Many, if not all of you, are familiar with or use Articulate software for eLearning development. In my opinion, their tools are currently unequaled in the industry for rapid creation of top-notch eLearning. For reasons unexplained, my boss is annoyed that Articulate seems to be “the answer to every question” at present, but the reason our customers always ask for Articulate is because the published products are so good. It’s hard to find a more convincing endorsement than that.

I’ve been an enthusiastic Articulate user for several years now. In fact, I was the first in my organization (100,000+ employees) to discover and acquire Articulate – not a painless process. Once people started to see the courses and presentations I was creating with Articulate, word started to get around. Now we have many Articulate users, with more getting on board seemingly every day – not just trainers, but communicators and technical analysts as well. I should be getting a sales commission from the company. But I digress.

Being the de facto “Articulate Guru” for my organization, I frequently field questions from developers in other departments. One of the first questions I’m always asked is “How do I learn this software?” I’ve always pointed them to Articulate’s own documentation, as well as the excellent online community and Tom Kuhlman’s equally-excellent blog.

Some users want (and need) more, and it’s finally arrived: in Patti Shank (a familiar name in eLearning circles) and Jennifer Bircher’s new book, Essential Articulate Studio ‘09. The book is massive at almost 1,000 pages, and those pages are filled with clear, helpful instruction and a huge collection of screenshots. If you’re new to Articulate, or a still-uncomfortable long-time user, this book may be just what you need.

Technical books tend to be either very good or very bad, and I’d rate this one as very good. The layout is logical and the writing style is neither mind-numbingly heavy nor irritatingly light. (I love comedy as much as the next guy, but slapstick technical books just ain’t my thing.) The annotated screenshots are very helpful, as are the clearly-designated tips and notes sprinkled throughout.

The book also comes with a companion CD, which includes trial versions of Articulate software, Articulate’s own documentation and links to the Articulate website. One might ask what’s the point (I certainly do), as you can get all of that information directly from Articulate’s website (and be assured the most recent versions when you do), but the CD is there anyway – for eventual deposit in your local landfill (where it can be discovered by archaeologists 10,000 years from now). The book, however, is a keeper. And at under 30 bucks, a no-brainer.

Buy it from Amazon via my link and I’ll probably get a nickel back or something. If only 10 million of you order it, I can quit my soul-crushing job and start my own eLearning development studio!

So you go ahead and order, and I’ll start packing up my desk and drafting my letter of resignation…

If you’re anything like me and are easily distracted while trying to write on your computer (by email, Web, Twitter, etc.), you may find a simplistic full-screen word processor to be just what the doctor ordered. Last year I mentioned such an app called WriteRoom, which looked to the past to minimize the distractions of the present. I love the concept of WriteRoom and have used it frequently, but ultimately I find it a bit too “old school” (read: hard on the eyes) for my taste.

A new app (currently in beta) called Ommwriter takes things a step further with a beautiful but stark visual presentation (that’s much easier on the eyes than WriteRoom) and soothing ambient background and keyboard sounds – which you can easily disable if so desired.

While you’re typing all you see on the entire screen is your text against the background. Move your mouse and the subtle controls appear.

Brilliant.

It’s a free download (at least for now in beta form – I don’t know if the developer plans to charge for the final release) and definitely worth a look.

But…Mac only.

The term “Mac-like” is often bandied about when talking about software, including in my own ruminations here on eQuixotic. And while most Mac users will see the term and nod in contented understanding, those new to the platform (or those still peering over the fence curiously) may not yet “get it.” And frankly, it’s a hard thing to define or quantify. As far as being Mac-like, there’s not much about Windows that precludes a Mac-like experience in its applications. Windows itself has become increasingly more Mac-like – cosmetically – over the years, though of course the real essence of being Mac-like is still mostly absent on the Windows side and goes deep into the guts of the system itself. But from an application standpoint, one could certainly develop an app for Windows that is in many ways Mac-like. Unfortunately I’ve seen very few examples of this, but it can be done.

Being Mac-like means making the experience not only as painless as possible, but as enjoyable as possible. Can’t work be, dare I say it, fun? Of course it can. Sure, some may dismiss this as shallow cosmetic pandering, but such dismissals tend to be naive and uninformed, typically vocalized by hostile non-Mac users (or those who simply enjoy pain (sickos)).

Let’s examine the topic visually, with a good illustration of Windows-like vs. Mac-like software design: TechSmith’s Camtasia.

Here is Camtasia for Mac:

And Camtasia for Windows:

Note the minimalist appearance of the Mac version, where your content is the focus and the interface does its best to get out of your way. Icons are small and refined, if they exist at all (relying instead on menu commands and keyboard shortcuts). The content is the star here, and the stagehands sit, ably, just outside the spotlight – there when you need them, inconspicuous when you don’t.

The Windows version, on the other hand, does its best to distract (and tire) your eye with circus-like intensity, full of bright garish colors and large, crude icons and visual elements. Everything screams “Look at me!” There’s no soloist on this stage, but a big band of trombones, tubas and drums all clamoring for your attention.

Lest you think I’m being unfair to TechSmith, Camtasia for Windows merely fits the modus operandi of most other Windows apps I’ve used since I’ve been using Windows (1992?). My apologies to TechSmith for using them as the poster child in this particular example. (Can we still be friends?)

Of course there is more to being Mac-like than what a simple screenshot can capture – the way menus work, the way things interact with each other, the way content is brought in and brought out of an application, and on and on. But the screenshots above paint a good introductory picture of the opposing philosophies.

If I’m going to spend many hours a day on my computer (and I am), I much prefer staring at option #1 than option #2. And I appreciate a good developer who appreciates that. Thank you, TechSmith, for going this route with Camtasia for Mac. The destination should be the priority, but the journey need not be neglected.

I mean hey, this thing will effectively get you through your 2-hour commute to the cubicle farm every day:

but do you really want it to?

RJ Jacquez, Senior Product Evangelist at Adobe, posted a sneak peek of Captivate for Mac on his blog last week after demoing it at the Adobe Learning Summit / DevLearn 09 in San Jose (an event I was unable to attend).

The radio silence regarding Captivate for Mac has been deafening, so I was thrilled (yet not thrilled – see below) to see some updated information regarding this much-anticipated application.

Tech support note: if you’re a card-carrying über-geek like me and are already running the Flash Player 10.1 prerelease version on your Mac, you will likely find (as I did) that the recording will not play (I tried Safari, Firefox and Camino). I managed to view the recording on another Mac that does not have the 10.1 prerelease installed.

A couple of takeaways from RJ’s recording:

First: the UI is not horrible like the current Windows version of Captivate, but it’s not very Mac-like either. When TechSmith created a Mac version of Camtasia, they scrapped the also-horrible UI of the Windows version of Camtasia and designed a beautiful Mac-like interface (as covered in my review of the application). Adobe, in contrast, is taking a more middle-of-the-road approach. Rather than create a Mac-like version of Captivate, they are going to make the UI of both Captivate for Mac and Captivate for Windows more CS4-like. The application on both platforms will, per RJ’s description, be very similar in look and feel (and code base). So while that’s a disappointment on the Mac side (let’s face it, the CS4 UI is nothing special), at least we can expect to see the terrible UI on the Windows side be put out of its (our) misery. I understand how such standardization between platforms is beneficial to both Adobe and its customers, but the homogenization is a disappointment to many of us Mac users who like seeing Mac apps shine in their own unique way.

Second (and this is the alarming tidbit): RJ said Captivate for Mac is currently in alpha status. Whoa, what??? Didn’t Adobe solicit for beta testers way back in May??? With so much time having passed since the beta solicitation, I had hoped a release announcement was imminent. Mark hopes as “dashed.”

RJ will be giving away a free copy of Captivate for Mac to one of his Twitter followers (see his blog entry), so jump in. You could be the lucky winner. You know, when the app is finally released. Sometime in…2012. *sob*

Summer/Fall 2009 is turning out to be a golden season indeed for Mac-based screencasters and eLearning developers, with Telestream releasing ScreenFlow 2.0 today. This Mac-only screencasting app goes head-to-head with the recently-released Camtasia for Mac, which I reviewed last month.

I’ll download the trial, kick the tires and let you know what I think. I’m interested to see how it compares to Camtasia, which is an excellent application despite a few version 1.0 flaws.

Knowing ScreenFlow 2.0 was just around the corner, I didn’t draw many direct comparisons between Camtasia and ScreenFlow in my Camtasia review, but I plan to do that now that ScreenFlow 2.0 has been released. A few of the new ScreenFlow 2.0 features appeared in Camtasia 1.0, so ScreenFlow is merely catching up in some areas while leapfrogging or falling behind Camtasia in others. Ah, the joys of software competition!

Stay tuned for some observations on this much-anticipated upgrade. I have some tutorials I’ve long wanted to do for this blog (GarageBand narration recording among them) and need to choose my weapon: Camtasia or ScreenFlow. Heck, maybe I’ll use them both.

Download your own ScreenFlow 2.0 trial here.

How about making the season complete, Adobe, by releasing Captivate for Mac? You know you want to.

For us Mac-based eLearning developers, Windows virtualization can be, sadly, a necessity. Though some must-have tools are starting to arrive on the Mac platform (Camtasia, Captivate, SnagIt), others remain Windows-only for the foreseeable future (Articulate). And often your projects require capturing screenshots natively in Windows-based applications. The ability to run apps from all major OSes in a single environment on a single machine is an advantage that can’t be underestimated, and that ability is what makes the Mac my Ultimate eLearning Development Machine.

There are a few options for running Windows on your Mac. You can, of course, boot into Windows natively using Apple’s Boot Camp, but that puts you in a Windows-only environment. Great for gaming perhaps, but not great for everything else.

I much prefer running Windows in a virtual environment, where I can easily switch back and forth between Mac and Windows apps on the fly, even copying and pasting between the two. Several tools allow you to do this, including VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop, and VirtualBox. My weapon of choice is VMware Fusion.

Fusion 3 is scheduled for release on October 27, adding a host of new features and improvements, including 64-bit Snow Leopard support, virtual 3D graphics, support for Windows Aero effects (including the lamest of Microsoft’s lame Mac knockoffs, Flip3D), the elimination of the clunky Windows Start menu implementation of previous versions, and general performance improvements.

Full retail price will be $80, though you can typically find Fusion much cheaper (usually after rebate). The upgrade price for current users will be $40.

A big eQuixotic thank you to Troy Stein of TechSmith, the Product Manager for Camtasia for Mac, for indirectly (and likely unknowingly) answering my Mac window resizing question from my last post via this screencast.

MercuryMover from Helium Foot Software is a keystroke-enabled utility that allows you to resize Mac application windows – exactly what I was looking for but was unable to find. Unfortunately it doesn’t allow you to enter specific values – you have to size up and down using your arrow keys – but you can use mod keys to jump 1, 10 or 100 pixels. So there are a few more keyboard gymnastics required than with Sizer, but it gets the job done.

UPDATE: Per the developer Keith Alperin (comment below), you can enter custom window sizes numerically. Thanks Keith! Please pardon my misinformation.

The bad news is this handy little app will set you back $20, compared to Sizer for Windows – which is free.

Troy also points out a handy (and free) way to instantly resize browser windows (Mac or Windows) via setmy.browsersize.com.

Thanks Troy.

In eLearning development there is an almost-constant need to size application windows to a specific resolution when doing static or full-motion screen captures. Capturing your windows and resizing upon publication almost always results in undesirable visual compression. Your best bet is to set your application window to your desired output size before capturing (a hard lesson to learn). But how can this be done easily and precisely? Easy – with the excellent Windows freeware app Sizer by Brian Apps.

By simply right-clicking an edge, corner, or the restore button on your target app you can choose a preset resolution. Or you can set your own custom sizes in the app’s configuration settings.

The functionality (awesome), usability (idiot-proof) and price (free) makes Sizer a no-brainer for any eLearning developer’s toolbox. The app really came in handy for a recent Evernote demo project (more on that in an upcoming post).

Now if only I could find a suitable Mac alternative. Any suggestions?

For years, Mac users lagged far behind their Windows-using counterparts in the screencasting department – a sad but undeniable fact. Sure, we had Snapz Pro, which many users still swear by, but ultimately the long-in-the-tooth tool does little but basic capture. Other apps offered some additional functionality, but nothing served up the entire enchilada like, say, Camtasia for Windows.

Everything changed last year with the introduction of ScreenFlow, a beautiful Mac-esque application that provided a full suite of editing tools and effects. TechSmith, the 800-pound gorilla of the Windows screen capture world, had just announced their intention to enter the Mac market, and 18 months later released their much anticipated Camtasia for Mac (an agonizing 8 months later than they had forecasted). Was it worth the wait? Let’s have a look!

Users of ScreenFlow will notice that Camtasia for Mac looks remarkably similar to…ScreenFlow. Which in my book is just fine and dandy – why fix what isn’t broken? I can only thank the gods of software design that TechSmith didn’t try to replicate the interface from Camtasia for Windows, which frankly is an unmitigated mess (I say this as a Camtasia for Windows owner and user). Thankfully they wiped the slate clean for Camtasia for Mac, and this approach paid off beautifully.

Inevitably I’ll want to compare Camtasia to ScreenFlow, but in this review I will refrain from doing so. Watch for a post in the near future in which I’ll compare the two contenders in a head to head battle for screen recording supremacy. Telestream will be releasing ScreenFlow 2 in the next few months, which will make things even more interesting. But back to Camtasia.

Installing Camtasia is a simple “drag to your Applications folder” affair, like most Mac applications. To capture system audio, Camtasia does require the installation of Soundflower, a system extension for OS X, but Camtasia makes this process short and painless.

The first thing you’ll see after launching Camtasia is the recording control panel, and that’s where an initial moment of panic sets in. We Mac users can be a highly discriminating bunch, and we watch for that ferocious attention to detail with an all-seeing eye. And what you see in that initial control panel shows some non-Mac-like sloppiness that makes one fear for the polish of the rest of the app. Note the fuzzed button text and the jagged edges of the record button:

Not a good way to start. While such fit-and-finish faux pas are tolerable (typical?) in the Windows world, Mac users demand a step above. God is, after all, in the details (Mies van der Rohe). Windows users may dismiss such demands as sheer snobbery, but uncompromising quality should be an expectation, not a luxury.

Is this initial stumble indicative of the quality of the rest of the app? Thankfully, no. For the most part, Camtasia for Mac is Mac-tastic joy. Features wise it falls short of ScreenFlow in some aspects and leapfrogs it in others (which, again, I’ll talk about more in an upcoming post), but overall I find Camtasia much more intuitive than ScreenFlow. Effects and editing tools are logically placed and easy to find. Like ScreenFlow, the dark interface helps you focus on the important stuff – your screencast – and not on the editing app itself (Camtasia for Windows could take a lesson here) and gives it that Apple pro app vibe you get in FinalCut and Logic, among others.

Like ScreenFlow, Camtasia for Mac has one capture mode: full screen. Some Camtasia for Windows users may gripe about the inability to capture specific windows or regions, but personally I prefer the full screen approach. Just grab it all and let me choose what I want in the editing process – a level of flexibility that some may underestimate.

Effects are easy to choose, implement and manipulate – just drag and drop the effect you want onto the appropriate spot on your timeline and tweak them to your liking from there. Unfortunately the drag/drop effects elements are unnecessarily ginormous, even on my 24″ display at 1920×1200, which necessitates scrolling through the list. TechSmith could easily make these half the height and retain plenty of visibility while reducing the need to scroll. Note the ability at the top of the list to filter down to a specific effect type: Transitions, Filters and Actions. Nice touch!

A few of the effects fall squarely into the “Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should” category (an area in which PowerPoint is master), primarily the highly-questionable flips, rotates and spins. Most users will wisely shun these effects, but others will be tempted to use them if only because they’re there. And that makes me sad.

Camtasia also provides the basic collection of annotation tools, including text, arrows, boxes and bubbles:

Like the effect tools, the annotation tool elements are also unnecessarily oversized, which will force users with smaller screens to scroll through the list.

There are a few other nits to pick. One flaw I discovered is in the way Camtasia renders text. Text appears in your screencast with an ever-so-slight stroke and some jaggies, and if you’re like me it’s something you will immediately notice and thereafter be unable to ignore. Below is a sample of what text should look like (left) and what it looks like in Camtasia (right). Hopefully this is something TechSmith can fix quickly.

Resizing the canvas appears to be flawed as well. You cannot grab a side handle to resize disproportionately. Do you want your canvas to be 600×100? Too bad, you can’t do it by dragging. Corners, sides, it doesn’t matter – all resize the canvas proportionately. If you want to deviate from the norm you’ll have to enter a numeric value. Frustrating. Particularly under the “record the entire screen” philosophy that Camtasia for Mac adheres to. If TechSmith wants this to be Mac-like (or even computer-like), the side handles should allow you to resize disproportionately while the corners are used for proportionate resizing.

For me one of the biggest shortcomings of Camtasia is the lack of keyboard navigation in the editor. The inability to jump around the video timeline via the keyboard (Home, End, etc.) is a real workflow downer. This needs to be fixed.

One feature with which Camtasia kicks sand in the face of ScreenFlow is SmartFocus, which automatically zooms in on the relevant action, sparing you the time and hassle of doing it manually. A killer feature to be sure.

Sharing your final video is a snap, with Camtasia providing one-click publishing for iTunes, Screencast.com and YouTube.

You can also export to QuickTime with a single click or select another format (AVI, DV stream, etc.) under the Advanced Export option, though I found AVI publishing to be problematic under Snow Leopard. Problematic as in I couldn’t get it to work. At all. Camtasia gave me a progress bar to indicate that things were going swimmingly, but after completing the process there was no AVI file to be found.

Upon completion of the export process, Camtasia gives you this handy little dialog box that allows you to reveal your exported file in the Finder. Another very nice touch.

Ultimately Camtasia for Mac is a beautiful piece of software that is intuitive and enjoyable to use – and bargain-priced at one third the cost of its admittedly more features-rich (but ugly and clunky) Windows comrade. Does it suffer from the typical version 1.0 rough edges? Yes, but not as many as I expected. TechSmith did a fantastic job with this initial release. Despite the need for a little spit polish here and there, a handful of bug fixes, and the addition of a few features found in its primary competitor, ScreenFlow (and perhaps a few from Camtasia for Windows as well), Camtasia for Mac is a solid addition to any Mac-based eLearning developer, presenter, or screencaster’s quiver at a no-brainer price.

A free trial is available, so go grab it, kick the tires, and let me know what you think in the comments section below (good, bad, ugly). Comparisons to ScreenFlow by seasoned users of that application would also be appreciated.

My hat is off to TechSmith for an impressive initial foray into the world of Mac software, and I look forward to seeing how Camtasia progresses, as well as the arrival of other products (ahem, Snagit) they have in the pipeline.

There are pretty much only 3 things left in my computing life that I envy on the Windows side of the fence:

1) Games

2) Articulate

3) Snagit

TechSmith Camtasia used to appear on my list as well, but that was obviated first by ScreenFlow, and later (last week, in fact) by Camtasia for Mac (huzzah!!!). I am currently putting Camtasia for Mac through its paces and will post a review soon – along with an opportunity for you, dear reader, to win a free copy for yourself. Stay tuned!

I’ve not much time for gaming, so #1 is not terribly important to me (and on the days when it is important, I simply boot into Windows on my iMac or play on a console). As for Articulate, well, I hold out little hope as their software is so tightly welded (wedded?) to Office for Windows. But at least I don’t have to yearn for Snagit much (?) longer! TechSmith recently announced on their blog that Snagit is indeed in the “early stages of development.” (Wait, did they say “early stages?” *sob*)

I’ve posted several times on the sad state of Mac-based screen capture software, and while we now have two excellent (and Windows-beating) contenders for motion screen capture tools (ScreenFlow and Camtasia for Mac), there is still no true challenger to Snagit for Windows for static captures. I look forward to this changing.

Hopefully TechSmith will eschew the mostly-crummy interface of Snagit for Windows (sorry guys!) and make it completely Mactastic (as they successfully did with Camtasia for the Mac – more on that in my upcoming review).

I can only hope the wait won’t be as long this time – they announced Camtasia for Mac way back in January ‘08 I believe, and just delivered last week. I’m hoping an 18-month wait is not in store for Snagit for Mac. I’m optimistic that the learning process of developing Camtasia will result in much faster development on Snagit.

However long the wait, I welcome TechSmith to Mac-based eLearning development with open arms and great expectations.