ScreenShow Pro

Screen Annotations

The Screen Annotations feature allows you to add captions to your screen during recording. To instantiate a certain shape (for example the Orange Gradient shape) you can simply click-and-drag it out of the Screen Annotations window.

This is an example of a Screen Annotation:

You can access the Screen Annotations menu by choosing Tools->Screen Annotations in the menu bar or by simply clicking on the Screen Annotations button:

The Screen Annotations option consists of two main components: Shapes and Layouts.

Shapes

Shapes are 'floating' boxes that appear on top of all other windows. It's composed of an image body where a image of your choice can be displayed and a text area where you can write whatever you want. You can see an example above. The uses of these shapes are pretty obvious: to explain certain parts of a video. You can write an additional explanation, a comment or make any kind of statement while the movie is playing.

Instantiating a shape

To create a shape, click and drag the shape out of the Screen Annotations window.

Editing a shape

You can access the edit option for a shape by right-clicking on it. A drop down menu will appear and you have several options.

Aside the actual editing options, you can choose to:

Save – which will save the shape’s appearance
Save Layout – which will save the layout (read more about Layouts
Clone – which will make an exact copy of the shape
Close – will close the active shape
Close All – will close all the shapes on the screen
Refresh – will refresh the shape if it is not shown correctly

Editing Text

Choose the Edit Text... option. The Text Properties window will appear:

In this window, you can edit:
The text message
Font options
Text Color
Alignment
Language/encoding (if you need specific characters; this feature is only available on Windows XP/2000)

When you choose the Edit Text... option you will notice that a dotted rectangle appears around the text:

You can move the rectangle by dragging it with your mouse, or you can resize it by dragging the edges/corners.

Editing an Image

Using this option you can set the options for the background image as well as the options for the cutout region of the selected shape.

Select Edit Image... from the shape menu.

You can choose from:

1. No cutout region.

The shape will display as-is.

2. Create cutout using transparency color.

This will create a cutout region by selecting a transparency color (similar to an alpha channel in Photoshop). If you specify a color, all areas of that color will be made transparent allowing you to see the background.

In the example below, the selected transparency color is Black.

The image above will then look like this:

3. Create cutout using pre-defined shape

You can create a transparent region around the shape using a pre-defined shape: Round Rectangle, Ellipse and Rectangle.

When using the Round Rectangle option, the first image above will display like this:

rr1

You can also add a border to the shape. If we use a Red Border Color and specify a Border Size of 5 pixels, the image displays like so:

rr2

4. Background

If the shape has no background image you can choose a background color by clicking on the Background Color button.

If the shape has a background image you can load an image for the background by clicking on the Load New Image button. The accepted formats are GIF, BMP and JPG.

Editing Transparency

Select Edit>>Transparency

You can change the shape’s transparency if you want to be able to still see the background. This option is only available in Windows 2000/XP

NOTE: If you choose to enable the Transparency option you should be aware that it will affect the frame rate causing it to drop significantly. Also, if you want the shape to be captured properly during recording you should enable the Capture Translucent/Layered Window option in the Program Options menu.

Resizing Shape

Select Resize... from the context menu to resize the shape.

You can specify the Width and Height by moving the slider and you can return to the original size of the shape by clicking the Reset Size button

NOTE: A larger shape will be drawn and displayed very slowly.

Managing Shapes

You have the choice to set the library options by choosing the Library menu in the menu bar. The options:

New Shape Library – creates a new empty shape library. You can create new custom shapes to populate this new library
Open Shape Library – opens a shape library from an existing fil
Save Shape Library – saves the opened shape library for future us
Insert Shape Library – adds the shapes from an existing library to the library that is currently open
New Layout Library – creates a new empty layout library
Open Layout Library – opens an existing layout library from a file
Save Layout Library – saves the current layout library
Close Screen Annotations – closes the window

You can also set up some object options using the Screen Annotations' Objects menu. Aside from the editing options which were discussed above, you can set up the following options:

Move Item Up – moves the selected shape/layout one position up in the list
Move Item Down – moves the selected shape/layout one position down in the list
Copy/Paste – classic copy/paste option
Remove – you can choose to delete an item in the list
Layout Shortcuts – you have several layout hotkeys you can define. You can also set these up using the Keyboard Shortcuts menu. The available options will be discussed in the Layouts section.
Edit Name – allows you to choose a different name for the selected shape. You can also do that by selecting a shape and pressing the F2 key.

Creating a New Shape

By right-clicking the shapes box you have the option of creating a new shape as shown below:

You can see that you also have here the same options as the ones discussed in the Managing Shapes section.

When you select the New Shape option the New Shape window will appear:

This window lets you:

Choose a name for the new shape you’re creating
Specify what background you want to use. You can choose to have a Blank Image as your background, allowing you to further change the background color in the Edit Image menu (see Editing Images). If you choose to have an image as your background you will have to browse to the image file.
Choose the size of your shape
Enter the text that you’d like to be displayed

Layouts

A layout is just the arrangement of one or more shapes on your desktop.

You can access the layout menu by selecting the Layout tab in the Screen Annotations window.

You must prepare all your layouts before recording starts. The layouts will be arranged in a list. This list determines the order in which they will appear on the screen. When recording you can switch between layouts by pressing the chosen hotkey for next/previous layout. You can select the desired key combination in the Keyboard Shortcuts menu. This cycling between layouts will determine the right shape to appear at the proper time in the right position (layout).

You can right-click a certain layout to display a drop-down menu for the selected layout. You have the same options here as you had in the shape menu: Copy, Paste and Remove, the name editing option and the Open Layout option for displaying the selected layout. You can also operate with the layout libraries. For more information on these options please read the Manage Shapes section.