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Show HN: Iorad - the tutorial builder
- tlogan 14y agoThe only critique: Pricing - Coming soon => you should start charging for your product right now. You will get better feedback, you will get customers which work with you and help you improve product, etc. Otherwise - excellent. You have a customer :)
- sunpatel 14y agothanks. Any chance for a phone call to find out your needs?
- corkill 14y agoPaid version, where all the sharing features drive traffic to my site and there is no Iorad branding would be worth the upgrade I think.
- j_s 14y agoThis is amazing, thus guaranteed to sell to one of the large screencasting/training companies quickly (good for the team!). What happens to all the free public stuff then? Example buyout -> shutdown: http://philbradley.typepad.com/i_want_to/2010/06/screentoaster-closing-alternatives.html http://philbradley.typepad.com/i_want_to/2010/06/screentoast...
- JimWestergren 14y agoIt looks really great. I will tell my support guy at my startup to give it a try.
- sunpatel 14y agothanks Jim - if he has any problems spatel at iorad . com
- danso 14y agoThis is a cool idea. I do screenshot-tutorials all the time and this would ease the workflow. My only concern is that I would like to have control of the produced content as an export for my own blog/site. I understand that's not financially favorable to you as a free service, but will it be part of the paid service?
- sunpatel 14y agoyes - we will offer download package for you to put on your own server as a premium...but we do offer an embed functionality which should meet your needs..
- mikhailt 14y agoI'm not a big fan of the outline you used to indicate the next action. When I saw your tutorial, I couldn't see where the Login button is because of the thick orange outline hovering the login button making it hard to the "login" button. It needs to be outside of the labels and it should be easier to see. You should research for a different way to direct users there, the outline should be optional. Maybe an arrow or other type of animation. Other than that, it looks great and I can't wait to see it mature. I'd love to use it!
- sunpatel 14y agoyup working on that...good thoughts
- tudorw 14y agoa pulse might work nicely http://moeedm.com/sandbox/pulse/ http://moeedm.com/sandbox/pulse/
- thedillio 14y agoI agree, the next buttons are too invasive. I'd love to see them as left and right arrows near the edges that bold with mouseover. I think that users would be more familiar with that as well. Also love the idea to have voiceover too by another HN reader. I too dislike screencasts. This is a great concept. Good luck.
- guan 14y agoI think people who hate screencasts would also be annoyed at the slow animations between each step. Is it just me, or are they more than a second long?
- mysterywhiteboy 14y agoAgreed - though without the slow animations I think you might be on to something. I know a lot of people who hate video/screencasts.
- sunpatel 14y agowe're working on that to speed it up, would you prefer a mode with no animations?
- iamdave 14y agoWhat about a toggle to set the animation speed before publishing?
- guan 14y agoEven with configurable animation speed, I think the default should be either no animation or very fast, since this is supposed to be an alternative to screencasts. My hunch is no animation is better, but since I haven’t actually seen that I don’t know if some animation is necessary to provide a cue for where the next step is.
- sunpatel 14y agospeeding up complete..let me know what you think
- thehodge 14y agoPricing - Comming soon (should be Coming Soon) or ideally should be listed from the beginning ;) A lot of the examples at the bottom seem to either be blank or break your webserver seeing a lot of Error Occurred While Processing Request Element XMLATTRIBUTES.IMAGEID is undefined in a Java object of type class coldfusion.xml.XmlNodeMap referenced as '' The error occurred in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\iorad\app\dspHTMLPlayer.cfm: line 777
- gdilla 14y agoThe instructional dialogue windows dominate the screen visually so it distracts the user from what's actually happening on the website. They won't know where to focus their eyes, and the amount of time it takes for them to orient themselves for each dialogue could make it more cumbersome than a "regular" screencast.
- brittohalloran 14y agoYeah maybe all instructions should be at the bottom , not on top of the screenshot.
- jiaaro 14y agoI disagree - the instructional dialog is the whole point. I'm not sure if you can control it's position, but that is probably the only thing you'd need to solve any problems (though I strongly disagree this is more difficult for users than a traditional screencast)
- CubicleNinjas 14y agoI agree, but I think this could be solved with a better user interface. If this dialogue was placed in a fixed position (say in a black bar across the bottom) it would add a consistent location to refer to the content. Instead of watching the black box jump around, you could watch the content change and push at your own pace. Great idea that could be a game changer with a better UI!
- sunpatel 14y agopress the "quick guide" button in the playbar this might be a better alternative than the screencast...itll give you step by step instructions
- zengenuity 14y agoSimilar to this, I don't think you should have the user sometimes click on the dialogue box (at the beginning) and sometimes click on others elements. I kept trying to push the mouse icon the first time I went through. Or, alternatively, you could make clicking the dialogue act the same as clicking the buttons. That way even if you do that, it works.
- solutionyogi 14y agoLOVE it. I always hated screen casts. I prefer creating a Word or PDF document with annotated screenshots which user can go through at their own pace. One of the idea in my idea list was to make it easy to take screenshots and annotate them and create a polished PDF. But what you have created is even better. It is highly interactive and user can follow the steps as they work on the actual application. Extremely well done. I think you should market the hell out of this. I think there are lot of buyers out there for this kind of software. What kind of pricing are we looking at? P.S.: Always great to see a team of Indians creating a software product, I wish you all the best. I hope you also become as successful as Visual Website Optimizer guys.
- paraschopra 14y agoThanks for thinking of us as a successful product! You just made our team's day (or rather, late evening) here :) PS: this is Paras from Visual Website Optimizer.
- sunpatel 14y agothanks much...we're going to follow a github type model..public tutorials are free...for premium we are going to offer pdf, ppt, doc and html export to deploy on your own servers...
- brittohalloran 14y agoLove it -- put that simple sentence up on the pricing page even if it's half baked.
- solutionyogi 14y agoMaking public tutorial free is a GREAT idea. You should also create various tutorials for common tasks and host it on your website like 'http://iorad.com/tutorial/how-to-link-to-particular-time-in-youtube-video http://iorad.com/tutorial/how-to-link-to-particular-time-in-... I think it will be a PERFECT SEM strategy.
- wolffnc3 14y ago
- jurre 14y agoIt looks really cool, but clicking on one of the newly created projects[1] gives me a 500 error and a coldfusion stacktrace, you might want to turn those off. [1]http://www.iorad.com/?a=app.htmlplayer&accessCode=GUEST&remote=true&module=105 http://www.iorad.com/?a=app.htmlplayer&accessCode=GUEST&...
- sunpatel 14y agoyeh thats an older module..we'll have to fix this...thanks for pointing it out
- lucasgameiro 14y agoQuick guide is also a very good feature! I really liked this app.
- jngreenlee 14y agoIs it down? I'm getting: 500 - Internal server error. Overall though very optimistic this could replace Adobe Captivate and some use of Camtasia for me. Please add support to generate a simple list of actions (including or based on edited captions). I'm dying for something that will let me produce: 1. Demo script 2. Handouts 3. Video All in one run.
- sunpatel 14y agoyes this is already there...quick guide, interactive video all in one shot...
- bryogenic 14y agoNo Linux support for a web application?
- septerr 14y agoVery nice. Does it record audio? I am thinking of suggesting this to a local ruby users' group that currently records using video cameras. If it did audio, this would be perfect for them. And I have more use cases in mind.
- sunpatel 14y agoaudio is on the drawing board, using text to speech, but wont be till September...but thanks so much for getting the word out..much appreciated
- damoncali 14y agoReally cool. Feedback: The outlines on the buttons to be clicked obscure the buttons. An optional sound track would be great as well. Design details make this work or not work - put some effort into figuring out how to guide the user's eye to keep their attention where it needs to be.
- nathell 14y agoThis responds to a very real and ubiquitous need. And fills its niche very nicely. It doesn't just make you a passive watcher: it immerses you in the very centre of action. Splendidly executed -- I definitely will be using it. Kudos!
- dwrowe 14y agoI really like this. Makes explaining things very easy. One critique, the first step allows me to click on the main screen to advance, but from there I have to move to the navigation bar below. Is this configurable? I only went through the linked example. EDIT: I didn't catch that you could actually execute the actions laid out to move forward. This wasn't clear, but makes sense now that I've seen it.
- sunpatel 14y agoyes i guess my example is a bit confusing, you actually have to follow the directions in the caption, if it says click login you have to click login...its interactive
- frozenball 14y agoAmazing. I could really see myself using this. Although language and UI elements could use some polishing.
- brittohalloran 14y agoAwesome, I love it. I think needs an "auto-play" function though, so people can just sit back and treat it like a video. When I click the "play" triangle, I'm expecting video.
- sunpatel 14y agoyes - this was our thinking ..for people that want just the video they would prefer just the step by step document version like when you press the "quick guide" button in the playbar...agree? disagree?
- cluutran 14y agoThank you so much for this! I have clients who can't figure out how to use certain web apps and typing it out just isn't the same as being there in person. This is the next best thing.
- sunpatel 14y agohere's a demo we made using for salesforce on how to create a new lead http://www.iorad.com/?a=app.htmlplayer&accessCode=GUEST&remote=true&module=3524 http://www.iorad.com/?a=app.htmlplayer&accessCode=GUEST&...
- solutionyogi 14y agoYou should definitely focus on URLs and content on the landing page to help your search engine ranking. The current URL structure is not optimal. Is there a email I can reach you at? Alternatively, please contact me at me@solutionyogi.com. Would love to share some more ideas.
- sunpatel 14y agowould love to hear spatel @ iorad .com
- kalleboo 14y agoAll the Javascript on the site is broken when your browser locale is set to Japanese, it seems like cfmessage_ja.js is corrupted: http://imgb.mp/ipz.jpg http://imgb.mp/ipz.jpg
- JacobSingh 14y agoDAMN! This has been my million dollar idea I'll build one day for 2 years. Oh well, at least someone else did a good job of it. Pretty much exactly what I was thinking. I even wireframed the same interaction. Frustrated but happy. At least someone did it. How long did it take you guys to put this together? It's quite slick. I hadn't though of using a java applet to record stuff. That locks in the IP and helps with some things, but I was imagining more of a browser extension approach.
- jherdman 14y agoI like it. A VERY MINOR piece of feedback: the font is ugly as sin. I don't know why, but it kept distracting. It feels... off balance.
- sunpatel 14y agotaken..i wasnt to crazy about it either
- loeschg 14y agoYeah something about it made me feel like I was looking at a "GET A FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO AWESOME MAGAZINE" sort of sign up. Also even though the text was stating that NO credit card info was needed, my super quick initial scan of the page saw the words "free" and "credit card," and the brain got confused. Overall, I love the idea. Potentially solved an issue I didn't know I had.
- m_st 14y agoThis is awesome! I hate screencasts too so I hope this tool will be adopted widely. Just the name... How should it be pronounced? Does 'iorad' mean something? (I'm Swiss German) In any case thank's a lot!
- saltcod 14y agoVery impressive.
- c0m47053 14y agoLooks nice, one thing I spotted was the FAQ section heading is 'Frequently Asked Qeustions'
- greut 14y agoWhat is that meta and form between your doctype and <html>? A coldfusion specialty? And please, fix the SQL injection you may have and the debug mode too! Try searching for something like: " (a double-quote only)
- biot 14y agoVENDORERRORCODE 1064 SQLSTATE 42000 SQL SELECT * FROM module WHERE name like "%"%" AND is_deleted <> 1 ORDER BY name DATASOURCE dsn_iorad Wow... also, how are user passwords stored? I'd query the schema myself, but that would be wrong. :)
- tathagatadg 14y agoReally really impressed. But a question about the choosing the technology. While everybody is on the rails/express bandwagon ... its interesting to see someone using cold fusion to build cool stuff. Lesson for my inner voice: Stop telling me, "all cool kids are doing rails/node, so I have to learn rails/node/django/...". I read somewhere just go with the tech you're most comfortable with - would it be wrong to assume the same here? (Probably this should be directed to Binamra. And awesome frontend by Susrut and Amar!) Congrats to you and the entire team!
- Fizzadar 14y ago"Password has to be atleast 6chars and atmost 15chars." - why the 15 max character limit?
- justinph 14y agoThis is really great. I (or my employer) would gladly pay for this. I have two suggestions & critiques: I think that by eschewing video and audio entirely, you're missing out. As apple has demonstrated, animations and transitions are important to the user experience and user understanding. I would definitely allow screenboard creators to import or upload video and audio clips. Perhaps this could be a feature for advanced/paying users. Audio is pretty important too. Sometimes, explaining things via voice or with sounds are more efficient than writing. You can convey emotion and emphasis through voice that don't come through via a limited text palette. The web audio api part of HTML5 is getting better and I would investigate using this. Again, for advanced/paying users. But seriously, thanks for building this. I've wanted something like this for a long time.
- mechanical_fish 14y agoI read this as: You think that this alternative-to-screencasts is great, but you'd pay more money if it also made… screencasts. ;) There's absolutely nothing wrong with liking screencasts. But if you want a screencast - a thing with video and audio clips that conveys information through voice - you want a different product, right? There are existing products that help you make screencasts. The problem with bolting screencasting features onto this product is that it muddies the message ("we need an alternative to screencasting, one that also does screencasting!") and really threatens to overcomplicate the software, both the UX and the back-end.
- sunpatel 14y agogreat point!
- CGamesPlay 14y agoNot necessarily. With this product, the user controls the pace at which they proceed through the tutorial. That doesn't mean that it needs to eschew audio and video.
- justinph 14y agoNot really. I want the ability to make it into a multi-media in the truest sense of the term. I'd want it as an option, but not a requirement. Maybe I'm just asking for a youtube-boxed sized version of hypercard. :D
- gotrythis 14y agoI totally avoid any kind of tutorials for our products because I'm using Camtasia and it takes me all freaking day to do a 2 minute recording. This is a way better solution for me. Going to give it a try for sure!
- Nemmie 14y agoHas lots of potential. Congrats you are onto something here.
- nsoldiac 14y agoTRUE STORY: Today I walked in dreadfully into the office because this is the day we start planning, designing and building training materials for a very large $1 million+ enterprise software implementation I've been leading for over a year. Before I start my day I go online to get my daily dose of HN stories and SHAZAM! Like a miracle out of IT Heaven this amazing tool comes out out of nowhere to punch my daunting work burden in the nuts! My work just got so much easier!! When are you guys enabling the premium features to export to PPT and PDF?? I need those PRONTO! Keep up the good work guys!
- sunpatel 14y agothanks dude. email me at spatel @ iorad.com ...the ppt doc is ready just working on the premium workflow..we can try to hook you up a bit early.
- nsoldiac 14y agocool, I'll touch base later. Have you guys put any thought to legal/privacy requirements to easy worries for companies dealing with proprietary software? NDA's and that kind of stuff?
- otoburb 14y agoThis product is brilliant for creating Methods Of Procedure (MOP) documents, which are important but highly tedious step-by-step guides that need to be done right. Also looking for premium PPT and PDF export options. Going to play with this more to see how easily my project teams can pick this up. The editing workflow is a bit clunky, but given it's a first launch it's definitely workable. Small nitpick: wish that triple-click selects the entire caption in editing mode.
- K2h 14y agoAwesome! get some pricing info up there so those of use that want to use it can get in early on a good deal. feedback: Have a native English speaker (english major, english professors, someone that likes to debate the finer points of our pitiful English language) read through all text facing the user. I have found several type-o's that are distracting and take away from the quality of product. an example: "the caption text will be _empt_ and you will" should be _empty_ . awesome job!
- try-finally 14y agoIf this had audio capabilities my company would also gladly pay for it to create tutorials of our web product offerings for our user base. Looks amazing, I'll be following this project closely, keep up the good work!
- btipling 14y ago> "so I made this app instead" Is this really the work of a single individual? How long did it take you? It looks like something a team built. Edit: http://www.iorad.com/?a=site.about http://www.iorad.com/?a=site.about It was a team. I would have upvoted this in heartbeat if hadn't been for the misleading title.
- BlackNapoleon 14y agoThis. Changes. Everything.
- lscott3 14y agoGetting ready to try this out on my app!
- maggit 14y agoHaving English as a second language I am always reluctant to make a screencast. My spoken English would be distracting, if not for the brokenness then at least for my lack of confidence when speaking it. This looks like a great alternative! Thanks :)
- redstripe 14y agoMost people are uncomfortable with their voices. My boss, who has a great deep speaking voice and is a very confident extrovert has been recording the same 3 minute screencast over and over this week (I assume it is because the sound of hearing his own voice has made him very self conscious). Record a screencast even if you have an accent. Silent screencasts with just clicking (or even worse - music) seem pointless.
- sunpatel 14y agothe main point of our app is to give something to users that is easy to follow. Screencasts are difficult to follow as in you have to play/pause/play pause.
- jrwoodruff 14y agoAwesome product, this is really fantastic. Creating basic tutorials/screencasts has always been such a time-consuming task, this will help immensely and is much easier for users to consume. Here's a few usability items I uncovered while playing around with it... - Support undo. I accidentally deleted a slide, but it was gone forever :) - Same with on-slide elements... - I used it to create a tutorial on modifying PDF document properties in Acrobat, but the dialog box was cutoff top and bottom and I was unable to scroll to close the dialog. - The above issue resulted in me creating 42 slides instead of 12, because I kept clicking and scrolling to try to get to the 'OK' button on the dialog. The tutorial would have been usable, but there is no way to easily delete 30 slides at once, and clicking 'delete... confirm delete' on 30 slides is tedious. Overall, very nice work, and best of luck!
- vbl 14y agoIt's a good idea. Nice job. I have some issues with the usability of the presentations, specifically around the prominence of the next action. The green highlighting isn't visible enough, and the annotations look like buttons themselves.
- dunstad 14y agoWhat would you think about prompting the user to sign up after they make their own tutorial (so they can save it or what have you), rather than before they start?
- sunpatel 14y agothats a good idea
- zaider 14y agoIs there any way to make the capture window full screen or make it dragable so that it could be moved over top of the task bar for or icon tray for instance?