Screencasting from Your Desktop with ScreenFlow
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4

Some Ideas for ScreenFlow Take 2

Writing a review that hardly mentions any short-comings in a product may make the reader feel as though said product hasn't been tested thoroughly, that the author of the review did not invest enough time in writing the test, or that there is some other non-kosher reason for the lack of criticism. So, just for the balance, here are a few things that bugged me about ScreenFlow.

When working on longer videos, navigation along the timeline is sometimes awkward. Having a command for jumping to the current location of the scrubber cursor on the timeline would be useful here (the new version 1.1 introduces time line markers, though). Also, when exporting to a QuickTime file, the file name is initially set to ScreenFlow.mov instead of the project's name. And when moving the right edge of the longest track(s) in the timeline towards the left to shorten a clip, the right edge of the timeline itself will follow, so you cannot easily drag the track's edge out towards the right again.

There, I tried, but there really isn't much negative to say about ScreenFlow's current features. As for feature requests for future versions, though, I do have a few:

• Callouts for regions of the video, not just for the mouse cursor or foreground window: let me place a rectangle (or similar graphics primitives) on the screen and apply effects like blurring the area around it or adding a highlighted border.
• Automatic following of the mouse cursor when zoomed out: move the zoomed-out area along with the mouse pointer (some of ScreenFlow's competitors have this feature).
• Placing text and some other simple graphics in screencast video: let ScreenFlow do to videos what Skitch does to still images. This would also be great for subtitling.
• Grouping Actions, Action Templates: while exploring ScreenFlow, I often (re)created similar Actions for, say, fading out the audio and video at the end of a screencast. It would help save some time and a few RSI-inducing mouse clicks if ScreenFlow would support grouping as well as copying/pasting of Actions (think "copying and pasting styles in iWork") and maybe even saving these in a Templates menu that persists across projects.

Just a Nominee or a Real Winner?

Despite this list of feature requests for a future release, the verdict on the current version of ScreenFlow is still straightforward:

ScreenFlow does deliver on the promise of providing a one-stop-shop tool for creating high-quality screencasts with excellent visual effects, and it does so in a polished, modern, and totally Mac-like user interface. Its smooth and seamless workflow squarely earns it "best-in-class" honors on the Macintosh; its results simply cannot be achieved by juggling separate screen snapping and audio hijacking utilities.

The software requires Mac OS X Leopard (10.5 or greater), is available as a 4.4 MB download from the Vara Software website, and has a $99 price tag.