Record keypresses and mouse clicks

[Guilhem Lettron]

When someone creates a screencast, it is useful to have features such as:

* Recording keypresses, for example I use "Screenkey" (https://launchpad.net/screenkey)

* Emphasise mouse clicks more (i.e. a red circle around the cursor when clicked or Zoom in on cursor)

Kazam will become the "shutter" (shutter-project.org) of screencasts :)

Do you agree ?
Have you more ideas ?

[Andrew (and471)]

I agree with the screenkey idea and I would want to integrate this into Kazam at some point - this would be easy

About the emphasizing the mouse clicks, I am sure could be done, but I don't wish to complicate the starting UI too much. Definitely something to think about though.

[Marco Hunsicker (ubuntu-triemax)]

I would second this request. Especially the mouse cursor highlighting would be extremely useful and I don't think that another option would seriously break the UI. Must not be on the starting screen.

Detecting mouse events should be easy and the painting code can't be that hard if one knows his way around the APIs. I have no experience with the used toolkits, but with some guidance I could probably code it.

[Silvio Grosso (grossosilvio)]

First of all, THANKS a lot indeed for your work! :-)

I think it would be VERY useful to have an option to add a circe around your mouse's cursor.
Most of all, because you can not add this effect later (e.g. with Pitivi or Kdenlive).
When you download from YouTube a video at low-resolution the circle around the mouse improves a lot your understanding.

Your video might look indeed more professional :-)
Naturally, this should be left as an option (in order not to be forced to use it).

On Windows, all important softwares to record your screen have these option (e.g. Camtasia, Camstudio etc) and I use it all the time.

On Linux, you can achieve this same effect with Compiz (http://wiki.compiz.org/Plugins/Showmouse).
At present, on Ubuntu 11.10, I use as a "workaround", for this effect, the software Keymon (http://code.google.com/p/key-mon/)

On the whole, as with Camstudio (http://camstudio.org/), the best might be:
1. Have an option to choose the size - colour of your circle for your cursor (by default, usually, it is yellow)
2. The same should apply to right-left button cursor (e.g. you press the left button and a red circle pops up).
At this regard, some softwares apply a ring (instead of a circle) for the left-right button (in order to allow you to show both at the same time).

With Camstudio the mouse cursor is NOT shown when you record your video (this in order not to distract you).
Naturally, it is shown when you play this video later (e.g. with Vlc player).
Having this extra-option would be magnificent for Kazam as well :-)

Anyway, THANKS a lot indeed for your work: please, keep it up :-)

[David Klasinc (bigwhale)]

A quick update on this. While working on bug #949809 I looked into this too. Unfortunately, right now certain functions that are required for keyboard capturing and monitoring aren't introspectable or they are in conflict with Gstreamer. More precisely, Gstreamer threading comes into conflict with Gtk3. So, until Gstreamer 1.0/0.11 this is postponed. :/

However, on a positive side, I also talked with the author of Screen Keys, and he agreed that integrating that into Kazam is a good idea and I have his blessing to proceed. :)

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Eidete author managed to implement displaying pressed keys without the need for root permissions. Displaying mouse clicks is also implemented. Maybe it's a good idea to look at Eidete code and take a similar approach.

[David Klasinc (bigwhale)]

Hm, my test implementation in python, using Xlib didn't require root permissions. But it requires threading if I combine that with Gtk3 and GStreamer it fails. :)

[Filip (wattos-o)]

On KDE I implemented a "Show Mouse Click Effect"

Youtube video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcW2EAN1hRQ

It will be made available in KDE 4.10

[David Klasinc (bigwhale)]

Preliminary support for this was committed and will be released in the next few days.