I agree that screen casts are potentially a powerful way of attracting new users to J. I also agree that it is things like workflow - showing how to go about solving a problem in J - that will be of most benefit.
A couple of comments related to the use of F1. * Ctrl+F1 is truly context-sensitive - takes you straight to the dictionary page related to the primitive of interest. * it is better to place the cursor before the primitive of interest - if the cursor is between two primitives it chooses the one to the right. > From: Brian Schott > Devon and others, > > I have redone screencast reviewed by Devon. Btw, thanks very much, > Devon for your comments which spurred me to get help from the > Screenium support unit. > > There were several small issues that I needed to adjust before I could > achieve technically good video and audio quality. For me the most > annoying problem was the lack of synchronization between video and > audio and I am still a little disappointed with the video quality. But > the support person told me to export the recorded videos in formats > that are not standard because he has found that the nonstandard > settings better match Youtube's software. So, I exported the newer > video with jpeg compression and 425x318 size, not the default H.264 > compression or 1024x768 "current" size, and for the audio to use mpeg4 > at 30fps. I am not quite sure I am using the 30fps because a couple of > times when I forced 30fps the upload file ballooned to 150+ mb and it > looked liked the upload stalled. So I let the software determine the > fps. > > I also increased the font size of J to 18 from 12 which I myself use > and I think the text in the ijx and ijs windows are more readable. I > don't know how to change the font size of native J menus, for example, > but that would be an improvement, I think. > > As to my low voice, I am not sure I can change that without a lot of > practice because a louder voice tends to make me more anxious. But I > will try to speak louder. Speaking is very guarded for me, because I > often block on words, and my speech is not that clear. > > The robot is very minimal, as Devon observed. But the robot matches my > implicit philosophy for this demo, and maybe for many J demo's, that > they should be teasers and simple to attract new users, because for me > the joy of J has been puzzling through the programming and searching > for programming solutions, with the help of the forum and the great > resources. So for me the screencast demo's would mostly be targeted to > showing ways to make the work flow easier and more effective to people > new to the J environment. I am assuming that lots of short screencasts > are superior to fewer long ones, especially because Youtube states > their preference for limiting videos to 10 minutes. But also, because > I think it may be difficult for a viewer to maintain attention for > longer times. > > Well, I am going to leave the original screencast on Youtube for a > while, but I believe the "... (again)" replacement is better. > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw6F-6jh5WA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
