Req Wink "resource" - app that shows standard keyboard that can show keystrokes?

  • Thread starter Thread starter fitwell
  • Start date Start date
F

fitwell

Even if there is no "animation", just a keyboard that allows us to
select keys and those keys show up coloured? Anyone who uses Wink
will probably understand what I mean. Wink has enormous potential for
us to make comprehensive tutorials. I'm constantly asked how to do
something by family and friends. Unfortunately, most of the people I
know don't have even basic and rudimentary skill, so it's been tough
all these years to provide support. Often a half hour or more on the
telephone trying to explain what to do doesn't resolve the problem,
usu. something so simple if I were there to show them. But then, as
I've learned, the next time around, they still don't know how to do
something.

I've made several tutorials already, but I am finding that an
additional tool would be nice. If anyone knows of a freeware
representation of a 3-dimensional keyboard that would allow us to,
say, select keystrokes that would then show up as coloured keys on the
keyboard in sequence of pressing them? I'm imaging having a visual
representation of a keyboard as a 3-dimensional white image. Then if
we select a keystroke combination like Ctrl-Shift-D, just to give an
example, and then the ctrl key would turn red, then the shift one and
lastly the D one would, the individual images could be captured and
incporated into the Wink presentation at the point when we need to
teach a user what keys to press. Is this more or less clear?

I'm thinking that nothing fancy is needed. Wink takes care of
everything else. As long as a program is something that can be seen
on our monitor, Wink can capture it.

I don't like the idea of taking a graphic of a keyboard and colouring
the keys up each time in a graphics editor. That would be overly time
consuming. Having an actual yet simple program do this would be
better.

Thanks.
 
Even if there is no "animation", just a keyboard that allows us to
select keys and those keys show up coloured? Anyone who uses Wink
will probably understand what I mean. Wink has enormous potential for
us to make comprehensive tutorials. I'm constantly asked how to do
something by family and friends. Unfortunately, most of the people I
know don't have even basic and rudimentary skill, so it's been tough
all these years to provide support. Often a half hour or more on the
telephone trying to explain what to do doesn't resolve the problem,
usu. something so simple if I were there to show them. But then, as
I've learned, the next time around, they still don't know how to do
something.

I've made several tutorials already, but I am finding that an
additional tool would be nice. If anyone knows of a freeware
representation of a 3-dimensional keyboard that would allow us to,
say, select keystrokes that would then show up as coloured keys on the
keyboard in sequence of pressing them? I'm imaging having a visual
representation of a keyboard as a 3-dimensional white image. Then if
we select a keystroke combination like Ctrl-Shift-D, just to give an
example, and then the ctrl key would turn red, then the shift one and
lastly the D one would, the individual images could be captured and
incporated into the Wink presentation at the point when we need to
teach a user what keys to press. Is this more or less clear?

I'm thinking that nothing fancy is needed. Wink takes care of
everything else. As long as a program is something that can be seen
on our monitor, Wink can capture it.

I don't like the idea of taking a graphic of a keyboard and colouring
the keys up each time in a graphics editor. That would be overly time
consuming. Having an actual yet simple program do this would be
better.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Answered in the other thread. I'll report back. It looks EXTREMELY
promising. I've installed Click-N-Type and Click-N-Type Designer.
Looks good!
 
Even if there is no "animation", just a keyboard that allows us to
select keys and those keys show up coloured? Anyone who uses Wink
will probably understand what I mean. Wink has enormous potential for
us to make comprehensive tutorials. I'm constantly asked how to do
something by family and friends. Unfortunately, most of the people I
know don't have even basic and rudimentary skill, so it's been tough
all these years to provide support. Often a half hour or more on the
telephone trying to explain what to do doesn't resolve the problem,
usu. something so simple if I were there to show them. But then, as
I've learned, the next time around, they still don't know how to do
something.
Click to expand...

Let me see if I understand what you mean.

Lets say you are creating a tutorial movie using Wink, you are
demonstrating the 'Copy to Clipboard' facility of Notepad and you
therefore need to illustrate the particular key combination, Control
and C.

You would like to have an on-screen representation of a keyboard
displayed, you then press Ctrl on your own 'real' keyboard and the
on-screen Ctrl key changes to red. You then press C on your own 'real'
keyboard and the on-screen C key changes to red. Both keys remain red.

I had a similar problem and ended up writing an app that displayed two
images alternately, giving a simple animation effect. But I still had
to prepare the images to begin with.

Another solution is to use Click-N-Type http://www.lakefolks.org/cnt/
to provide an on-screen keyboard operated by your mouse. Somebody
viewing your tutorials will actually SEE which keys you press. Ctrl,
Alt, Shift keys can be made 'sticky'. Don't forget to change the
default keyboard layout to a QWERTY. Options > User Defined Keyboards
Select a User Keyboard > QWERTY101-long.cfg
Click to expand...

I've used Click-N-Type to record AVI's in Camtasia (NOT freeware)
reasonably successfully.

Alternativly, design your own on-screen keyboard graphic with
Click-N-Type Designer http://www.polital.com/cntd/ Do a screen grab
and highlight the relevant keys in a paint prog.
 
fitwell said:
If anyone knows of a freeware
representation of a 3-dimensional keyboard that would allow us to,
say, select keystrokes that would then show up as coloured keys on the
keyboard in sequence of pressing them?
Click to expand...
<Snip>

You are working too hard and it won't benefit the reader provided they
are at least hunt and peck typists. Just use a font that shows
letters as keycaps. If you want to say "Press Alt Shift A", then
type (select from font) the Alt, Shift, and A keys and integrate them
in your text.

This will be easier to read because someone doesn't have to focus on
the keyboard image, identify the colored keys, and finally translate.
The keys will just be oversized characters with a surrounding key. It
will be less time consuming because you won't have to take as many
screenshots and worry about the timing. It will be easier to
integrate because the virtual keyboard won't be obscuring anything on
the the screen.

I've also seen a collection of keyboard icons that included one for
each key. Again, the letters looked the keycaps.

One hint, although you've probably already encountered the problem.
Saying "press Ctl+Alt+D" sometimes has to be expressed as something
like "press-n-hold Ctrl, add press-n-hold Alt, add press D, release
all" the first time in each document or chapter. People usually
understand how to type capitals, so I analogize the modifier keys to
the shift. The problem is exacerbated if you add a hotkey utility
that supports multi-character commands (e.g., Win+Ctrl+Alt+C+S for
Close All). You might be surprised at who will have an odd
misconception.


BillR
 
Let me see if I understand what you mean.

Lets say you are creating a tutorial movie using Wink, you are
demonstrating the 'Copy to Clipboard' facility of Notepad and you
therefore need to illustrate the particular key combination, Control
and C.

You would like to have an on-screen representation of a keyboard
displayed, you then press Ctrl on your own 'real' keyboard and the
on-screen Ctrl key changes to red. You then press C on your own 'real'
keyboard and the on-screen C key changes to red. Both keys remain red.

I had a similar problem and ended up writing an app that displayed two
images alternately, giving a simple animation effect. But I still had
to prepare the images to begin with.

Another solution is to use Click-N-Type http://www.lakefolks.org/cnt/
to provide an on-screen keyboard operated by your mouse. Somebody
viewing your tutorials will actually SEE which keys you press. Ctrl,
Alt, Shift keys can be made 'sticky'. Don't forget to change the
default keyboard layout to a QWERTY. Options > User Defined Keyboards

I've used Click-N-Type to record AVI's in Camtasia (NOT freeware)
reasonably successfully.

Alternativly, design your own on-screen keyboard graphic with
Click-N-Type Designer http://www.polital.com/cntd/ Do a screen grab
and highlight the relevant keys in a paint prog.
Click to expand...

Yup, I created a standard AT-style keyboard (with numeric keypad and
center function keys) on Friday. The only difficulty is that the
Windows key isn't sticky, whereas Alt and Ctrl, etc., are. but I made
a screenshot of those 2 and then pasted them in.

Wink currently doesn't have the ability to move images and it doesn't
have an UNDO feature (handy when adding these extra keyboard images
after-the-fact, etc.). But these 2 things are slated to be included
in the new version. I joined the forum and asked and that's what I
was told.

I've been having a blast with Wink. It's proving to be a godsend as I
literally waste a lot of time trying to help friends/family only for
them to forget how to do something, etc. My plan is to build up a
database of tutorials for basic teaching some basic Windows skills so
that next time someone has a problem, I won't waste 2 hours only for
them to forget or still get into trouble! <g>
 
<Snip>

You are working too hard and it won't benefit the reader provided they
are at least hunt and peck typists. Just use a font that shows
letters as keycaps. If you want to say "Press Alt Shift A", then
type (select from font) the Alt, Shift, and A keys and integrate them
in your text.

This will be easier to read because someone doesn't have to focus on
the keyboard image, identify the colored keys, and finally translate.
The keys will just be oversized characters with a surrounding key. It
will be less time consuming because you won't have to take as many
screenshots and worry about the timing. It will be easier to
integrate because the virtual keyboard won't be obscuring anything on
the the screen.

I've also seen a collection of keyboard icons that included one for
each key. Again, the letters looked the keycaps.

One hint, although you've probably already encountered the problem.
Saying "press Ctl+Alt+D" sometimes has to be expressed as something
like "press-n-hold Ctrl, add press-n-hold Alt, add press D, release
all" the first time in each document or chapter. People usually
understand how to type capitals, so I analogize the modifier keys to
the shift. The problem is exacerbated if you add a hotkey utility
that supports multi-character commands (e.g., Win+Ctrl+Alt+C+S for
Close All). You might be surprised at who will have an odd
misconception.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I found a solution so all's well.
 
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