Roughly speaking, there are two kinds of people that use Jing. There are those that try it, love it and often send us requests for additional features. We listen hard to these requests.

Then there are those that try Jing, then quit using it for some reason. We wanna hear from these people too. We work hard to learn where Jing is letting them down.

One thing that clearly needed improvement was the Jing update process. Jing used to require updating as soon as a new version was detected. And it was possible this might happen right as you're trying to capture and share. You literally couldn't use Jing until you updated. Sorry about that. It's better now though. The update process is much friendlier and forgiving.

To explain it, here's Bill and his Jing Art flower:

"We've changed the update process in this release so the NEXT time Jing wants to update, there'll be a 14-day grace period before requiring the update. Jing'll also allow you to know what's in the update before you install it. Hopefully, that'll allow shares to be completed, while still getting the latest and greatest features and fixes.

And if you ever ended up in the loop where Jing says there's an update, you update and it says there's an update, you update and..., this release should stop that nonsense. We haven't yet solved the problem. We think a proxy server or browser might be caching the old version, but we aren't sure. But now Jing should only let you know about the update when it's SURE it's got it. Let us know if you see it happen again...on the NEXT release."

Hey, Jingers! I'm Jim, a Mac Developer here at TechSmith. I'm the guy who wrote most of the Twitter functionality for the Mac version of Jing. This is a feature we've talked about for a while, and I'm stoked to see it shipping for both Mac and Windows (and for both Free and Pro versions of Jing).

Working with the Jing team to design and implement this feature was a blast. We evaluated a ton of other Twitter clients along the way, drawing as much inspiration as possible. We tried to take the best parts of what we've seen, add in a little TechSmith magic, and still make it feel natural. We hope you like it.

The coolest part, in my opinion, is the in-line progress bar that shows up while your media gets sent off to Screencast.com. It was a bit harder to write than I expected, but I'm completely geeked about it now. We weren't 100% sold on the design at first, but it turned out to be a great way to let you write your tweet and upload at the same time where many clients only let you do one. I'll show you what I mean in this short video clip.

We're always looking for feedback on everything we do. Did we hit the nail on the head? Did we miss something crucial? Let us know. Every blog comment and piece of feedback gets read.

The addition of a Twitter output in Jing is clearly a noticeable update. However, two more changes coming on December 8th might go unnoticed by most people.

On Mac, Don made improvements to the History that will be especially appreciated by anyone who has their History filled with hundreds or thousands of captures. It has to do with speed and memory improvement and Don will talk more specifically about those later.

On Windows, our uber-intern, Dennis, refactored the code for the capture selection window and it's dramatically improved.

I sat down with Dennis to learn more details. Check out his Jing Art glasses.

Mike: Dennis, I'd love to tell our readers about your improvements to the selection window...but I don't really understand it. Can you explain what you did?
Dennis: I significantly reduced the lines of code, but more importantly the code is much easier to follow now.
Mike: What does your work mean for our users?
Dennis: Essentially, the idea of improving the code in the selection window was to improve the user experience of both selecting an area to capture on the screen and make it easier and safer for any future modification or improvement we may wish to make as developers. Key points are:

• The best thing is that future modifications of this process for us will be easier and less risky
• You might see minor speed improvements
• The selection process should feel somewhat more natural and stable

Jing SWF videos (the only type of video available in the free version of Jing) is optimized for viewing on the Web. You make a video, send a link to the video and people click the link and watch your video.

However, maybe you want to save SWF videos to your computer. If you double-click a Jing-created SWF to open it, there's a good chance your computer won't know what to do with it...and you might get a dialog like this:

Now just because your computer might not know what to do with the SWF doesn't mean you can't "teach" it.

Important: All SWFs are not the same. Some, like Jing's are videos with the controls attached to the bottom. But SWFs shouldn't be assumed to be a video format--it's really a Flash application. For example there are any number of SWF games people play on the web, so please be careful if you start trying to open non-Jing SWFs as described below.

There are two main ways to open Jing SWF videos on your computer.

The first is the simplest and done on a per-file basis. Open your favorite web browser, then click and drag the SWF file into the browser window. The Jing SWF will play in the browser. You may need to resize your browser depending on the size of the video.

You can also associate the .swf file extension with your favorite browser. This is a more long term solution as your browser will attempt to open any and all SWF files when double clicked.

• For Vista
• For XP
• For Mac OS 10.5

To do so using Windows Vista:

1. Right click the SWF file.
2. Choose Open With
3. Click Choose Default Program...
4. The goal is to associate your favorite web browser with this file type. It is unlikely a browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox will appear in Recommended programs. If your browser appears in the recommended programs, select it. Make sure Always use the selected program to open this kind of file is checked. Click OK. If your browser does not appear in Recommended programs, click the Browse button.
5. Navigate and select your desired browser. The file you are looking for will likely be in a subfolder of the Program Files directory. It will be an .exe file. For example Firefox.exe or iexplore.exe and should have a familiar-looking icon.
6. Make sure Always use the selected program to open this kind of file is checked. Click OK.

Now, when you double click a SWF file, it will open in your associated browser.

To do so using Windows XP:

1. Right click the SWF file.
2. Choose Open With...
3. The goal is to associate your favorite web browser with this file type. A browser like Internet Explorer or Firefox might not appear under Choose the program you want to use to open this file dialog. If not, check Always use the selected program to open this kind of file then click the Browse button.
4. Navigate and select your desired browser. The file you are looking for will likely be in a subfolder of the Program Files directory. It will be an .exe file. For example Firefox.exe or iexplore.exe and should have a familiar-looking icon.
5. Click Open.

Now, when you double click a SWF file, it will open in your associated browser.

To do so on Mac OS 10.5:

1. Right click the SWF file.
2. Choose Open With.
3. Click Other...
4. Select the desired browser, most likely from your Applications folder.
5. Check Always Open With.
6. Click Open.

Now, when you double click a SWF file, it will open in your associated browser.

The mystery has been solved! Some Windows XP users have Jing setup to launch when the computer starts, but Jing doesn't. They've had to manually launch Jing from the Start menu. While not the end of the world, it's sure annoying.

Well Mark and Fatih did some detective work and fixed it. It had to do with a goofy way XP was inserting a space in some path during the install. One little space...

We're not going to force an update, but if you want to grab the latest Jing, re-download and install it from: http://www.jingproject.com. The only thing different in this Jing from yours is that Jing will now respect our dear Windows XP users and start up upon launch like you told it too.

Happy Jinging!

Want to put some sweet-looking screencasts up on YouTube? It's easier than ever, and Brooks shows you how. (See outline of steps below video.) In Brooks' last post I gave him a hard time about that face close-up. I mean, people are trying to learn stuff here! The good news is that Brooks took efforts to make his intros a little more bearable. Did it work? You be the judge.

I also made a convenient PDF (less than 2 pages) with all the steps too.

Overview:

1. You need Jing Pro, and a YouTube account.
2. Create a YouTube button in Jing.
3. Record a video in 16:9 aspect ratio (Hold Shift while selecting area) at 1280 x 720 dimensions.
4. Upload to YouTube, and wait while your video is processed!

Update: The December 8th Jing update addressed the History Memory issues on Mac. Windows has no known issues. To report an issue, please contact http://support.techsmith.com.

We got an email the other day asking if there was a way to delete everything in the History. Well, this post will show you a "behind-the-scenes" way to do it for power users. In addition it might free up some memory if you're a Mac user. Disclaimer: Messing around with files and folders could screw up your History or lead to unintended consequences, so do so at your own risk!

Now, on to the video, but first a couple of tips:

• Don't be alarmed by the face close-up at the start of the video. It lasts less than 10 seconds. If you need to, just look away until you hear the audio change.
• You can watch the video in full screen mode. (You may want to wait to go full screen until the "face scene" passes.)

Good day!

I made a video (3:10) showing a neat way to use Jing and the embed code returned from Screencast.com. Basically the end result is that using Jing is so much faster than putting images on our internal wiki the "normal" way. As an added benefit, I can make thumbnails that link to the full size images.

If you have a blog, social networking page, website, wiki, etc., I think you may find this interesting.

P.S. The green UI in my example isn't for real. :)