I mention this because
1/ Help and Manual are a long term supporter of ADUG and my only documentation tool,
2/ I wanted to try the drag and drop of an image into Discourse as demonstrated before the last ADUG meeting.
So from Alexander Halser (EC Software) alexander.halser@ec-software.com
Many years ago, you have purchased our software TNT Screen Capture from us and we want to inform you first-hand that TNT now has a dignified successor called SnipSVG! There are no upgrade costs, because SnipSVG is free for private and commercial use.
The internet is a little scary. H & M received our comments “I found your posting when checking with Google about our reach.” . Alexander had problems signing up to reply himself but asked me to post his response.
Ian’s impression comes from a quick look at the screenshot - the formatting panel might bear some resemblence at a first sight. But if you see SnipSVG in action, you realize that it works in a very different way. Actually, our UI has more in common with Microsoft PowerPoint, which delivered several ideas how and how not to do it.
We of course know SnagIt. After all, many of our Help+Manual users prefer it over the built-in screen capture in H+M. It’s a great tool and the last thing we want is to build a “SnagIt clone”. We do not even see SnipSVG as a competitor (I hope Techsmith sees it the same way, but that’s not our business).
SnipSVG is first and foremost an image editor, designed to meet the needs for technical documentation in general and for Help+Manual in particular. The “screen capture” part is in fact secondary.
The greatest strength of SnipSVG is the SVG format. We think, that’s pretty innovative for a screen capture tool. All the annotations you add to a screenshot are vector-based. They are fully scalable at any zoom level and when you re-open the SVG in SnipSVG, you can still edit the elements separately. In other words: you can use the very same SVG file for creating and publishing and do not need to keep a separate copy for editing. This is a novelty and to my best knowledge, nobody else has created a tool like that so far.
When talking about innovations, there is a historical bon mot… The original “TNT Screen Capture” was published 23 years ago. Windows XP had just been released. These image effects that TNT introduced to “simple screenshots” were stunning and absolutely cool at that time. Back in the day, SnagIt already was the market leader in screen capture tools, but it was rather plain. Not long after, it had nice soft shadows, too. And they did it really well, way beyond that what we had created. Maybe Techsmith finds our implementation of the SVG format for screenshots so attractive, that they decide to add it? We don’t know yet. But if it happens, we’re in for another round of innovations
I purchased my original version of Help and Manual in 2003 and was lucky enough to obtain an updated copy at an ADUG Symposium (Possibly 2014). This version came with TNT.
Isn’t it funny how people assume that I’m saying something negative?
I meant “that screenshot looks awesome, very similar (to me) to SnagitEditor which I use all the time”.
I was commenting on the screenshot which, as you surely would agree, does look like SnagitEditor if you compare it to my screenshot of the same editing mode.
But two screenshots looking similar on a cursory level do not mean they work in any way a similar fashion. Look at Photoshop and Gimp, or Windows 11 and various Linux distributions, any heavy metal band. The same would be true of any app that used a ribbon control, “marching ants” selection boxes, outlook bar, toast, all web browsers, most word processors, C#/Java/C++/insert language here.
The same with artisan burgers (with the possible exception of the one I had the other day which had a bun covered in Flaming Hot Cheetos on the top and bottom - that’s probably a unique form of insanity).
Two screenshots looking similarly awesome means just that; don’t put words into my mouth (and I’ll be more careful next time too).
Thanks Vincent. I recall now that I was signed up via an invite.
Ian I found your reference to SnagIt interesting.
I guess Alexander was more concerned that my original post did not show his product in the best light.
He’s also been in touch with me before about Help and Manual as far as I remember. He’s welcome to email me and we can produce a demo of his product’s new features if he likes. ian.barker@embarcadero.com
Ian, I am absolutely sure it was meant this way. But out of context, someone else could read this like a critical comment. And we tried really hard to not copy anything from SnagIt, but include some of the good ideas that their tool has. But SnagIt mixes up the selection/formatting and I did not like that. So I hope we’ve done a better job with our UI design.
The screenhot below shows that SnipSVG is indeed different. That’s the Chinese version - they were quick this time and got their patched version out before we had officially launched
(and I’ll be more careful next time too).
