Capture or Snagit.

[atomdocs]

Hi Shawn and ChoccieMuffin

That's a good list Shawn. I just wanted to add that the Print Format property tab works well for me in PDF output, but I understand your point about being able to use vectors. For callouts, you could use the text rectangle object as an alternative, or for a box with a pointer, I use a bubble with corner radius set to 0 and I set the pointer base width to 0 px for a more refined look (less chunky/cartoonish).

But it is a good list and I'll submit a request too.

ChoccieMuffin, I am able to capture full dialog boxes with corners. When you do "Capture Window" do you put the capture pointer over the title bar of the dialog box?

[ChoccieMuffin]

ChoccieMuffin, I am able to capture full dialog boxes with corners. When you do "Capture Window" do you put the capture pointer over the title bar of the dialog box?

It's so long since I used Capture, I couldn't tell you what I did!

[sdcinvan]

Request submitted as you wrote it, with the addition of:

"Ability to capture rounded corners in dialog boxes. Currently the curves and the top of the dialog box are just cut off, so the image is not good enough to use. (Back to SnagIt again.)"

Snagit! Another tool that I have a love/hate relationship with. Like MadCap Capture, what completely boggles my mind is that both tools allow you to work with vector images, they both allow you to save the vector images (in their own proprietary formats) but they both only save flat bitmap/raster images, as the final product! Would it have been that difficult to allow saving an image in .svg format?

[ChoccieMuffin]

Callouts, the bane of my life!

[sdcinvan]

Callouts, the bane of my life!

Huh? Wow! I find that well-placed callouts are awesome for building succinct documents. They save a lot of typing. But perhaps I am just lazy because I don't get paid for each word. LOL

[atomdocs]

Shawn, when you say that both Capture and Snagit allow you to work with vectors, do you mean your input image is a vector image (i.e. not a screenshot)? Or do you mean that you can put vector objects on a screenshot as overlays?

I think the problem with saving screenshots with callouts as a vector format is that the screenshot is still a bitmap inside the vector file, so you've still just got a bitmap. That's why Snagit has .snag format and Capture has .props - these formats preserve objects and layers so that you can reopen the file and edit the objects again. But I don't think saving a screenshot in vector format turns the screenshot into a vector. You'd have to trace the screenshot in something like Illustrator first.

My position in the great callout debate is: they can sometimes be a pain to implement and maintain (Capture can take much of that pain away ) but they improve an image or illustration tremendously.

[ChoccieMuffin]

Callouts, the bane of my life!

Huh? Wow! I find that well-placed callouts are awesome for building succinct documents. They save a lot of typing. But perhaps I am just lazy because I don't get paid for each word. LOL

Indeed, but GETTING well-placed, legible and consistently sized callouts is the problem. (Apologies for the verbal shortcut.)

[sdcinvan]

Callouts, the bane of my life!

Huh? Wow! I find that well-placed callouts are awesome for building succinct documents. They save a lot of typing. But perhaps I am just lazy because I don't get paid for each word. LOL

Indeed, but GETTING well-placed, legible and consistently sized callouts is the problem. (Apologies for the verbal shortcut.)

UGGGH!!
OMG I hear you! This is something I VIGOROUSLY complained about a few months ago, when I began using Capture!
Stupidly, MadCap capture flattens the callouts to the underlying raster image. Change the zoom factor of the image and the callouts change size, as well! In stark contrast, callouts are a breeze, in the InDesign and Frame world! Why? Because the callouts are vector overlays (on top of raster images) so that means that they are independent of the underlying raster images' DPI. Change the zoom factor (or DPI) of the raster image and then just move the callouts.

Here is one of the threads...
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 18&t=19119

It may appear that the problem posed by my OP was solved but actually, at some point, I just bowed to MadCap's limitations. :]

[atomdocs]

Hi Shawn. The root of this problem goes back to another issue that I think we both have concerning Capture: although integrated with Flare, it is still external to Flare, which means you can't do any intelligent edits to the image in Flare itself. You have to come back out to Capture. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, and Flare provides a handy shortcut command to launch an image in Capture. We should just be able to go to Capture and adjust the size of the bitmap image without disturbing the callouts (just as in InDesign, Frame, Inkscape...). The problem is that Capture's resizing function is totally inadequate and arcane. The topic you reference was our attempt to define that process. However, Capture is so bad at resizing the bitmap that the resulting output was blurry and unusable, as I recall. I have come to think that MadCap just dropped the ball on this issue. I don't think they realised that techcomm needs a much higher level of accuracy and quality in illustrations/images than Capture provides. Hence the cartoon arrows and lack of fine control.

[sdcinvan]

Hi Shawn. The root of this problem goes back to another issue that I think we both have concerning Capture: although integrated with Flare, it is still external to Flare, which means you can't do any intelligent edits to the image in Flare itself. You have to come back out to Capture. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, and Flare provides a handy shortcut command to launch an image in Capture. We should just be able to go to Capture and adjust the size of the bitmap image without disturbing the callouts (just as in InDesign, Frame, Inkscape...). The problem is that Capture's resizing function is totally inadequate and arcane. The topic you reference was our attempt to define that process. However, Capture is so bad at resizing the bitmap that the resulting output was blurry and unusable, as I recall. I have come to think that MadCap just dropped the ball on this issue. I don't think they realised that techcomm needs a much higher level of accuracy and quality in illustrations/images than Capture provides. Hence the cartoon arrows and lack of fine control.

Exactly.

Sometimes I get the impression that more than half of us are only using Flare to create text only documentation (or documentation that includes only basic image insertions). If that were the case in my situation, I could have saved a lot of money and just installed the open source Sphinx project, which employs ReStructuredText. It is a very capable documentation tool, if you don't care about complex document design. Certainly MadCap Flare makes producing documentation 1000x better than Sphinx but it isn't quite as easy as Frame (especially when working with images)!

However, I am very optimistic that Flare will continue to improve!

[Richard Ferrell]

Callouts are whayt capture is all about

[atomdocs]

Hi Richard, agreed

What we need is a bigger and better library of callouts and objects in Capture.

[sdcinvan]

Hi Richard, agreed

What we need is a bigger and better library of callouts and objects in Capture.

If MadCap needs some inspiration, all they need to do is download a demo of Adobe's Captivate. I don't think there is another tool in the world that offers as much callout flexibility as Captivate v8 (or v7 or v6). Heck, even Camtasia beats MadCap Capture for callout flexibility.