 11:28 am
Support for grabbing keys from virtual machines (e.g. Parallels or VMWare). Whenever I do a Windows screencast, I am unable to have Screenflow show which buttons I push.
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October 17th, 2009 at: 11:31 am
In thread with Paul’s idea: Support for other uploading APIs than YouTube. I prefer using Vimeo, and I bet others use other video services, too.
Maybe just a simple export API wherein I can *easily* implement my own Screenflow-to-*videosite*.
Also, when exporting to a given site, have Screenflow know exactly which video settings are optimal for it.
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October 18th, 2009 at: 11:24 am
1: Arbitrary callouts
I really love the ability to use callouts to highlight the window i’m talking about right now but I really missed the ability to highlight a arbitrary part of the screen, say the sidebar of a window or a couple of textfields in a form.
The ability to just select a area in the edit phase and blur/black out everything (like a callout) else would be really helpful compared to swiping the mouse over the area in recording phase and the use a callout on the mouse in the edit phase.
2: The ability to show Windows keys ( the words “Ctrl”, “Alt”, “Shift” and such + the ability to show the logo on the start-button) when recording programs in virtual machines such as VMWare and Parallels (As an addition to post number 30)
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October 19th, 2009 at: 3:28 am
I don’t know if this has already been added but the ability to join video and audio segments together after cutting out a section would be great. It gets very hardware intensive when you try to shift 15 minutes worth of video and audio a few seconds right.
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October 22nd, 2009 at: 5:42 am
With all the great new features in 2.0, my wish list has certainly gotten shorter. The top item on that list now is support for green screen. Although the conventional way to do this is in post, I’d like to raise the idea of having an additional green screen capture option where the video from screen and camera are overlayed during capture (genLock style). This is in addition to post which will be better for some things.
With green screen capture (based upon iChat effects?), the presenter would have real-time feedback on the composite image enabling them to point, gesture and even walk around the scene using a remote mouse or clicker.
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October 22nd, 2009 at: 6:12 am
The Text Box feature is very nice but I still find myself building containers in Keynote or Omnigraffle. Here’s an example:
http://hercules.gcsu.edu/~flowney/iphoneapps/PodcastChannelAsWebApp/
In particular, I’d like to be able to deform the container shape while it’s in the timeline. For example, if I had a “speech” bubble like the one in the example cited above, I would be able to animate the pointy part so that it would move from item to item stretching as needed. I can do this in a static way now but the smooth animation between them is what I am wishing for.
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October 22nd, 2009 at: 6:42 pm
I would like to see the ability to create a highlight/spotlight box around an area of choice (the mouse shouldn’t have to be in the area to point something out), just like they do on the football replays (highlighting a player we should watch). Being able to zoom in that selected area, blur out the background…Just like we are able to spot light the mouse. Many of times I would like to show an area and I moved the mouse away from the area… I don’t want to zoom in the whole page or create a foreground zoom.
But I love your product guys keep up the good work and I can’t wait to try out the new Screenflow 2.
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October 24th, 2009 at: 10:17 pm
The ability to export the project to iMovie or FCP for further tweaking would be nice.
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November 4th, 2009 at: 12:46 pm
I would love to be able to “Package” all of the assets that I use when I’m working on project, similar to the Adobe InDesign “Package” feature. Basically, take all of the assets that I’m using in my project and copy them all to a single folder. This way, I never have to worry about trying to locate files from an old project.
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November 11th, 2009 at: 12:36 pm
Two items.
(1) I can’t just create a blank screencast canvas. It seems I have to start recording, then stop the recording before I can get to the canvas. Then I have to delete the recording before I start building. Having an option at the beginning to either start recording or go to a blank canvas would be nice.
(2) The default canvas color is black. I’d like to be able to change that to white or red or whatever the color needs to be. Right now, I have to import a white graphic and constantly resize it to turn the background white.
I too am looking forward to using video cue and screenflow together.
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November 21st, 2009 at: 2:56 pm
Nudging & Constrained Dragging
There are just a couple of really basic features common to almost all visual design/video software that you guys need to implement.
Arrow key single pixel nudging of selected elements is one.
Holding down shift to restrict element dragging to vertical, horizontal, or 45 degrees is another.
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November 21st, 2009 at: 2:58 pm
Audition video & audio directly from the media bin.
Right now you have to drag a video or audio clip to the timeline and play if you want to verify it is what you think it is. It would be nice to be able to double click media in the bin and have it open in a simple player.
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November 22nd, 2009 at: 11:33 am
Tom: I totally agree with both your suggestions. Thanks for suggesting them. The ability to nudge media on the preview pane would be a big help to me personally.
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November 26th, 2009 at: 7:50 am
Media asset management is an area that could be improved in at least two ways:
1) The Media Inspector should be able to access iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie assets.
2) ScreenFlow should have a Global Bin for commonly reused elements that is available to all projects. Thus, I could use Keynore and OmniGraffle to create shapes and other elements that I want to use across many or all of my projects.
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November 26th, 2009 at: 8:00 am
Extend “Curve Types” to clip speed adjustment. Clip speed adjustment is a great feature but for many things we need a smoother transition. Sometimes, the transition to “normal” speed is too jarring.
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November 26th, 2009 at: 8:21 am
We need to have an “ambient noise” filter for audio recording at those time and in those places where we cannot control ambient noise.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
November 26th, 2009 at 8:58 am
@Frank – Thanks – there have been a lot of feature requests re: audio. It’s certainly something on the radar. If you haven’t already, check out the post on Tips for Great Sounding Audio. One tip mentioned there is to add some room sound underneath your audio track to smooth it out or make it sound the same. To do this just record about 15 seconds of “room noise” before you begin your voice over, that way the room sound will ‘match’ the track with your audio.
Thanks for your feedback
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November 30th, 2009 at: 10:23 am
Now that version 2.0 enables transitions and that can be invoked by simply dragging the beginning of one clip over the end of another, I am even more insecure about gaps between clips going undetected and uncorrected. Snapping helps but doesn’t ‘cure’ this insecurity. Thus, I propose a “Tighten” command in the Actions menu that would operate on all contiguous selected clips reducing any gaps between those clips to zero. A transition, by definition, has no gap and, so, should not be affected.
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November 30th, 2009 at: 10:37 am
Regarding ambient noise reduction, if you have a built-in mic as with a MacBook Pro, you will find that you do have an ambient noise reduction option. Verify this by looking at your Sound preference panel. There should be a check box.
The Mac Pro doesn’t have this.
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December 16th, 2009 at: 2:04 pm
Reported by @Turtleknife:
As a result of this exercise I came up with 2 feature requests – be careful what you wish for Lynn!
1 – When doing intricate effects like this I could have used a grid across the video for guiding certain elements.
2 – Also, if I could see a transparent or ghosted version of the twine of another particular track, while working on a different one it would make positioning really easy. As it is now, you sort of have to guess, then watch and adjust.
Just love screenflow, really. Thanks again.
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December 22nd, 2009 at: 9:12 am
Please add an ability to split an audio file, similar to a video clip. This would allow users to import a track from Garageband, then split the track at key points and position as appropriate.
This would be a HUGE time saver, because you wouldn’t have to worry about the timing in Garageband.
The last I checked, you could only truncate the beginning or end of an audio file. So if the original had a timing issue, you had to import a second full length audio file and truncate the beginning and end of that.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:15 am
Hi Sherman,
The ability to split an audio file is already possible in Version 2.0, by using the “Split Clip” feature. Try it out, it’s pretty nifty!
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December 29th, 2009 at: 8:41 pm
Not sure if these suggestions have been posted before. But I would like a way keep some media clips stored in ScreenFlow that appear each time I start a new project.
Also, it would be nice to use markers without using the popup box. I just want to be able to click say the M key and the marker appear.
Despite my wishes, ScreenFlow is still an awesome program.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
December 30th, 2009 at 10:03 am
@Bakari Thanks for the input. The idea of keeping media clips stored or handy has been mentioned, but it’s a good one.
Also, regarding markers: Currently you can use the shortcut ` (backward quote) to insert a marker in your timeline. It does pop up a box that allows you to label your marker, but you can disregard that by leaving it blank and hitting enter.
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December 30th, 2009 at: 7:15 pm
Hi Lynn. I find when I am working with images or video that have a dark background it’s hard to see where the video borders are. It would be great if there was a hi-light feature so that no matter what clip I am currently working on, the outside frame of the video is clearly indicated. Thanks.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 8:13 am
Good idea. Logged. Thanks.
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December 31st, 2009 at: 12:58 pm
The ability to export a freeze frame to a PNG or other photo file would be ideal so we could edit these in a photo editing program such as pixelmator or photoshop and then reimport them. Currently I workaround this by taking a screenshot of the same image, but it would be great if we could do this directly from screenflow.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
December 31st, 2009 at 1:03 pm
That’s a good one @jhphillips. And your workaround is very clever until that becomes a feature.
Thanks,
LYNN
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January 6th, 2010 at: 9:11 pm
Ability to add Closed Captioning to videos… without using a zillion text boxes.
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January 9th, 2010 at: 5:21 pm
Please could you be able to drag a box with the mouse around the call out area. Then simply add the pan in pan out length. Would make call outs a lot simpler and we could then record without having to get the mouse pointing at the right section or be limited to simple zoom with no resizing.
i think it is easy to use and know it cant do everything but this has been my main issue with it so far.
thanks
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
January 10th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Thanks @Scottland. Noted.
Though it’s not a solution, one workaround is to duplicate the clip you want to highlight, and put it above the original clip in your timeline. Crop the copied clip into the size of rectangle you need. So, you should have your copied clip on top, and your original clip beneath it. Select the original clip, and decrease it opacity (i.e. darken it), which will make the rectangle you just created stand out…
For more info on this, take a look at this thread on the ScreenFlow forum
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January 18th, 2010 at: 9:55 am
It is possible to copy pan and zoom settings from one clip to another IF those settings are done with a video action. However, if these same settings are applied to the clip itself (no transitions), a copy/paste does not work.
This capability is highly useful and needs to be expanded to all possible cases, not just pan and zoom and not just from one video action to another. Any setting should be copy-able from any point in a clip and paste-able to any other clip(s) or appropriate action(s).
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
January 18th, 2010 at 10:04 am
HI Frank,
Actually, by using “Paste Adjustments” (as opposed to just “Paste) you can copy pan and zoom settings from one clip to another (even if they have no video action). There are 2 very helpful tutorials on this done by Greg DeVore at Bluemangolearning:
Paste & Zoom from one clip to another with no video action)
Paste Adjustments with a video action
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Frank Lowney Reply:
January 18th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
I stand corrected. Thanks. The first iteration of this article didn’t differentiate between clips that have an action and those that do not. As you point out, this has been corrected by describing how its done when there is an action present and when there isn’t.
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January 30th, 2010 at: 2:21 pm
It now seems clear to me that we need a way to capture Apple iPag goings on with ScreenFlow. This may be as simple as piping output from iPad to desktop or laptop Mac. The simulator that Apple offers for iPhone and iPad will not suffice.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
February 1st, 2010 at 8:16 am
HI Frank,
Curious as I have not tried it – why does the simulator for the iPad not suffice?
Lynn
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Frank Lowney Reply:
February 13th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
The iPhone and, now, the iPad simulator require that you have the source code in order to simulate a specific application. This is fine for the app developer but not for those developing training materials outside the developers’ shop. Moreover, the default Apple apps are not all represented so general training across those is simply not possible at all.
What I have wound up doing is jailbreaking an iPod touch so that I can use an app called ScreenSplitr which is not available in the Apple App Store. This is a great app for all but video because the frame rate is too low for that.
Apple has not yet arrived at the understanding that being able to screencast all aspects of a product is a major source of very effective free advertising.
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February 22nd, 2010 at: 7:15 am
sliders & Rulers would be great, in order to position objects on screencast at the same position.
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February 22nd, 2010 at: 7:21 am
Support of alpha layer for quicktime movies.
I’ve produced a quicktime movie in order to create an animated logo watermark on top of screencast but Screenflow does not support Quicktime movies with alpha layer…the background is always black.
Could you fix this ASAP please ?
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February 26th, 2010 at: 7:09 am
Batch Export and or Apple Script support for the same reason. That is: We have people recording 300+ screenflow documents that we later have to export to some format to go into Squeeze, that is not fun when you have to export them manually one by one.
For me it would also work with command line argument support like: ./Screenflow -e -p “preset name” -f filename.screenflow /output
I have no preference what option it is – I have the knowledge to get the workflow up and running with any of them!
REgards
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
February 26th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Thanks Fredrik, this has been put on the list.
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March 1st, 2010 at: 8:16 am
In post processing I often want a cursor effect such as a “spotlight” in places where I did not have the foresight to place my cursor, or hold it there for the right amount of time or keep it steady enough. These might be called independent cursor effects or pseudo cursor effects. While we’re at it, why be limited to just one? So let’s have the possibility of being able to place one or more cursor effects independently of the actual cursor position, motion, etc.
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March 1st, 2010 at: 8:18 am
Animation on a path. I can simulate this with multiple video effects, one for each direction but this is tedious and never as sooth as genuine animation along a path.
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March 1st, 2010 at: 8:41 am
Re-recording video with audio as a guide.
I made a mistake early on in the “live” recording of a 36 minute long Keynote presentation. On the second slide, I hit the audio just right but missed the first three builds. I was able to recover before I got to slide three and everything went smoothly after that. Did I mention the fact that this was live?
Had I messed up on the audio, I could use ScreenFlow to re-record the audio using the video to get the timing right. However, that’s not what happened.
AFAIK, one cannot record a video segment using the audio as a guide in “Add Recording” so, unless I am mistaken about that, this is a request to add such a feature.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 9:00 am
HI Frank,
Couldn’t you open your ScreenFlow document, and your Keynote, then hit record in ScreenFlow, hit play in ScreenFlow, so you can hear the audio, then go quickly to your Keynote and go through the presentation, following along with the audio from ScreenFlow?
Then, when you stop recording, choose to “add to” your existing ScreenFlow document, and you’ve got new video that follows along with your audio.
Admittedly, it would take some coordination to get them all started at the same time. So, I would temporarily move my ScreenFlow audio on the timeline so that it didn’t start until about 10 seconds after I hit play. That would give me time to go to Keynote, and play the slide presentation, and then wait for the audio so I could advance the slides & builds with the audio.
Would that work?
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Frank Lowney Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 9:56 am
Thanks Lynn, this got me started along the right path. Here’s what I did:
First, I selected everything in the timeline and moved it forward by one minute. That bought me the time I needed.
Second, I started ScreenFlow playback and then switched to Keynote with cursor at the ready to click Play.
Third, I watched the playhead in ScreenFlow until it got close to the one minute mark then clicked Play in Keynote.
Fourth, I listened for the audio and flipped the Keynote slides correctly this time out. I recorded just a little bit more than I thought necessary — just in case.
Lastly, I put the new recording in the timeline above the original material, moved the original material to zero seconds from one minute and did a small amount of adjusting so that the repair was seamless. Note tat I did not discard any of the original recording from the timeline. This was insurance against having to start over.
P.S. As I did this, I realized that this technique might also be useful in using the iMovie “green screen” technique described elsewhere in the screening room. Get the narrator video and audio first and then add the slideshow in a subsequent step synching it to the audio.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
March 4th, 2010 at 10:32 am
great! glad to hear that worked.
March 2nd, 2010 at: 2:57 pm
Guys what would be very cool is to make an iphone app that utilizes the tilt and zoom features of screenflow. This would stun people for live demonstrations on the fly.
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March 3rd, 2010 at: 7:23 am
Possibility to move playhead for a specific number of frames.
for example :
typing “+10″+enter moves the playhead 10 frames forward
“-10″ 10 frames backward.
Overall i find that the playhead is not very precise.
Something else could dramatically increase post-prod :
we need a library of preset effects.
When setting parameters for an effect (shadow, opacity etc.) let us save the effect preset in a library in order to drag and drop it on a new screencasts. For the same screencast we can copy/paste, but for different screencasts we are forced to repeat the same steps of parameters again and again (we have to be consistent between our different screencasts).
As someone asked for Core image integration, would it be possible to use Quartz Composer to create new effects scripts for Screenflow?
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
March 3rd, 2010 at 8:54 am
Great ideas, Odolyte. Thanks for the input. These will be logged as feature requests
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March 4th, 2010 at: 7:55 am
Sorry for posting so much requests but we’ve entered massive production of screencasts for a big project and ideas come everyday.
when inserting videos or media in the screencast we need to be able to crop the inserted media by an amount of pixels for right,left, top and bottom independently.
What would be gorgeous would be to be able to set a viewable size for a media on stage and be able to pan the media in that zone in order to keep just a part of it.
For example : you have a 1024×768 pix picture but you only need to show just a part of it like a square of 250 px. You put the full media on stage, set an onstage viewable size of 250x250px. then you place the square in your screencast at the position you like. And then by holding command +click and moving the mouse you move the full picture inside the viewable screencast size to select the part you want to show (this solution would replace the above one as it’s far more effective).
Odo.
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March 4th, 2010 at: 8:07 am
We also need to add borders to a media on stage and set size of the border + color.
Some other “frame” effects could be cool also…
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March 5th, 2010 at: 10:03 am
Export to FLV option…. Please.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
March 5th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Hi Turtleknife,
Although this doesn’t replace the need for an FLV export, there is a work-around that may work for you or others, depending on your specific situation & player.
Flash Player 9 automatically knows if a video is h.264…even if it was created in a format other than Flash. That means you can create a QuickTime movie, rename the file extension from .mov to .flv and the video will play fine as a Flash file. This is especially useful to know since many of the best options for creating h.264 files will only create videos in the QuickTime format (files with a .mov or .mp4 extension).
In our tests, we have successfully renamed the ScreenFlow file extensions from .MOV to .FLV to use in Flash video players. In general, it should work with any player that can play H.264 files, but do your own testing with your player.
However, you do not necessarily have to rename the file “FLV” to play in the Flash Player 9. Basically, if you have a player that can play h.264 files, we have found it doesn’t seem to matter (generally) what the extension is, since the “internal workings” are the same.
Again, not a solution, but hopefully a helpful workaround.
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cseeman Reply:
March 8th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Adobe Flash is officially extension agnostic when it comes to H.264. .mov, .mp4, .f4v, and several other extensions all work equally well. Adobe engineers have recommended not changing the extension especially to .flv as the file metadata is different and may, therefore, not work at some point in the future.
Note that H.264 .mov will also work in Silverlight which is also extension agnostic with regards to H.264.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
March 8th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Thanks for the clarification and correction, Craig.
March 7th, 2010 at: 6:41 pm
Add Markers during recording:
The ability to add Markers, real-time, while recording would be really great – pressing CMD + ~ could pop open a window to enter a Marker. Currently, Markers can only be added after recording.
Note: the pop up would have to be ignored by ScreenFlow as to not mess up or appear in the recording. Perhaps you could type the marker in the menu bar.
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March 12th, 2010 at: 2:58 pm
Export Individual Audio Tracks
Now that we can detach audio, it is possible to tweak that audio with specialized audio software and then bring the improved audio back into the project and onto the timeline. Let’s call this ’round-trip audio tweaking.’ However, we don’t yet have a straightforward way to export a single audio track or track element (if splits have been made).
What I have been doing is this: Using the standard Export option, I deselect video. The .mov output then becomes input for third party audio software. Then, after massaging it, I bring it back in to the project via “Add Media” in the SF Media Library.
The problem with this is when there are more than one video track. The SF Export routine mixes them all down into one track. This can make it impossible to improve bad audio without messing-up good audio. My workaround is to mute all audio tracks except the one I am interested in refining.
Still, I worry because the mixdown process is including or trying to include a muted track.
So, what I propose is that ScreenFlow have a special Export function that allows us to select a single audio track or even a sample of that track where splitting defines a track sample.
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March 15th, 2010 at: 3:50 am
Precise positioning! When moving/panning/zooming, positioning with x/y coördinates so you can easily move something back to the original position.
Case in point: when recording a screencast, I have an overlay of my company logo just above the OS X dock. When I zoom in, I need to move it slightly up. And when I zoom back out, it has to be moved back up to the same original position.
Same with other elements.
Or am I just REALLY missings something in the interface? ;-)
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
March 15th, 2010 at 8:12 am
HI Guy, You’re not missing anything. This is a valid, and oft-requested feature. Thanks for weighing in.
In the meantime, though, one of our fabulous users demonstrated a workaround for this very thing. Take a look at this: http://chrisfenwick.com/home/2010/3/8/tutorial-screenflow-alignment.html
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March 18th, 2010 at: 2:14 am
The ability to bulk export videos would be awesome. I typically record 4 or 5 videos at a time and then I need to export them all to MP4s. The process of manually doing this is very tedious.
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March 18th, 2010 at: 5:26 am
Now that we have “Publish to Flash” we ought to start thinking about “Publish to QuickTime” and “Publish to MPEG-4.” Indeed, all of these plus “Publish to YouTube” could be in the same submenu.
Of course ScreenFlow users are, by definition, MacOS X 10.5 and 10.6 users. Those in the 10.6 camp have free access to QuickTime X which has a nifty feature called “Save for Web …” which creates a folder containing all of the files needed to present 1-3 auto-selected, bandwith/device-optimized versions of a video on a web site. This is a very sophisticated approach that depends upon externally (Apple) hosted *.js files and works best on Safari.
Perhaps the ScreenFlow version should be simpler but the key thing with QuickTime and MPEG-4 is they they provide access to mobile devices where Flash isn’t present.
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March 22nd, 2010 at: 7:55 am
The ability to save Export settings. I am using the X264 encoder and every time I export another video, I have to go back in and redo the settings. We have this ability on our Xerox printers to save presets and name them. It would be great if somehow, ScreenFlow had that ability as well. Thanks!
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 8:39 am
Hi WebGal Pat,
Thanks for the input – and yes, having the ability to save export settings would be highly valuable. It’s on the list. In the meantime, if you tend to always use the same setting, you can save that setting as your default. To do this, go to export and customize your setting as you want it. Then, on the preset dropdown from the main export page, select “Make settings default”. This will make those customized settings your default settings every time you go to export.
Thanks again! Lynn
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April 14th, 2010 at: 4:44 pm
My 10 thumbs would like auto spell checking in the text boxes. Maybe it’s already there but I haven’t seen how to activate it. Also would like a progress bar for the icon in the dock. Then while hiding Screenflow in the background wile exporting, a quick glance at the dock would let me know if its done yet.
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April 15th, 2010 at: 1:21 am
Screenflow is that good, that I take only this to cut my vids.
But, when I need to reorder tracks, because one layer should come above another one, it makes crazy moving everything around. It would be helpful, if I could add a track above all other tracks instead of to the bottom.
Kind regards
Markus
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
April 15th, 2010 at 8:36 am
Yes, that’s a good request Markus, thanks.
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April 15th, 2010 at: 1:24 am
Exporting usually takes some longer time. Would be nice to have an estimating timer.
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May 4th, 2010 at: 10:54 am
Two features that would be really useful:
– Links. Link text captions (extra credit — any object!) to markers within the video, or URLs.
– Closed captioning. Enabled in such a way that the viewer can switch it off and on.
Thanks!
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May 6th, 2010 at: 2:56 am
I would love to be able to lock (& unlock) tracks so all the bits stay together and unchanged when I do other editing.
I would also dearly love an easier way to create templates for a video series – eg opening and closing credits, transitions etc that could be stored as templates in a media library.
Eagerly awaiting a great product getting even better. Thanks.
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May 28th, 2010 at: 10:02 am
This is a little redundant of a previous suggestion but I have a slightly different take on it now. In post-capture editing, I should be able to ignore the path of the cursor as recorded and replace it with a path of my own design. Alternatively, ScreenFlow could show me the path and let me modify it. This would introduce “animation on a path” to SF and be a great compliment to cursor replacement. Speaking of cursor replacement, why not have multi-state cursors. By multi-state I mean that the cursor appearance would be different on mousedown than on mouseup. That sort of thing. This could be woven into and strengthen Click Effect.
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July 4th, 2010 at: 10:52 am
Drag and drop media assets from Keynote or OmniGraffle or via the clip board. I like to make text containers that are a bit more expressive than what is possible in SF. However, doing so is more tedious than I think it needs to be. In Keynote for example, I create a shape and customize it with gradient fills, text, transparency, etc. I then “group” all elements and copy to the clipboard. Next, I use Graphic Converter to create an image from the clipboard, save it and then drag it into SF.
What I think would be better is to be able to select the object in Keynote and then drag it into the SF Media library or, failing that, select the object, copy it to the clipboard and then switch to SF and copy it from the clipboard.
It would be important to be able to maintain alpha channels using a 32 bit PNG format.
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July 4th, 2010 at: 11:36 am
Tweening (sometimes called morphing). I’ve tried to animate things such as a speech/comment bubble that points to various screen locations but it’s a lot or work. If SF supported tweening, the effort required would drop dramatically and the effect would be impressive and eye catching. The way tweening is usually implemented is that you select the first and second objects and the computer figures out all of the in-between frames required to create a smooth animation from the first state to the second. More advanced would be to be able to select a sequence of more than two objects.
To illustrate what I’m driving at is this poor attempt at animation that I did as an experiment. Note how un-smooth the very small amount of movement is.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
July 6th, 2010 at 8:19 am
thanks Frank,
Good suggestions. These will be added to our long and growing list of feature requests.
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July 24th, 2010 at: 2:25 pm
Like a lot of other people these last two weeks, I’ve been watching the “Smartphone antenna performance” videos that Apple has posted at:
http://www.apple.com/antenna/
If you watch these with a screencaster’s eye as I’m sure folks here will, you’ll notice the close-up view of the reception bars. This is the only way they could show the “death grip” and its effect on recrpyion as indicated by the tiny bar graph that most phones use these days.
That close-up was done in a circle, not a square and this is what brings me to this feature request. I would very much like to be able to apply a video mask to the video that Screenflow captures from my camera. I should be able to mask that video so that only a circle, oval or some other shape or shapes reveal the video underneath. The screen beneath the masked out areas shines through of course.
I believe that you can still do this in QuickTime Player Pro 7.6 using a 1-bit mask created in Photoshop or another graphics app. Thus, it should not be terribly difficult to implement this in a more user friendly way in Screenflow.
Here’s Apple’s recipe for masking video:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42623&coll=cp
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August 3rd, 2010 at: 7:22 am
I would love to be able to batch export from screenflow. Using automator would probably be the cheapest/easiest solution i think.
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August 7th, 2010 at: 5:17 am
I’m new so still learning :)
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August 27th, 2010 at: 4:15 am
Would be great to see a Dip or Fade to Color transition that would allow one to choose which color to fade through, like in Keynote. I’m personally working with off-white slides and the dip to white transition doesn’t do well.
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August 27th, 2010 at: 4:16 am
We need the ability to lock audio sections with the corresponding footage. This would be very helpful!
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August 27th, 2010 at: 4:18 am
Would be nice to have a pan tool. I find that I often need to look at something closely and zoom up to take a look, but I am restricted to viewing the center of the project. In order to view other sections I have to move the actual footage in relation to the canvas.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
August 27th, 2010 at 8:05 am
Thanks Raymond. These are all great suggestions. We’ll add them to the list
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September 1st, 2010 at: 5:03 am
Constraining movement. Unless I’m missing a feature, I don’t think that there is a way to constrain movement vertically and horizontally. The convention in other apps is to hold down the shift key and then click to drag. With this feature in force the element being moved is constrained to vertical or horizontal. This should also work with the arrow keys for very fine movement, one pixel at a time.
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September 1st, 2010 at: 12:11 pm
Audio normalize
The suggestion above: mask and highlight any area.
Crop is buggy. When you crop to small sizes the result gets scaled a bit introducing blur.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
September 1st, 2010 at 12:12 pm
thanks Mattias. all good suggestions.
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