4 ms·

Record and share terminal sessions – A lightweight, purely text-based approach

58 points by dutchbrit 11y ago

boothead 11y ago
This looks really cool! It's also the first thing like this I've seen which includes a nix installation section, double points!!
baldfat 11y ago
Mind Blown! I watched the "video" and was like of this is great and the option to upload to a website not youtube made me go Meh. Then I read the following line. > Oh, and you can copy-paste from here You can copy and paste from the "video!" So when I give someone a tutorial on a command line tool they can copy and paste the codes themselves! EDIT: People can use the recording to show what they are doing to give them the error and display the output!
- dwc 11y ago
  > upload to a website not youtube I haven't dug into the details, but both the player[1] and the website[2] code are available so it should be possible to set up your own website if you like. 1. https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema-player https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema-player 2. https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema.org https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema.org
  - baldfat 11y ago
    Well they are not videos and not able to upload onto a website without doing a screen recording. This tool actually is much better than making a video.
daurnimator 11y ago
I was using this for a while; until I discovered the 'script' and 'scriptreplay' commands that come with most unix systems. You can start recording by running: `script -t timingfile typescript`. Your screen contents are recorded into the file `typescript` and the timing into `timingfile`. You can play back by running: `scriptreplay -t timingfile typescript` Check out the script man page for more cool things; like streaming live by using a fifo.
- cellover 11y ago
  You made my day! Thanks for sharing this. I just had to tweak the recording command with the following to get it working properly: `script -ttimingfile typescript`. No space between -t and timingfile.
- masklinn 11y ago
  > You can start recording by running: `script -t timingfile typescript`. Your screen contents are recorded into the file `typescript` and the timing into `timingfile`. Beware `-t` it's a non-standard (as much as script is considered a standard) extension: * on OpenBSD there is no `-t` (or any other option aside from `-a` "append to existing typescript file") * on FreeBSD and OSX `-t` specifies the flush time interval (in seconds, defaulting to 30) (on FreeBSD > 9.2 `-r` will save IO and timing data) * on older linux distros it's a flag to output timing data to stderr And scriptreplay is linux-only, NetBSD 2 and FreeBSD can replay sessions with `script -p`
- baldfat 11y ago
  How do you host the replay?
- kazinator 11y ago
  There is a derivative of script called ttyrec. You can use that in conjunction with ttygif (https://github.com/icholy/ttygif https://github.com/icholy/ttygif) to make an animated gif out of the captured script.
- pierrec 11y ago
  script and scriptreplay are awesome, but this isn't exactly the same thing. The docs clearly state "asciinema was inspired by script (and scriptreplay) commands". The magic of asciinema is all about playback in the browser. In fact you can combine the two, for example, you can play back a script file, and then playback the playback in asciinema: https://asciinema.org/a/7975 https://asciinema.org/a/7975 Now that I think about it, it would be cool if asciinema could directly load files created by script. I'm not sure if there's any difference between the two capture tools.
mikekchar 11y ago
This is really awesome. This is exactly what I've been looking for. Your service is compelling for me too as I've been thinking of doing some katas and putting them somewhere. My only (very slight) quibble is that in perusing the terms of service you talk about having license to promote a user's profile/recordings. This is reasonable to me, but could potentially get in the way of moral rights if the profile/recordings are ever modified. So I don't mind if you modify my recordings, but I definitely mind if you modify them and then promote them as mine. If there is any way you could modify the terms and conditions to indicate that you won't do that, then that would be great. In some countries (Canada for instance), it is not possible to waive your moral rights, so this is probably in your best interests too.
tedmiston 11y ago
I really like the use of login links and not passwords on their website. Is this becoming a trend?
kazinator 11y ago
Thsi works pretty well: https://github.com/icholy/ttygif https://github.com/icholy/ttygif Convert tty sessions to animated GIFs.
dang 11y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9753537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9753537

58 points by dutchbrit 11y ago

This looks really cool! It's also the first thing like this I've seen which includes a nix installation section, double points!!

baldfat 11y ago

Mind Blown! I watched the "video" and was like of this is great and the option to upload to a website not youtube made me go Meh. Then I read the following line. > Oh, and you can copy-paste from here You can copy and paste from the "video!" So when I give someone a tutorial on a command line tool they can copy and paste the codes themselves! EDIT: People can use the recording to show what they are doing to give them the error and display the output!

dwc 11y ago
> upload to a website not youtube I haven't dug into the details, but both the player[1] and the website[2] code are available so it should be possible to set up your own website if you like. 1. https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema-player https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema-player 2. https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema.org https://github.com/asciinema/asciinema.org
- baldfat 11y ago
  Well they are not videos and not able to upload onto a website without doing a screen recording. This tool actually is much better than making a video.

daurnimator 11y ago

I was using this for a while; until I discovered the 'script' and 'scriptreplay' commands that come with most unix systems. You can start recording by running: `script -t timingfile typescript`. Your screen contents are recorded into the file `typescript` and the timing into `timingfile`. You can play back by running: `scriptreplay -t timingfile typescript` Check out the script man page for more cool things; like streaming live by using a fifo.

cellover 11y ago
You made my day! Thanks for sharing this. I just had to tweak the recording command with the following to get it working properly: `script -ttimingfile typescript`. No space between -t and timingfile.
masklinn 11y ago
> You can start recording by running: `script -t timingfile typescript`. Your screen contents are recorded into the file `typescript` and the timing into `timingfile`. Beware `-t` it's a non-standard (as much as script is considered a standard) extension: * on OpenBSD there is no `-t` (or any other option aside from `-a` "append to existing typescript file") * on FreeBSD and OSX `-t` specifies the flush time interval (in seconds, defaulting to 30) (on FreeBSD > 9.2 `-r` will save IO and timing data) * on older linux distros it's a flag to output timing data to stderr And scriptreplay is linux-only, NetBSD 2 and FreeBSD can replay sessions with `script -p`
baldfat 11y ago
How do you host the replay?
kazinator 11y ago
There is a derivative of script called ttyrec. You can use that in conjunction with ttygif (https://github.com/icholy/ttygif https://github.com/icholy/ttygif) to make an animated gif out of the captured script.
pierrec 11y ago
script and scriptreplay are awesome, but this isn't exactly the same thing. The docs clearly state "asciinema was inspired by script (and scriptreplay) commands". The magic of asciinema is all about playback in the browser. In fact you can combine the two, for example, you can play back a script file, and then playback the playback in asciinema: https://asciinema.org/a/7975 https://asciinema.org/a/7975 Now that I think about it, it would be cool if asciinema could directly load files created by script. I'm not sure if there's any difference between the two capture tools.

mikekchar 11y ago

This is really awesome. This is exactly what I've been looking for. Your service is compelling for me too as I've been thinking of doing some katas and putting them somewhere. My only (very slight) quibble is that in perusing the terms of service you talk about having license to promote a user's profile/recordings. This is reasonable to me, but could potentially get in the way of moral rights if the profile/recordings are ever modified. So I don't mind if you modify my recordings, but I definitely mind if you modify them and then promote them as mine. If there is any way you could modify the terms and conditions to indicate that you won't do that, then that would be great. In some countries (Canada for instance), it is not possible to waive your moral rights, so this is probably in your best interests too.

tedmiston 11y ago

I really like the use of login links and not passwords on their website. Is this becoming a trend?

kazinator 11y ago

Thsi works pretty well: https://github.com/icholy/ttygif https://github.com/icholy/ttygif Convert tty sessions to animated GIFs.

dang 11y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9753537 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9753537