Typing text not recording

[BillD]

I have tried every which way to get the text typing feature in Mimic to work. I have changed options, extended frame times, etc. but it's still not working. I have to go through each frame containing typing and manually insert a typing box. This works fine, but it's SLOW! Have I missed something? Any help would be appreciated, as I'm on a tight deadline here...Thanks.

[SteveS]

Mimic doesn't capture the key entries as you've discovered.

You can use a typing box (as I think you've discovered) to display adding text or use an input box for the user to add text.

The other option I can think of is to press the print screen button after you add each character to force the capture and then use short frame timing to give the impression you're adding text, but I suspect that will give severe movie size bloat.

[BillD]

Thanks SteveS. I was afraid of that! I' ve tried the screen capture per typed character, but as you say it's not ideal (no click sounds, etc., real time-waster.) I'll stick with the typing boxes for now. Is this a bug? If so, is Madcap working on it soon?

Thanks again.

[RamonS]

For me this is a bug, but maybe more in design than in code. I am under the impression as that Mimic was made to behave that way intentionally. The text boxes are great, but what would be so much nicer is to have the typing captured and then transferred into a text box automatically.

[BillD]

I agree. The Mimic documentation certainly gives the impression ( to me anyway) that automatic typing recording is a feature. If it isn't, it should be. Captivate and even the old Robo Demo certainly did it.

[SteveS]

... automatic typing recording is a feature. If it isn't, it should be. ...

Feature request! Use this URL: http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/subm ... lare&v=3.0

[BillD]

Thanks for the suggestion to make a feature request, but the feature is supposed to be there already. See the quote below from Mimic's Help File:

\"When you record a movie, MadCap Mimic captures any typing actions that you perform on screen. This typing is therefore animated in the movie output. In other words, each letter of the content is typed as the user watches it. Not only are these animated text boxes added automatically when you record movies, but you can also add them manually when you edit the movie.\"

To me this makes it a bug. Or the Help File is wrong.

[i-tietz]

Currently we are testing demo tools and Mimic is one of them. Fact is, that the three other tools do have an automatic recording facility based on a framerate. In the moment we cannot decide between DemoBuilder and Mimic. DemoBuilder has a really good recording approach: It makes a movie scene out of an automatic recording and frames out of manual recording (keystrokes, clicks).
We would DEFINITELY decide for Mimic if it offered the automatic or at least the typing action recording.
We would even wait for it, means: we would buy version 2.0 with a support package that would also give us version 3.0 - if that version would have that feature ...

Is that part of the plan for the next version?

[BillD]

I'm sure the good folks at Madcap are working on the automatic typing feature, but in the meantime, you can still use the typing boxes to add typing action and sounds manually. This works okay for me at the moment. I have no experience of Demobuilder but I find Mimic to be one great product and Madcap do listen to user concerns. For what it's worth, they have my vote and future versions can only get better.

[i-tietz]

I know ... and we are happy with our decision for Flare instead for AuthorIT or for RH 16 ...
The support and amenability (is that the right word?) are heavyweight arguments PRO Mimic. But recording keystrokes is standard for the competitors - they all have it. An: We would need it for our purposes. My colleagues and I could put up with manual shots by pressing <PRINT> after each keystroke for a while but the next version should have that feature ...
Apart from that: doesn't having a lot of frames boost the size of output file? That's sth. else to consider. The flash files we get are quite a bit bigger than e.g. those of DemoBuilder ...

[BillD]

My colleagues and I could put up with manual shots by pressing <PRINT> after each keystroke for a while but the next version should have that feature ...

I agree. I'm sure Madcap is listening too...
But you don't have to press <PRINT> after each keystroke. (I've tried that, and it's a pain...) Using the typing box feature manually lets you insert the complete text into an existing frame (one) and set the timing of that frame and add click sounds. I've never had to use a lot of extra frames.

[RamonS]

That is fine as long as you don't have to deal with an application that makes use of a lot of text entries. I once had to do movies for an application for process documentation. The input was mainly narratives and status descriptions. It gets old very fast if you have to retype the same stuff twice and make sure that it looks right and fits.
What would be nice is if Mimic captured the entries and turned them into a text box that then can be edited if needed.

[BillD]

Faster than pressing <PRINT> after each keystroke though...