In the process of doing documentation, I often discover flaws or obvious user interface changes I need to fix. With ScreenSteps, I actually look forward to doing documentation for my software, as opposed to it being pretty much an afterthought that I might or might not get around to. ScreenSteps has literally changed the way I do documentation for the software I write. I have been a promoter of ScreenSteps since I discovered it a couple of years ago and have encouraged a number of other developers to start using it. It doesn’t seem right that I should mention the fact that one of my favorite programs ScreenSteps, ($39-$79) now has a competitor. I feel a tad guilty about writing a review comparing these two products. ScreenSteps vs MacSnapper - the battle of the screenshot documentation software Hopefully this feature shows up in ScreenSteps soon. ScreenSteps continues to be my documentation program of choice. This is useful for adding some text outside the boundaries of a screenshot. One of the cool things in Clarify is the ability to expand the area around a screenshot. The company has also released a lower end program called “ Clarify“, which will probably meet the needs of many people who just want to communicate ideas more effectively, and not necessarily create documentation. Blue Mango Learning has added a blur tool and my desire for in place typo correction has largely been fixed by using Typinator to fix my typos on the fly. ScreenSteps is in active development and continues to improve. UPDATE: – Since I wrote this review of the two packages, it should be noted that MacSnapper has only had a minor update and has made no progress in any of the feature areas that I felt it was limited in. ![]() Each document is a stand alone entity, with no larger organization feature. It has some very nice features that make it actually better than ScreenSteps in some ways (code block for text, resizable canvas, drop shadows!), but it lacks the manual creation features of ScreenSteps. Blue Mango Learning also offers a low-end alternative to ScreenSteps called Clarify ($14.95) and they have recently shipped a version 2 of the product. Their least expensive offering is a ‘Solo’ plan for $120/year, otherwise it starts at $29/month for two authors. Their pricing is quite high for individuals, as their target market now seems to be corporations, rather than mom and pop’s software developers. Following in the footsteps of Adobe, FileMaker and others, presumably, they are trying to set themselves to be a sustainable enterprise going forward. UPDATE: – ScreenSteps has gone to a subscription model.If the time comes that the developer gets a productive editing interface in place, ScreenSteps could become the best product in the category of documentation development, but until then it is punishing experience to use this product. If you don't need multi platform or zendesk integration you are much better off with MacSnapper. I will develop and organize all the content of my manual with other screen snap tools such as Little Snapper, Skitch and Voila and then move them into ScreenSteps as a final step. In the end, the process of producing documentation becomes as frustrating and time consuming as it would be without the program.īecause this program integrates with Zendesk I will continue to use it but only as a publishing tool. There is no way to handle multiple steps so each step must be individually moved from lesson to lesson in a tedious multi-step process that wastes time and energy. The standard system clipboard is not supported so there is no way to collect steps and improve efficiency using scrapbooks or multi-clipboards. The editing interface is anti-productive. It is extremely time consuming and tedious to reorganize steps into multiple small hyperlinked lessons All the time you save by creating steps easily is completely lost in the editing process. Unfortunately, this is where things fall apart. This is a very quick and easy process that is seamlessly integrated into the process of using an application while you document it.Īt the end of a documentation session you are left with a lesson full of screen steps that can be nicely annotated and described with minimal text to produce a clear tutorial that teaches the end user well. It is very effective and easy to use when it comes to snapping screen shots which are automatically added as steps to an open lesson. Also, it is cross platform which is very important if your are documenting a product runs on both Mac and Windows. ![]() It integrates with Zendesk which is very important to me. I can output manuals to a variety of well designed outputs including pdf and html. ![]() ScreenSteps has certain great advantages that make it worthy of consideration.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |