Recorded demos

[hjoliver]

We should consider recording

• UI demos as animated gif or webm
  • @kinow uses byzanz on ubuntu (but the package or source seems to be very hard to find for other platforms, maybe be a dead project?)
  • I've installed peek
• cut-n-paste-able console demos with https://asciinema.org/ - very cool

[kinow]

Let me know which one works best for you. asciinema looks limited to only console apps. But peek looks interesting!

[hjoliver]

For the record, how to install peek on Centos 7 (sudo required):

• clone peek off github
• yum install:
  • vala, meson and ninja-build
  • txt2man
  • gtk3-devel (else gtk-3.0 not found during the build)
• follow the simple build instructions for peek, in BUILD_NOTES.md
  • a locally installed executable (via ninja-build install) resulted in core dump due to some gnome schema problem, but system install under /usr worked fine
• had to install ffmpeg to get gif recording to work (but .webm worked out of the box)

[hjoliver]

Let me know which one works best for you. asciinema looks limited to only console apps. But peek looks interesting!

Peek seems to work perfectly, demo coming...

Yes asciinema records and plays console only -but the playback is text (not video!) so users can cut-and-paste as well as pause and rewind. We could use this e.g. to show exactly how to install Cylc 8 via conda, or to demo various CLI operations.

[kinow]

The screencasts won't work for cylc-doc PDF version. Should we have a section that appears on the version for web only, or add it to the website?

[hjoliver]

(My impression is, no one under the age of 63 prefers PDF anymore, for technical docs).

[hjoliver]

Demo recorded with peek (130k gif):

[kinow]

Looking great! And all good in dropping the PDF's for me. If you use the websockets branches, there should be no delay on showing the workflows 🤞😁

[hjoliver]

If you use the websockets branches, there should be no delay on showing the workflows crossed_fingers

I'll replace the screencast after doing that, later 😁

[kinow]

BTW, for cylc ui issues, these demos/screencasts would be really useful too (even if only us or few users use it)

[oliver-sanders]

Some demos are now present in the interventions section, see #626