What's Your Opinion of Mimic?

This Forum is for General Issues about Mimic
Post Reply
Skywise23
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2016 11:14 am

What's Your Opinion of Mimic?

Post by Skywise23 »

Hello MadCappers!

I am a currently working on a Masters in Technical Communications at Northeastern University. I've been a Flare user for several years now and LOVE IT.

For my current assignment, I am evaluating Mimic.
I've downloaded the demo version and played with it myself.
I'm now curious to hear what other folks think of it.
I am hoping that you have some time to answer a few questions.

Do you like Mimic?
How do you find producing MP4 output?
What do you think is Mimic's easiest feature to learn?
What do you think is Mimic's most challenging feature to learn?

Thank you in advance for your time.
JanetAlbers
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jun 30, 2016 11:33 am

Re: What's Your Opinion of Mimic?

Post by JanetAlbers »

I'm evaluating whether I should switch from Captivate to Mimic. My company is in the process of adopting Flare.
I've been a Captivate user for 5+ years. I've been using Mimic for just a couple of weeks.

Do you like Mimic?
It seems fine for the basics.

How do you find producing MP4 output?
It is not automatic, I have to find and download an appropriate Codec which takes getting my IT department involved. So, this hasn't happened yet. I think mp4 output should be native to Mimic.

What do you think is Mimic's easiest feature to learn?
It is easy to get a basic recording done.

What do you think is Mimic's most challenging feature to learn?
Editing, taking the easy recording and polishing it to our corporate look and feel.

Good luck on your assignment!
BedfordWriter
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 217
Joined: Wed Jun 23, 2010 10:13 am
Location: Nova Scotia

Re: What's Your Opinion of Mimic?

Post by BedfordWriter »

I'm just finishing my first Mimic project. I plan to build a lot more.

Do you like Mimic?
Yes and no. More in the summary...

How do you find producing MP4 output?
After installing the required codec (grr!) I had a few errors. But those went away "by themselves". Now, it's easy. Could be faster, but it seems to work properly.

What do you think is Mimic's easiest feature to learn?
None of them.

What do you think is Mimic's most challenging feature to learn
Two stand out: How to work efficiently and how to work with audio.

My summary:
I find that Mimic gives me the tools to build anything that I can dream up, but they sure don't make it easy. Feels like doing typesetting with lead type instead of a desktop publishing system. You can make anything, but you have to work at it. I've sent in a dozen feature requests so far, just with this one project. I particularly hate that a "feature" of the program is that items in MyPalette will scale themselves automatically according to the frame I add them to. After being told that it's a feature not a bug, I sent a long letter to tech support describing exactly why that's a bad idea.

But mostly, It's good. Every time that I bumped into a problem or thought that it couldn't do something that I wanted, I found a solution. I just think that it could be a whole lot more user-friendly.
mattf
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 277
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2006 5:35 pm
Location: Next to the window

Re: What's Your Opinion of Mimic?

Post by mattf »

I'm now looking into video as well. Assuming that Mimic vids will integrate (relatively) seamlessly into Flare webhelp, my question would be whether that native interoperability would give Mimic an advantage over Camtasia Studio, which is also an option for us if we want it. I didn't see anyone reply that Mimic is super user-friendly, and I'm not up for the headaches of a nonintuitive interface, so that makes me think maybe the Camtasia path is the one for me, but on the other hand, I recall how nice it was to use and edit Capture images right inside of Flare. I don't know if Mimic operates the same way with Flare. Also, I have not used Camtasia Studio yet; maybe it's just as arcane. Anyone have an opinion on this?

Thanks,
-mdf
Matt F
You learn something new every day if you're not careful.
MikeJasper
Jr. Propeller Head
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2017 9:53 am

Re: What's Your Opinion of Mimic?

Post by MikeJasper »

After spending almost a week struggling to make software walk-through videos with Mimic, I gave up. Mimic didn't record everything I did on screen, and it was cumbersome and hard to use.

I switched to Camtasia yesterday afternoon, and even though I've never used Camtasia (I used Captivate quite a bit years ago), I was able to create 4 5-minute videos in a few hours, and then I could actually edit my audio to take out all the stops and starts. The end result -- with Camtasia -- was a professionally made video with not a lot of effort.

I'd choose Camtasia over Mimic any day. I really, really wanted to like Mimic, as I like Flare and use it constantly for work, but Mimic just doesn't have what it takes.
Mike Jasper
Senior Documentation Specialist, ScienceLogic
jbkalla
Propeller Head
Posts: 57
Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2012 11:53 am
Location: Denver, CO, USA
Contact:

Re: What's Your Opinion of Mimic?

Post by jbkalla »

I've used Mimic 7 for the past few years. Tried moving to Mimic 8 when it came out, but couldn't get the videos to convert from flash to mp4/webm correctly.
This past week, I tried moving to Mimic 8 again, but can't seem to insert cursors correctly. I can get them added and moving, but I'm trying to start the movement with a "Continue" button and it doesn't seem to do anything. Normally, in Mimic 7, I would start cursor movement with the Continue button, but it seems impossible to accomplish using Mimic 8.

Even placing a cursor seems buggy (impossible to place a cursor without dragging a weird-shaped box. Double-clicking and escape seem to do nothing), and Mimic hasn't been updated in forever. I long for the days of Mimic 7. :(

Hopefully Mimic 9 will be better? I need mp4/webm output, but can't figure out the editor anymore. I don't know what happened from Mimic 7 to Mimic 8, but it's almost impossible to use. Our team buys the suite, but we really only use Flare and Mimic. We're on a network that isn't connected to the Internet, so activating even two applications is an arduous process.
Post Reply