We have been getting a lot of questions lately about the videos on our site. I just use a few simple tools to create them:

Recording: iShowU

It is simple and fast. All it does is recording. No effects or editing but it works well for what it does.

Screen Highlights: Mousepose

This is a great little app for highlighting the screen. You should also check out OmniDazzle though I have never used it.

For editing I am just using QuickTime Pro. I highlight the areas I need to delete and delete them. Then I use the QuickTime Pro "Export for Web" feature. We used to host the videos on our site but when TUAW linked to us we got so many video views that it brought the site down. Now we host the videos on Amazon S3 and it seems to work pretty well.

There is a new app out that I am going to take a look at when I get a chance called ScreenFlow. It looks great but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

BTW - We also get people asking if ScreenSteps records video. It most definitely does not. These little 4-7 min. videos take several hours to create. Screen recordings are a major pain. That is why we created ScreenSteps. We use video as a quick intro and then fill in all of the other documentation with ScreenSteps.

ScreenSteps 2 has now been released for Windows. We have also pushed a 2.0.2 release for Mac. This update fixes a lot of bugs and adds some very useful enhancements, including:

1. Improved PDF Export (Images are clearer)
2. Split Lesson at Step contextual menu option. This is handy if you decide after the fact to split up your lesson into smaller bits.
   
3. Split Step at Text. This is really cool, especially for updating old documentation you might have. See this lesson.
   
4. Import and Export ScreenSteps Lesson Packages. This allows you to move lessons between libraries and share them with other users of ScreenSteps. See this lesson.
5. Insert tabs in text fields. You can now option-tab (Mac) or alt-tab (Windows) to insert tabs in your Step instruction fields.

You can download an update or free trial here. You can also read the full release notes here.