I've been learning Camtasia. It's an impressive program. Powerful, yet relatively easy to learn.
The Camtasia tutorials are superb examples of what screencasts should be. I am using them as a model for my authoring. The tools themselves are superb. I have spent several pleasant hours massaging both a demo script and a demo screencast in the Camtasia editor. It's plenty good enough, as the Camtasia tutorials themselves attest. As they state in the first tutorial, there is no substitute for a strong script. A good script contains a lot more than words: it guides the entire process. I have been using the Camtasia scripts as a guide. "Channeling" them, if you will. Yesterday something shifted, and early this morning I was able to write a script about Leo's find/change commands relatively easily. The latest draft of the script is in the Post Script. If I had to describe what shifted, it would be that spaces are the most important parts of the script ;-) A blank line indicates that something significant will happen on the screen, and this action, whatever it is, must be explained. This change in point of view came from comparing my first throw-away screencasts to the Camtasia tutorials. Mine were technically competent; but everything happened *way* to quickly on the screen to be understandable. As Kent and I both remarked at the sprint, screencasts must be relatively compact and dense, but they must also be relaxed enough not to bewilder the user. I could go on and on about insights, but this is enough for now. Edward P.S. Here is the latest script for the a screencast about Leo's find/change commands. A "proper" script would describe (as the example Camtasia scripts do) what actions are associated with the words. That will come next, to the extent that it is necessary. Here is the script. To repeat, the blank lines indicate where something important happens: you can probably imagine what will be shown on the screen. Oh yes, the ==== lines won't be read, they are just organizers. ==== Intro This tutorial tells how to use Leo's find and replace commands. Type Ctrl-F to start searching. The cursor moves to the minibuffer. The Find Tab shows the present settings. Underlined characters are keyboard hints. Alt-Ctrl-W toggles the Whole Word checkbox, and so on. Type the search string in the minibuffer. The enter key starts the search. As always, Ctrl-G puts the cursor in the body pane and stops the search. To search again, type F3. To search backwards, type F2. ==== Replace To replace text, type Ctrl-F and enter the find string as before. Instead of enter, type Ctrl-R. Type the replacement string. The enter key starts the search as before. When a match is found, type the equal key to make the replacement, or type type the minus sign to replace and find again. The F2 and F3 keys work as before. ==== Incremental search. Leo also has incremental search commands. Alt-S starts an incremental search. Alt-R starts a reverse incremental search. Whatever characters you types extend the search. The backspace key reverses the search. Type the enter key or Ctrl-G to stop the search. While searching, Alt-S finds the next instance of the search string. Thanks for watching this tutorial. EKR -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
