New Feature Requests
With the release of ScreenFlow 3.0 comes the introduction of a LOT of new and exciting features. In fact, many of those features originated from the feature requests you posted on this blog.
There were a lot of great feature requests that we have not incorporated into ScreenFlow for one reason or another, but we’ve captured all that information and will continue to evaluate those ideas for future releases.
But, I wanted to refresh this page and start a new list of things you’d like to see in future versions 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.
22 Responses to “New Feature Requests”
September 3rd, 2011 at: 3:50 pm
Hi,
Will you create ScreenFlow for the iPad?
Best regards,
Tod
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September 28th, 2011 at: 8:01 pm
If SFlow had a tool that eliminates blue or green backgrounds, wow, that will be the good bye to IMovie and Final Cut for many many users.
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October 16th, 2011 at: 11:43 pm
Hello,
I am just testing the 3.0 DEMO. I am considering it to replace the iMovie and (for most cases) also the FCPX (yes, I am not proffesional). So I will not mostly use it for screenflows but for the regular home made movie editing.
The first major thing I am missing (or may be I did not find it) is motivated by this scenario:
- I have a long editing (I tested that the app crashed when I created video over 30 minutes but that seems sufficient to me).
- It consists of a tenths or even hundreds of clips, texts, annotations, etc.
- And I need to insert a clip somewhete to the early part of the editing.
- For that purpose, it would be nice to have a command which selects everything from the cursor to the end. Similarly to exitsing “Select All” would be “Select Tail”.
- Then it would be easily possible to create a gap for the insertion without breaking everything dow.
For the screenflows, I am also missing a few minor features:
- The comics bubbles of text.
- The mitter setting for the shape corners.
- The round boxes/rectangles.
- The text shadows and glows.
- The edit boxes with various metrics (figures) should respond to keystrokes like “up” +1, “down” -1, etc…
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 17th, 2011 at 8:56 am
Hi Jiri,
Thanks for the suggested features.
To clarify, your first request (a command which selects everything from the cursor to the end) does exist in ScreenFlow 3. You can do this with the ‘handle’ at the bottom of the scrubber. See this demonstrated in the Timeline Enhancements movie on our demo page . This allows you to insert a gap into your timeline, moving everything to the right of the scrubber.
As for your other listed features, could you clarify what you mean?
1) Comic bubbles of text : Do you mean you want a bubble or cloud shape into which you could place text?
2) A miter setting for corners: I take this to mean you want to adjust the corners of rectangles and squares to make them rounded, correct?
3) The round boxes/rectangles: Is this the same thing as above? If not, could you clarify?
4) Text shadows and glows: You can do this currently. With your text selected, go to the Video Properties panel, and select shadow. You can change the size, opacity, color and offset of your text shadow. This also allows you to make a glow effect on your text.
5) Edit boxes with metrics: I think I understand you to mean that if you, for example, have the Opacity box selected in the Video Properties panel, when you hit your down arrow, the number in the box should be reduced by the number of times you hit the arrow. Am I understanding you correctly?
Thanks again for the input,
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Jiří Křivánek Reply:
October 17th, 2011 at 11:43 pm
Lynn,
thank you for your support.
ad 0) That is exactly what I needed. I expected it to be there (without it, the editing of large projects would be extremely incomfortable). I missed that in the demos, sorry.
ad 1) Yes you are right – also wit the adjustable handles/pointers (if you know the Voila screenshost SW, you can see there what exactly I mean). Generally, I think it is quite common that all the shapes can accomodate a text.
ad 2) Yes, but only on the level of the thickness of the (out)lines.
ad 3) No, it differs from point two above – it is exactly as the “Round” of the text properties.
ad 4) I tested it and yes, it can be used that way. Thank you for pointing me there.
ad 5) Exactly (and with shift for big steps, without for precise movement).
In the mean time, I did my first screenflow and have more prayers (I read all the past feature requests and noticed I am not the first one who wants that, so please please take this as a +1 vote):
a) There should be some sort of customizable grid on the screen – for snapping of objects.
b) There should be an option to create a named styles for the properties (for all but separately – video, audio, screen recording, callout, annotations, …). Then you could assign the style to the selected element(s). If you change the named style, all the elements which have assigned it also change synchronously.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 18th, 2011 at 8:32 am
Great, thanks for clarifying and for the additional suggestions. I will make sure these get onto our list of requests for consideration.
October 20th, 2011 at: 2:42 pm
I’d love to have the option of rectangular Mouse Cursor callouts.
The properties of the rectangular callout would be aspect ratio and possibly rounded corners. Combining those with the existing properties of zoom, border, etc. would make (for me) a more useful call-out tool in my documentation videos.
Thanks for listening.
Rob
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
October 20th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
Great feature request Rob, thanks.
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November 6th, 2011 at: 12:26 am
I was working another day with your greate SW, which results in a couple of feature requests – some minor, others complex. I will separate these into dedicated replies to keep it in order. So the first one is…
I have a probelm with the dragging and sizing of things in the timeline.
When I hover over the elements in the time line, the mouse pointer changes to resizing. Very often it happens to me that I start sizing the video action but it actually moves (despite of the mouse pointer shape).
It would be much better the elements in the time line would highlight the handles when hovered over by the mouse pointer. Every element should have at least three handles: The left sizer, the mover and the right sizer.
For example, there is a clip which contains two actions. Both actions are covering the entire clip. I want to resize just a single action. I hover over the clip and the mouse pointer chages. But I am never sure which element I will actually drag. If the element being pointed to highlightes a bit then this would be completely clear.
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November 6th, 2011 at: 12:40 am
I also have a problems on the edge between the two subsequent clips.
The timeline cursor (red vertical line with the handle at the bottom) snaps easily to the edge between the clips. But it is never clear to me whether it points the last frame of the first clip or the first frame of the second clip. Especially when the clips are fluently following (no dramatic visual change occurs).
I also assume the left/right keyboard arrows move the timeline cursor by one frame to left/right.
This is also very important for the editing of the actions in the clips at the edges.
This should be somehow signalled in the video preview window.
For instance add the shadow at the respective edge of the video preview (if the cursor points the last frame of the clip then the right adge of the video preview is highlighted to signal this special frame and vice versa).
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November 6th, 2011 at: 12:43 am
There should be a little display, which tells me where exactly is the time line cursor.
The display should show up in the following form:
MM:SS:FF
Where:
MM stands for minutes.
HH stands for seconds.
FF stands for the frames withn the current minute and second.
This display should also be editable. By pressing the keyboard shortcut (or clicking the display), I would be able to enter the precise position of the timeline cursor.
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November 6th, 2011 at: 12:52 am
Every properties tab in the toolbox (video properties, audio properties, etc.) shoud have the copy/paste button.
I know there is similar option in the menu – Copy/Paste Properties. But this does not work to me as I would expect.
I need to take a snapshot of the properties exactly where the timeline cursor is. And to apply the snapsot wherever else the timeline cursor is.
—
I already wrote this before: It would be also very nice to be able to create an in-project library of the named property presets (per tab).
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November 6th, 2011 at: 12:56 am
Problem with the freeze frame.
During the editing, I often create a freeze frame. Mostly to “wait for the spoken commments”.
Yesterday, during the whole day play with the ScreenFlow, it happened to me a few times that the frozen frame lost its position in the source clip.
Probably when I was resizing the frozen frame, it visually changed its content.
Fixing this problem is possible but extremely annoying work.
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November 6th, 2011 at: 1:31 am
The ScreenFlow contains an extremely important feature for moving the tailing clips all together. This can be achieved using the handle of the timeline cursor.
This feature has at least following problems:
1. There is no snapping. So it is hard to clue the the clips precisely. Please note that I am mostly doing these things in the zoom to fit (Ctrl+T).
I suggest this: Add snapping also to this feature.
2. When I do this, it splits the clips behind the timeine cursor. Which is sometimes usefull but sometimes absolutely unwanted – for instance with the background song).
I suggest this: If the tail moving occurs with the Shift key down then those clips which would be split are not affected.
3. The timeline sometimes somehow “jumps away” when doing the tail move. Which is just a minor problem but a bit annoying…
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November 6th, 2011 at: 1:46 am
The timeline for the more complex projects is extremely messy.
For example:
1. I prepared the very nice effects for the keystrokes – I downloaded the keyboard key photos from the internet. I found the suitable sound for the keypress. I created a nice background for it. All together, this takes three lines in the timeline. I groupped that together and I am repeatidly using it in my project.
2. My project normally has at minimum 4 lines in the timeline – (1) the main video, (2) the speech audio, (3) the song audio and (4) the titles.
3. Do you cont with me? It is 7 lines in the timeline! Mess!
I suggest to rework the SF groups-of-clips this way:
1. When a few clips get groupped together, they “collapse” into a single timeline line. Just one “replacement” clip (properly visually distinguished from the other ordinary clips). No sizing allowed. But movable as any other clip. Lets call it COMPONENT.
2. The operations with the COMPONENT:
2a. Break it down back into the ordinary clips – AKA ungroup.
2b. Dive one level down “into the COMPONENT”. In this case the timeline would NOT contain the entire project BUT just that COMPONENT. Fully editable. Possibly recursive.
This would cleanup the mess in the timeline significantly…
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Jiří Křivánek Reply:
November 24th, 2011 at 1:21 pm
And there could be created the WEB archive for the user components to download…
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November 6th, 2011 at: 5:10 pm
Hey Guys,
Wow… who knew that a screen capture tool would have such a impressive timeline editor? Congrats! Liquid smooth, intuitive and fast. I know that you’re probably not going after the NLE/Edit crowd but having played with many a timelines in my life (as a freelance editor) you guys have something special here. Of course, (IMHO) there are still a few rough edges that could use some additional love (better ability to zoom/move & navigate around the timeline easily) but that’s another matter.
Whether you know it or not like Jiri said, you have built a UI that works in a way editors (like myself) love.
[ stepping up on the "digital" soapbox ]
So… having said that and should you even care, here’s some food for thought: Re-think the potential of Screenflow (SF) and turn it into the foundation for the next level “rich media” editor on or off the cloud. Add the ability to embed our output (and not just encode it into videos), consider the ability to include hyperlinks/metadata (and other embeddable content from the web like YouTube/Vimeo, etc.) and you could honestly have the “next generation” editing platform to compliment the web.
I initially set out to simply use SF as a capture tool (for some web vids) then edit using FCP/iMovie, etc.. But it’s UI (honestly) was so damn seductive that it made me reconsider wanting to use an NLE at all to finish something that was editorially “easy/straightforward” anyway. Also, as it turned out, it took longer to transcode the SF captured clips for the NLE than it did to just built the entire edit using SF. Crazy and wicked cool!
So… that got me thinking, why not make this product the next level of a (rich media/web/html) editing tool?
Apple/Avid/Adobe aren’t doing it yet and other cloud based edit solutions IMHO still struggle with “jenky” interfaces compared to SF: Wevideo.com, Jaycut.com (now being completely RIMmed -ruined), Stroome.com, mixmoov.com and formidabletechnologies.com. HTML5 editors (HYPE, Adobe Edge) and presentation platforms like sliderocket.com to some extent are sort of getting us there but not quite. All are great in their unique way but unfortunately still lack the video savviness and UI features required by editors/content creators like myself.
And yes I have played with them all (as well as professionally edit on FCP/AVID) so when I say you have something special with SF, I truly mean it. Besides it ties in beautifully with your existing product line up. Just think: full digital media solution… all your amazing existing product line being edited, embedded and delivered via SF!
[ Boom! ]
So there ya have it, my own personal consumer’s opinion of where you’re company should be strategically. Ha!
Ambitious? Yes… very. Doable? Absolutely! You guys are one of the few companies that get both the web & video world(s) and have the deep knowledge/expertise to be the first “broadcast savvy” company to actually pull this off correctly.
Give it some thought, let it settle and if ya hate the idea, so be it.
If not, let’s talk (more), let’s play and let’s change the future of how digital content should be created.
[ stepping down from the "digital" soapbox ]
Sincerely
Joe B.
@zbutcher [ twitter ]
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November 26th, 2011 at: 1:28 pm
Hello,
I have two features to request.
1. Batch processing by task management (that is, the ability to export video after video without simultaneously exporting two videos and taking a toll on the computer or going back to my computer to export another project after the export of the first project is finished). So A->B->C tasks are automatic after A (export is done).
2. Let us export right to youtube with our own settings. I don’t need 60 frames per second or a 350MB video for 2 minutes for 720p HD for some videos, and thus I usually have to lower the frame rate/change settings then upload to youtube using their uploader. So instead of A->B, put customization in A->B where we can upload to youtube (using the integrated login) using our own settings if we don’t want to wait 2 hours to process a video for 720p or 1080p HD-preset settings.
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December 7th, 2011 at: 10:56 pm
I continue to be thrilled by ScreenFlow in general and also how frequently and thoroughly you guys update your product and fix issues. A few additions I’d love to see are captioning (closed and open options… the ONLY feature I’m missing from your competition – who otherwise really pales in comparison to the professional quality and usability of ScreenFlow!) Sub-clips — in other words, I’d love to be able to edit my capture and group them together as a single clip that I can then apply coherent zooms, moves, callouts, etc to, like a “pre-comp” in AfterEffects or a nested timeline in FCP. That way I could maintain the edit-ability of the clip, without pre-rendering. (I have a client who tweaks their product interface and I need to re-capture lots of tiny segments which I’d love surgically replace while maintaining FX…)
I am really impressed by the capture and output quality you guys can provide with such an efficient file size, on top of loving the convenience of the ‘document packages’ which have made updates and versioning a MUCH easier thing for me. Thanks!
Joe
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
December 8th, 2011 at 8:08 am
Thanks Joe, for the great feedback and feature requests. They have been logged.
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January 6th, 2012 at: 11:14 am
Feature Requests:
1) Go To Previous/Next Edit. This is SO important to any editor, I’m surprised it doesn’t already exist.
2) Editable Annotations – Sometimes they are editable, sometimes not. Especially Lines seem to be unselectable or editable after they have been created. Boxes seem editable at any point.
3) Overlay or other display of Marker Names (so we can see the name without having to double-click the marker to open it.
5) Way to Print Marker list (to print a list of notes, for example)
6) Timecode display, so we can see the exact timecode at playhead location, rather than zoom in to playhead to read approx. timecode on timeline ruler.
7) Timeline zoom command that zooms in using larger steps. (The shortcut zooms in such a minute amount that it is practically worthless.
8) Export settings that are NOT attached to Screenflow project. I create default settinsg for exporting a series of projects, then find that each time I open a project I have to choose location and settings again, even customize default settings I have already saved to st them back to how I saved them. (I realize this is more of a bug than a feature request.)
9) Multiple callouts at the same time
I would not like to omit what a great product this is, despite my requests. It’s so quick and easy, the zooms and callouts are well implemented. More than anything else, the next/previous edit keyboard shortcut would be a huge help.
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Lynn Elliott Reply:
January 11th, 2012 at 9:27 am
Thanks Steve, for the great feature requests.
I have a few comments/questions:
1) Previous/Next edit: Great input. We do have a previous/next function, but it takes you to the previous or next clip (not edit)… so this would be an adjustment to that.
2) Editable Annotations: All annotations should be editable… if you’re experiencing some that are not, that could be a bug. Please let me know, and we can have you work with our support department to diagnose that.
3) Overlay of Marker names: Great idea.
4) hmm… there was no #4 :)
5) Way to print marker list: Another great idea
6) Timecode display: Great idea
7) Timeline zoom using larger steps: We have heard this one before, and should be simple to implement.
8) Export settings that are NOT attached to a ScreenFlow project: If I’m understanding you, there are 2 issues here: 1) your preferred settings are not being saved as default. and 2) when you customize a setting, that setting is not being saved outside of the project? Is that correct?
9) Multiple callouts at the same time: Can you give me an example of what you are trying to achieve? For example, are you trying to have a freehand callout at the same time that you’re calling out the mouse cursor?
Thank you for all of these, we appreciate the input.
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