Karl Katzke

Why’s it been so quiet? Why so many reading lists, and so little editorial? I’ve been doing consulting work like a madman — I’ve got some doggy stuff to pay for, I’ve got some expensive toys I need for a job next month, and I’ve got a day job to keep too.

One of the steps I’ve been dreading on the current job is the documentation aspect. Documentation is a pain in my arse. Not only do I need to generate in-line documentation, but customers usually want a printable book that they can keep at their desk too. So I end up writing the manual twice — once in HTML, and again in a PDF using my favorite program for Mac, OmniGraffle.

That’s changed. I downloaded the ScreenSteps demo a few weeks ago, but like I usually do with documentation, put off actually trying it. I ran into an issue today with a complicated process that I wanted a user to test… she couldn’t get it with me explaining it over the phone or in text. I whipped out the demo I downloaded several weeks ago, spent about five minutes using it to take screenshots and typing explanations with circles and numbers, and then dumped it to a PDF and attached it to an email. She got the concepts and blasted through the test in one go. If I had one of those Staples buttons, I’d slap it right now — “That was easy!”

Unlike most of my favorite programs, this one isn’t Mac-only. It’s offered in both Windows and Mac versions, and both are kept up to date and seem to be released simultaneously.

I haven’t yet used it to create larger help files, and I haven’t explored the Screen Steps Live or Blog/Web export modes yet. I’ll probably revisit things in a month when this project wraps up and we move on to the next one.

Now: Three things I’d really like to see would be Windows CHM files, a way to draw and to call attention to where a user should click (such as an image of a mouse pointer with a bull’s eye) and some way to create programmer documentation (like PHPDoc imports or being able to import a MySQL table structure). Maybe also the ability to attach other files to it (media files, flash files, or .sql files…) But that’s kind of a wet dream. It’s an excellent tool as it is and trying to cast too broad a net would probably reduce the wonderful simplicity of the interface.