5 ms·

Show HN: Scribe generates step-by-step guides for GUI workflows

55 points by apodolny 5y ago

jasonpeacock 5y ago
Is this a desktop app, a hosted solution, or self-hosted? For work use, we need on-premise only and can’t have internal tools exposed/captured by external tools.
- tiffanyz 5y ago
  We have a desktop app and a browser extension, but all Scribes are hosted on AWS. We do offer a few export options which would enable you to take the Scribes "offline" after creating them, but in those cases the Scribes wouldn't be "living" docs
apodolny 5y ago
Hey all, looking forward to hearing your feedback on Scribe - a browser extension and desktop app that automatically generates step-by-step guides for any GUI-based process you choose to record on your computer. Me and my cofounder originally set out to build an RPA tool. Along the way, we discovered that the bigger problem most teams were facing had to do with capturing and sharing each individual’s specialized knowledge. Most of this knowledge wasn’t written down, let alone stored in some sort of shareable format. With hybrid and remote working models becoming the new norm, this struck us as a problem that really couldn’t wait any longer, so we decided to address this need instead. We wanted to create something that felt quite different to the manual and tedious nature that’s often associated with putting together process documentation or how-to guides. That meant that Scribe had to be able to intelligently recognize the key steps in your process, while still feeling very lightweight and easy to use. The tool generates instructions and screenshots based on your clicks and keystrokes to build your step-by-step guide--to do this, there were a few key technical challenges we had to solve: 1. Going from a set of keystrokes and clicks to actual steps 2. Recognizing when to take the screenshot (i.e. before you do a key action) 3. Reconciling different DPI screens (pixel densities) 4. Automatically identifying and combining similar (but distinct) steps We have Basic (free) and Pro (paid) tiers. Basic gives you a Chrome extension to record web-based apps while Pro comes with a desktop recorder so you can record any program on your computer. I’d love to hear your feedback on either. If you’d like to check out Pro, you can use the code HN2021 after you sign up for a one-month free trial.
- pca2 5y ago
  As someone who's documented a lot of users flows by hand this would be a really handy service. However, it'd be great if there was more of a demo available without a sign up. At the moment it seems like there's just a couple of tiny screeenshots and a single GIF showing what your product actually looks like. How about a sample screencast or a sample PDF of a finished guide?
  - tiffanyz 5y ago
    for sure, check out our gallery: https://scribehow.com/gallery https://scribehow.com/gallery to view Scribes (you don't need an account to view them)
- klintcho 5y ago
  Are the scribes hosted somewhere so that they can be linked? Would love this on a FAQ page for end users / customers.
  - tiffanyz 5y ago
    yup! all Scribes can be set to "shareable with link" - thanks for the feedback re: including this on the FAQ page!
- GordonS 5y ago
  How long have you been running for - I see you have more than 10,000 companies using Scribe, which is amazing! Echoing what another person here said, I'd really like to see some decent examples of the end result - I love the idea of Scribe, but a small screenshot and a small gif really isn't hooking me in to spend the time to find out more.
  - tiffanyz 5y ago
    hey there! sorry about that - you can check out what the end product looks like on our gallery: https://scribehow.com/gallery https://scribehow.com/gallery the team has been building this product quietly over the past year and a half, and we launched last month on PH.
nickphx 5y ago
Interesting idea, congrats on putting it all together. Do you have any working examples of the end result? The landing page only had a few screen shots and it was not entirely clear to me what the results looked like. Are users able to export or copy the created guides? Are user accounts required to view the created guides?
- tiffanyz 5y ago
  Definitely! Here's a Scribe I recently created to show all the different ways you can share your Scribe: https://scribehow.com/shared/Sharing-your-Scribe-with-others__9tYvMNIAQp-f0DLABiRRRg https://scribehow.com/shared/Sharing-your-Scribe-with-others... User accounts are not required to view Scribes, and yes, users are able to export and copy the created guides.
  - mickgardner 5y ago
    Are the guides all PDF or HTML? Or can the guides be videos too? You mention 'Markdown' export, do those include images etc?
    - tiffanyz 5y ago
      Yes - all Scribes contain images (no video, though you can combine steps to generate GIFs). If you want to see what the end product looks like you can check out our gallery: https://scribehow.com/gallery https://scribehow.com/gallery
pugworthy 5y ago
edit Why didn't you just send people to https://scribehow.com/ https://scribehow.com/? It explains the product so much. I'd love to see some examples of this other than just little animations on the main screen. Right now it's just simple animations and a request to register. The world is full of "solutions", as is my inbox from products I had to sign up for just to see what it did. Not sure I want to bother with that barrier to entry just to evaluate (and get on some mail list).
- apodolny 5y ago
  Hi — sorry about that. If you want to see some example Scribes, there's a gallery with some basics here: https://scribehow.com/gallery https://scribehow.com/gallery. The real difference here is how these are made.
  - mohanmcgeek 5y ago
    I saw this on producthunt the other day. This would really save hours of my team's time! My first question when I saw this was if the produced documentation was persisted in scribehow's servers and if it would ever work on pages not accessible from open web
    - tiffanyz 5y ago
      All Scribes are hosted on AWS. We do offer a few export options which would enable you to take the Scribes "offline" after creating them, but in those cases the Scribes would no longer be "living" docs
pugworthy 5y ago
I was assuming at first from the examples that this was just for web based applications. But I see it also supports desktop apps. Which OS? I'm being picky but I'm also pretty intrigued. The idea is quite nice.
- tiffanyz 5y ago
  our desktop app works on Mac and Windows :)
niros_valtos 5y ago
Who designed your landing page? The design is amazing!
- tiffanyz 5y ago
  thanks! we used unbounce to put it together and have a great contract designer we work with!
  - niros_valtos 5y ago
    Mind sharing?
    - lindsey_b 5y ago
      Alena has done our landing pages and a few other things, she's great! https://www.alenapankratova.com/#gallery https://www.alenapankratova.com/#gallery We worked with Unfold on brand https://unfold.co/ https://unfold.co/ Glad you like it!
fishtoaster 5y ago
Well this is really neat. As an engineer at a tiny startup "How do I do X in <our nascent internal tooling>" is a common refrain. I'm already pitching this internally - if this significantly cuts down on the time I spent writing up directions for people (and the time they spend being confused by my incomplete directions), it'll be worth its weight in gold. :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fudged71 5y ago
Looking at an example https://scribehow.com/shared/Setting-a-great-LinkedIn-cover__fiCqoNZdThGfq1l7FM6leQ https://scribehow.com/shared/Setting-a-great-LinkedIn-cover_... I was expecting to see animations of the workflow (like Live Photos?).
- tiffanyz 5y ago
  you can combine steps to create a GIF effect. Check out this short Scribe for an example: https://scribehow.com/shared/Toggling-between-teams-in-Scribe__saQUSzWWS2GITV0SHAtmoQ https://scribehow.com/shared/Toggling-between-teams-in-Scrib...
DougWebb 5y ago
I skimmed very quickly, and this seems pretty similar to the Windows built-in tool Problem Steps Recorder. I assume it's cross-platform, which is a nice advantage. Any other big differences? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/record-steps-to-reproduce-a-problem-46582a9b-620f-2e36-00c9-04e25d784e47 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/record-steps-to-...
kposehn 5y ago
Go Scribe! Glad to see you launch :)
iammisc 5y ago
This is great... Thanks. I hate making how-to guides.
jennifer78909 5y ago
oh this is fun! would save hours of time spent on screenshots, writing up documentation, etc
bradknowles 5y ago
It’s a shame there is not a local-only version of such a tool.

55 points by apodolny 5y ago

Is this a desktop app, a hosted solution, or self-hosted? For work use, we need on-premise only and can’t have internal tools exposed/captured by external tools.

tiffanyz 5y ago
We have a desktop app and a browser extension, but all Scribes are hosted on AWS. We do offer a few export options which would enable you to take the Scribes "offline" after creating them, but in those cases the Scribes wouldn't be "living" docs

apodolny 5y ago

Hey all, looking forward to hearing your feedback on Scribe - a browser extension and desktop app that automatically generates step-by-step guides for any GUI-based process you choose to record on your computer. Me and my cofounder originally set out to build an RPA tool. Along the way, we discovered that the bigger problem most teams were facing had to do with capturing and sharing each individual’s specialized knowledge. Most of this knowledge wasn’t written down, let alone stored in some sort of shareable format. With hybrid and remote working models becoming the new norm, this struck us as a problem that really couldn’t wait any longer, so we decided to address this need instead. We wanted to create something that felt quite different to the manual and tedious nature that’s often associated with putting together process documentation or how-to guides. That meant that Scribe had to be able to intelligently recognize the key steps in your process, while still feeling very lightweight and easy to use. The tool generates instructions and screenshots based on your clicks and keystrokes to build your step-by-step guide--to do this, there were a few key technical challenges we had to solve: 1. Going from a set of keystrokes and clicks to actual steps 2. Recognizing when to take the screenshot (i.e. before you do a key action) 3. Reconciling different DPI screens (pixel densities) 4. Automatically identifying and combining similar (but distinct) steps We have Basic (free) and Pro (paid) tiers. Basic gives you a Chrome extension to record web-based apps while Pro comes with a desktop recorder so you can record any program on your computer. I’d love to hear your feedback on either. If you’d like to check out Pro, you can use the code HN2021 after you sign up for a one-month free trial.

pca2 5y ago
As someone who's documented a lot of users flows by hand this would be a really handy service. However, it'd be great if there was more of a demo available without a sign up. At the moment it seems like there's just a couple of tiny screeenshots and a single GIF showing what your product actually looks like. How about a sample screencast or a sample PDF of a finished guide?
- tiffanyz 5y ago
  for sure, check out our gallery: https://scribehow.com/gallery https://scribehow.com/gallery to view Scribes (you don't need an account to view them)
klintcho 5y ago
Are the scribes hosted somewhere so that they can be linked? Would love this on a FAQ page for end users / customers.
- tiffanyz 5y ago
  yup! all Scribes can be set to "shareable with link" - thanks for the feedback re: including this on the FAQ page!
GordonS 5y ago
How long have you been running for - I see you have more than 10,000 companies using Scribe, which is amazing! Echoing what another person here said, I'd really like to see some decent examples of the end result - I love the idea of Scribe, but a small screenshot and a small gif really isn't hooking me in to spend the time to find out more.
- tiffanyz 5y ago
  hey there! sorry about that - you can check out what the end product looks like on our gallery: https://scribehow.com/gallery https://scribehow.com/gallery the team has been building this product quietly over the past year and a half, and we launched last month on PH.

nickphx 5y ago

Interesting idea, congrats on putting it all together. Do you have any working examples of the end result? The landing page only had a few screen shots and it was not entirely clear to me what the results looked like. Are users able to export or copy the created guides? Are user accounts required to view the created guides?

tiffanyz 5y ago
Definitely! Here's a Scribe I recently created to show all the different ways you can share your Scribe: https://scribehow.com/shared/Sharing-your-Scribe-with-others__9tYvMNIAQp-f0DLABiRRRg https://scribehow.com/shared/Sharing-your-Scribe-with-others... User accounts are not required to view Scribes, and yes, users are able to export and copy the created guides.
- mickgardner 5y ago
  Are the guides all PDF or HTML? Or can the guides be videos too? You mention 'Markdown' export, do those include images etc?
  - tiffanyz 5y ago
    Yes - all Scribes contain images (no video, though you can combine steps to generate GIFs). If you want to see what the end product looks like you can check out our gallery: https://scribehow.com/gallery https://scribehow.com/gallery

pugworthy 5y ago

edit Why didn't you just send people to https://scribehow.com/ https://scribehow.com/? It explains the product so much. I'd love to see some examples of this other than just little animations on the main screen. Right now it's just simple animations and a request to register. The world is full of "solutions", as is my inbox from products I had to sign up for just to see what it did. Not sure I want to bother with that barrier to entry just to evaluate (and get on some mail list).

apodolny 5y ago
Hi — sorry about that. If you want to see some example Scribes, there's a gallery with some basics here: https://scribehow.com/gallery https://scribehow.com/gallery. The real difference here is how these are made.
- mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  I saw this on producthunt the other day. This would really save hours of my team's time! My first question when I saw this was if the produced documentation was persisted in scribehow's servers and if it would ever work on pages not accessible from open web
  - tiffanyz 5y ago
    All Scribes are hosted on AWS. We do offer a few export options which would enable you to take the Scribes "offline" after creating them, but in those cases the Scribes would no longer be "living" docs

pugworthy 5y ago

I was assuming at first from the examples that this was just for web based applications. But I see it also supports desktop apps. Which OS? I'm being picky but I'm also pretty intrigued. The idea is quite nice.

tiffanyz 5y ago
our desktop app works on Mac and Windows :)

niros_valtos 5y ago

Who designed your landing page? The design is amazing!

tiffanyz 5y ago
thanks! we used unbounce to put it together and have a great contract designer we work with!
- niros_valtos 5y ago
  Mind sharing?
  - lindsey_b 5y ago
    Alena has done our landing pages and a few other things, she's great! https://www.alenapankratova.com/#gallery https://www.alenapankratova.com/#gallery We worked with Unfold on brand https://unfold.co/ https://unfold.co/ Glad you like it!

fishtoaster 5y ago

Well this is really neat. As an engineer at a tiny startup "How do I do X in <our nascent internal tooling>" is a common refrain. I'm already pitching this internally - if this significantly cuts down on the time I spent writing up directions for people (and the time they spend being confused by my incomplete directions), it'll be worth its weight in gold. :)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fudged71 5y ago

Looking at an example https://scribehow.com/shared/Setting-a-great-LinkedIn-cover__fiCqoNZdThGfq1l7FM6leQ https://scribehow.com/shared/Setting-a-great-LinkedIn-cover_... I was expecting to see animations of the workflow (like Live Photos?).

tiffanyz 5y ago
you can combine steps to create a GIF effect. Check out this short Scribe for an example: https://scribehow.com/shared/Toggling-between-teams-in-Scribe__saQUSzWWS2GITV0SHAtmoQ https://scribehow.com/shared/Toggling-between-teams-in-Scrib...

DougWebb 5y ago

I skimmed very quickly, and this seems pretty similar to the Windows built-in tool Problem Steps Recorder. I assume it's cross-platform, which is a nice advantage. Any other big differences? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/record-steps-to-reproduce-a-problem-46582a9b-620f-2e36-00c9-04e25d784e47 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/record-steps-to-...

kposehn 5y ago

Go Scribe! Glad to see you launch :)

iammisc 5y ago

This is great... Thanks. I hate making how-to guides.

jennifer78909 5y ago

oh this is fun! would save hours of time spent on screenshots, writing up documentation, etc

bradknowles 5y ago

It’s a shame there is not a local-only version of such a tool.