“No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time steady eye.” ~Winston Churchill
Do you have some feature ideas that would improve your ScreenFlow workflow? Be sure to check out our Feature Requests page and add your ideas to our list.
If you’ve submitted feature requests via our contact support form or via our support forum, don’t worry, we have captured all of that information for evaluation as well.
The Feature Request page in this blog simply offers another means of submitting your ideas, with the added bonus of making it possible for others to vote on your ideas. This helps us gauge interest when we’re evaluating all the great requests.
So take a look around, vote on the ideas you like, and add a few of your own if you’d like!
We appreciate all your ideas and input.
Hi,
I would like to see more media stuff like arrows, circles, frames or handmade graphics. Is possible to include this feature in next version?
I like to see a way to easily port sceenflow into Google’s Blogger (similar to using Flowplayer with Word Press
Good thought… I’ll look into that…
I would be interested in the ability to monitor my video input during the recording of a lecture. I use Keynote to deliver lecture content in Presenter mode. I record the second screen (colour VGA output) and use either my built in iSight camera or a separate iSight camera in location that gives me a wider angle shot. Sometimes my laptop or the separate iSight camera will move. During the actual lecture, I have no way of knowing if I need to adjust my camera(s) or not without stopping the recording, looking at the configure recording window and then resuming my recording. This may be too specific an application, but it would be nice to be able to see something like the “configure recording” window on my laptop LCD while I am recording from and displaying my Keynote content on a second monitor (LCD projector); a sort of Presenter Mode for ScreenFlow.
hmmm. Thanks Scott, interesting idea. It’s added to our list.
Scott, have you taken a look at Videocue? http://www.telestream.net/video-cue/overview.htm
I know this isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, but it may serve as a work-around…. Videocue will give you an interface that shows you what’s on your video input (i.e. your iSight camera). You might be able to just have this running on your laptop, which would give you the ability to see what’s being filmed on your iSight as you go through your lecture.
You should be able to download a trial version of Videocue and test it out. I’d be interested to see if that works…
I have been talking up Screenflow since I bought it about 8 months ago. Well, I just used Camtasia for the first time in about 7 years (The last time I used it, it could only record like a 1/4 of the screen and even that was crappy) and now it’s SUPER SWEET. Please include some of Camtasia’s features and functionality.
Although I’m sure some of this is preference, but I love the way they do their Zooming (using like a pan/scan/zoom box) and their key framing is pretty good too. But their use of those shapes to do callouts is really really cool.
Although the Studio version we have is 3 times more expensive, I think it’s worth it. I would be willing to upgrade to a more feature rich version of screenflow.
BTW, don’t read into this as I don’t like Screenflow… I still LOVE it. But I was just kind taken aback by Camtasia’s features and operation.
Thanks Francesco, this is great feedback.
Hi,
A great product which I use to create Sales Training Webinars.
One really big improvement (I am sure it is already on your list) would be the ability to precisely place items on the canvas (X & Y co-ordinates) and to stipulate the precise size of the element.
Also the use of a modifier key to maintain the current aspect ratio when drag-resizing an object on screen would be highly useful.
Looking forward to the next version !
Thanks Tim. The XY coordinate features is a popular request. Thanks for your input.
LYNN
Screenflow makes me happy.
Stuff I’d like to see (or, stuff that I just haven’t found yet and would love for someone to point out to me):
:: the ability to replace elements in the timeline, keeping transitions, effects, and parameters (similar to “relink” in Illustrator). This way, if I replace a static image, I don’t need to delete the old one, add the new one, stretch it out along the timeline, re-add the video action, rotation, and transparency, etc.
:: I agree with Tim above — precise placement of items on the canvas would be sweet (and add to that the ability to nudge elements pixel by pixel)
:: better export controls. I can’t really be much more specific, unfortunately, but I just feel that the options are a bit restrictive, especially for Flash. Maybe including an “approximate exported movie size” would be helpful, if that’s even possible 🙂
:: “Insert Space” — if I want to add a section in the middle of my video, I need to select all the clips & elements after my break point, drag them to the right, add my new stuff, select everything I moved, and drag back (at least I don’t know of another way). Being able to insert a space of defined length would be quite awesome.
:: resize timeline tracks to make them vertically shorter, so I can fit more tracks in the same vertical space
These are nitpicks, really (except the first one, which I think would help out tremendously), but nitpicks are what separates good from great. Thanks so much…
Thanks Benjy. This is great feedback. And I agree – every nitpick is worth considering:)
I would like to see two features to improve my screencasts:
1. Like in Photoshop it would be great if I could save styles/transitions/callouts/actions to reuse them.
For example: I want to reuse a video action. I make the video action, adjust everything. When I want to use the same style of action I have to copy it. To copy it, I have to jump to the action. Than jump back to the position where I want to insert it. With saved styles, I just click on the style to insert it at the current position, done.
It would improve your software if the user could reuse callouts, video actions and pointer actions.
2. It would be great like in another video software (magix video deluxe 7) to customize different zoom steps. It’s annoying using COMMAND + = and COMMAND + – to zoom in and out.
In magix video deluxe I zoom in with CTRL plus a number between 1-7. If I want to do a precise cut, i jump with the cursor to the point and press CTRL + 1 to fully zoom into the recording and can do the cut by frame. with CTRL + 7 I totally zoom out.
Ah, and one other feature what drives me crazy (or I didn’t figure out how to customize it). When you work on a transition for example you press SPACE BAR to play the clip to see how the transition looks. You stop with SPACE BAR. BUT the timecursor doesnt jump back where you began. you have to drag it back. it would be great to have a feature that the timecursor jumps directly back to the point where it started.
This is just some criticism to a smooth and powerful tool. I want to help to improve your tool and my work 😉
Great suggestions Mo. Thanks for the input, I’ll make sure these are logged.
I especially like your customized zoom idea!
Hey Lynn!
I have one more suggestion, easy to realize for the programmers I think: I don’t know why, but often when I want to zoom in or out I click on the little or big magnifier but nothing happens. It would be helpful, if Screenflow would zoom in or out, when you click on one of the magnifier 🙂
I embed a movie clip in Keynote and then use Screenflow to archive my presentation with my ‘talking head’ for students. But the movie clips are not captured. A future feature? Or am I missing something? Thanks.
I just got started using Screen flow and love it.
I recorded a webex while interviewing a collegue over the phone. I then went about adding markers so that I could navigate around easily.
I also thought that converting these markers to chapters would be useful for final encoding and posting.
I made the mistake of putting markers in first as an editing aid. Then realized the they are bound to absolute time and cant be bound relative to a video or audio element (a master track if you will). As I went about editing out irrelevant pieces of content my markers all had to be shifted to resynch with the content.
Taking this use case a step further anchoring markers to an element and anchoring other elements to a master element would make deletes and ripple less disruptive to down stream elements (although multiple selections allow ripple deletes to delete and time shift selections markers still seem to be based on absolute time.
Anchoring with relativity could also be augmented by adding feature snap points to tracks video and audio. Screen flow could analyse content and determine features as suggested snap points on the time line. A feature could be:
* Music beats or highlights
* Scene change ie New slide or % scene change as threshold setting.
* Mouse clicks
Im sure this feature would be tricky and time consuming to implement but i think the “Juice is worth the squeeze”
Thanks Kiwi. I agree, this would be a really nice feature. And thank you for the detailed description. I will add it to our list.
hey Lynn,
I think a great thing to add would be the ability to add photos straight from the internet. Meaning i dont have to save the file on my computer and then import into screenflow but i can just paste the URL from the photo into SceenFlow and it will automatically download into ScreenFlow. I think another great idea would be the ability to import video from a camera like iMovie or Final Cut. Frequently I find myself trying to use ScreenFlow as my main editor but have to go through iMovie to be able to use that footage from my camera. Hope we can see this in ScrenFlow 4!
hi i would like to see the option to record straight on to the desktop and not in to the editor
Hello, I believe a useful addition would be to include the ability to magnify a certain portion of the page, while leaving the other parts unchanged.
Especially for making programming videos, as you want to zoom in on a bit of code while leaving the whole page visible.
HI Lucas, be sure to check out Callouts in ScreenFlow. You can add a callout to a screen recorded clip and highlight the cursor, or a foreground window, or draw a freehand square on screen. But once you have that callout, you can also Zoom Up the size of it, which is what I think you’re after.
Hi, can you kindly add in a ‘presets’ feature which saves the settings that you have made for the audio and video because whenever I open up screen flow I need to tweak the settings that I wanted over and over again. It would be super cool if you add this in so that it will save us some time and energy. Cheers.
HI Andy, That already exists… Click on Export, which brings up the Export dialog box. Then about midway down the box, is a “Customize” button, and a “Manage” button. Click the “Manage” button and it lets you add new customized presets, which you can create from an existing preset. (I think this was added in ScreenFlow 5, so if you’re on an earlier version of ScreenFlow, you need to upgrade!)
I’m making educational videos – mostly just screencasts of up to an hour long. When I edit, I spend a lot of time ripple-deleting silences in the videos – gaps where nothing changes on the screen and I am not saying anything. It seems like it should be possible to automate this, saving me a lot of work. More specifically I want: any silence (sound level below threshhold w) longer than x ms with screen activity smaller than y units to be automatically ripple-deleted.
I am sure I can’t be the only one 🙂
Senario:
Several times during the aftermath of a live presentation, accidentally, I have selected the computer Shut Down command without stopping the Screenflow recording.
Upon pressing the Shutdown button, Screenflow will then present an error message “Recording error – Due to an internal error the recording has unexpectedly stopped….” — completely deleting my unsaved running recording.
If I have an unsaved/unprocessed Adobe Acrobat document open and selected the Shut Down command and press the Shut Down button, Acrobat will first ask if I want save the document, giving me options to Save/Don’t Save/Cancel, then it proceeds with the Shut Down after I’ve made my selection.
Can a fail-safe like this be programmed into Screenflow?