

Rate my startup: The easiest way to reply with step-by-step screenshots - freshlog
http://storyteller.freshlog.com

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Terretta
Sequencing the captures as shown in your video is a great idea--allows the
person making the screenshots to stay in storytelling flow.

After that, I find the easy publishing, commenting, and one click round trip
annotation features of Skitch to be extremely compelling: <http://skitch.com/>

For the part that comes after taking the screenshot, Skitch offers a
particularly slick workflow without the separate Preview app.

Since both your app and Skitch allow one click capturing with a history of
captures, perhaps you could emphasize the storytelling aspect of your
approach. Maybe they own the mindshare for annotated image discussions, but
you own the category of screenshot sequences.

Ideas: Eliminate subsequent capture button clicks until clicking Done. Drag to
select and snap, use a key to switch between marquee rectangle and gui
control? Show frames as a filmstrip while capturing. Flow the other commenting
and annotation steps.

PS. It's a different situation, but just yesterday I had to crop a dozen very
high resolution JPEGs into 3 or 4 separate images each, and was disappointed
that Preview couldn't just mark all the crops I wanted at once. Maybe yours
could allow multiple rectangles at once, then "screenshot" them all at once.

~~~
freshlog
I have the idea of "screenshot sequences" in mind when I made Storyteller, but
I wasn't sure how best to highlight the concept, so I used 'step-by-step',
which may not be good enough, considering you highlighted it, was hoping
creative HN folks like you could suggest some :)

Yup, continuously taking multiple screenshots without having to click the
'Capture' button, can be achieved by a global shortcut key (I've set it to
Cmd+Alt+s for my current build).

I like the idea of floating previously capture screenshots like a filmstrip
while capturing, I'm considering using a semi-transparent HUD for that,
thoughts?

I'll be keeping Storyteller simple and easy to use, so I won't be implementing
simultaneous image crops anytime soon .

Good thoughts! :)

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crocowhile
I like the project but I think you definitely need a new description for it.
"The easiest way to reply" doesn't mean anything to me. Reply to what and to
whom?

~~~
aasarava
Agreed. I was confused at first. Maybe just call it "the easiest way to create
step-by-step screenshots"? Or maybe something like: "Show them exactly what
you mean: The easiest way to create animated, step-by-step screenshots".

~~~
freshlog
I'm not sure about 'animated' unless you mean a powerpoint-like slideshow like
what jasonkester suggested.

I like "Show them exactly what you mean".

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minalecs
This looks like a solid project. Just signed up.. looking forward to using it.

~~~
freshlog
Thanks for the kind words minalecs, I'll be sending out invitations real soon,
watch out for it :)

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xinsight
From your demo, I learned that Preview now has annotations that allows you to
draw arrows and circles on images. Very handy -- don't know how I never saw
that before.

~~~
freshlog
Yeah, I have step-by-step screenshots how to get the annotation toolbar in
Preview.app, done by Storyteller:

[http://storyteller.freshlog.com/instructions/d290-How_to_ena...](http://storyteller.freshlog.com/instructions/d290-How_to_enable_annotations_in_Previewapp_in_Mac_OS_X)

Your friends might find this useful :)

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spking
I think this is very cool. I could see myself using this to storyboard and
document app flows. One thing that's not totally clear to me in the demo video
is exactly what I can capture. It looks similar to Grab, where you can select
any area you want and capture. It would be great if you could also capture an
entire browser window by clicking on it, as with Grab.

~~~
freshlog
Thanks!

Yeah I use Storyteller myself quite a bit to document user interface flows
myself too :)

After you click the 'Capture' button, you can press spacebar to capture your
entire browser window with a single click.

Is this what you were looking for?

~~~
spking
Yes. As close to native Grab behavior as possible would be great.

~~~
freshlog
Yep, you'll be able to do Selection or Window capture just like Grab :)

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marcamillion
Hey freshlog, I am doing a podcast about various ideas/projects/stuff that HN
members are working on.

Interested in being on one of the episodes?

I put up the first episode and am pivoting based on the feedback I got from
the HN community: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379942>

If you are interested, email me: marc {at} ideatin {dot} com

The same applies to anyone else doing anything productive, that would like to
do the same.

~~~
freshlog
Sent you an email

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ebiester
This looks like the perfect cute animal and story mail creator that my mother
and her friends will send around, and I don't mean that in a bad way at all.
You may want to look at that market.

~~~
freshlog
I made this image previously, I wonder if it makes the cut for cute animal:

[http://alvinlai.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/04/storyteller-i...](http://alvinlai.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/04/storyteller-icon-300x241.png)

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jasonkester
Nice. Is it only available for the Mac? (and if so, why???)

The creation workflow looks really good. Pretty much everything you need
without any excess features that nobody would actually use.

The presentation piece looks like it's still under construction. I'd expect to
see a powerpoint-style slideshow instead of a simple HTML dump of the whole
thing.

I also liked the irony of presenting the workflow for your screenshot workflow
tool as a video!

~~~
freshlog
Yes, I made the mac client first because I'm using a Mac, but if this takes
off I'll make a Windows version too, so stay tuned.

Good suggestion for powerpoint-style slideshow transitions, it might help with
focusing on one user interface screenshot at a time to better simulate it.

I might implement this down the road with Javascript.

Haha, a screencast video would pique your interest more than static images,
wouldn't you agree? Yes irony :)

~~~
dschobel
Why not just make a web client?

It wasn't obvious from the video that the desktop client does anything which
can't be done in a browser window.

It could be pretty compelling since you can drag and drop media onto the
browser window, mark it up, and be right on the results/sharing page without
having to mentally context switch from your app to the browser window.

~~~
freshlog
dschobel,

You are right that it's possible to drag and drop media into a web browser and
mark things up, but a web based implementation would miss out a ton of key
benefits a native app can provide, in terms of uninterrupted flow and time
savings.

Here's a workflow using Storyteller:

1\. Take multiple, consecutive screenshots (faster, with a shortcut key) 2\.
Immediately view your screenshots for annotation/re-arrangement/description
3\. Click 'Create Story' 4\. Get URL of new story (copied to your clipboard
automatically), ready to paste anywhere

With it, you'll be able to skip mundane steps like:

\- Locating where/which screenshot files to work with \- Juggling between
local files to open for annotation (unnecessary decisions get painful after
lots of repetition) \- Opening a browser window (Storyteller pops up when you
need it) \- Locating the files to upload \- Waiting for the story to finish
creating and copying the URL manually \- Closing the browser window/tab

I personally like the speed and general smoothness of a native app too.

I have been uploading step-by-step screenshots quite a bit to reply my
customers for a previous product of mine called Freshlog, a tool that helps
create screenshot-attached documents in project management services like
Basecamp and issue trackers like Unfuddle, Github etc (<http://freshlog.com>).

My customers have found my step-by-step screenshot walkthroughs very helpful
and it has always been a pleasure to go the extra mile to make these for them.

However, after doing this many, many times a day, it can get very time
consuming and tiring, so I made Storyteller. :)

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jayair
I like it. This could give me a lightweight way to provide help to users that
are having troubles on the site. Signed up!

~~~
freshlog
Yep! This is one of the use cases I made Storyteller for :)

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danielhodgins
I like this, and would use it. Haven't researched your competitor's offerings,
but you seem to have a good grasp on what I would need to quickly and
efficiently create screen shots. My use case is creating a 'story' for task
instructions involving multiple steps, one screen for each step. Nice work.

~~~
danielhodgins
How about: "Explain stuff - one picture for each step"!

~~~
freshlog
I like this, will use this for my A/B test.

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orblivion
So what's the price point? Pay for the software or a web service? If the
latter, any inclination to open source the app?

~~~
freshlog
I intend this to be a monthly subscription service for 2 reasons:

1\. Reliability

I want to use the stories generated and hosted by Storyteller for FAQ,
customer support, prototyping and storyboarding purposes, which would remain
on a company's website for a long while, requiring a good level of
reliability.

I'm hosting the images off Amazon S3 so huge traffic spikes for one member's
image wouldn't affect other people's stuff.

2\. No fuss

I made Storyteller to be a no-fuss and easy solution, so users wouldn't have
to bother with FTP, HTML, Dreamweaver or a web interface, hence I intend this
to be a pay as you go service, for minimal configuration fuss.

Unless of course the user explicitly deletes unwanted stories.

Since I'll be paying the bill for S3, and actively maintaining the service for
good level of reliability, that's my plan for billing.

\- Open sourcing

I'm not sure about open sourcing everything but I do intend to open source
parts of the project, because I agree with 37signals that when you make
something, you can't just make one thing :)

~~~
danudey
I would also consider the idea of having some kind of 'export' feature -
export to an HTML file and a folder of images, upload to an FTP server, create
HTML snippets, etc.

I know a lot of people that would use something like this for a knowledgebase
app for their companies, but would run it on their corporate intranet and
wouldn't want to have to go to the outside world to fetch data (or, for that
matter, have screenshots of their internal applications floating around on the
internet).

Perhaps this could be an enterprise version, an internally-hosted service, or
some other pricing model (e.g. purchase a corporate license for a higher
price, free upgrades for life).

Once a corporate user makes the purchase, that's a lump sum in your pocket,
and since they're using their internal systems to manage everything (rather
than using your S3 account), there's little further cost to you (other than
support, which should be minimal).

What this gets you is larger one-time income (until the next paid upgrade),
but lower costs. There would be no real change to your workflow, other than
that you'd occasionally get big cheques from people you'd never hear from
again.

~~~
freshlog
Yeah, I'm aware that some companies prefer to have their content available
only within their private networks but different big enterprises have pretty
different requirements.

Right now, I want to focus my efforts to create a great product for folks like
myself, who would enjoy and benefit from easy and no-fuss storytelling with
screenshots.

I might consider an enterprise version down the road, but creating a great
product to scratch my own itch and help others like me comes first.

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mingyeow
Think about allowing powerpoint uploading. turn it into a way for various
people to collaborate around specific slides

~~~
freshlog
Do you mean opening a powerpoint file on the native client and
reordering/annotating the slides before uploading?

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evanjacobs
You should try to tell the story of Storyteller using the product itself
instead of the video.

~~~
freshlog
Haha, I did!

"Let's use Storyteller to teach you how to use Storyteller"

If you have 1 minute to spare, watch this earlier screencast I made:

<http://vimeo.com/11276904>

The new user interface has changed quite a bit though :)

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dalore
How is it different to Adobe Captivate?

~~~
freshlog
Hi dalore,

I created Storyteller to scratch my own itch.

I wanted a quick, no-fuss way to send step-by-step screenshots to customers
and co-workers without having to waste time or bother with complicated
application-switching, picture-annotation and uploading steps.

I just needed to send step-by-step screenshots to other people and wouldn't
need all the features in Adobe's 10 pound gorilla :)

~~~
dalore
Cool I might give it a try when I need to next. I've used Captivate in the
past just wanted to know what is different.

~~~
freshlog
Awesome :)

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p0larboy
freshlog are you a singaporean?

~~~
freshlog
Yes I am.

~~~
p0larboy
nice.. me too.. love your product btw.. will be spreading the words :)

~~~
freshlog
Thanks bro!

You recognized my Singaporean accent eh? :D

~~~
p0larboy
lol.. living in China in a year allows me to detect singaporean accent from a
mile away~~

~~~
freshlog
I knew it! =)

