What began as a freeware project to easily share basic screen captures and screen recordings has grown into a solid application and capture distribution system with a premium component. Jings attractive application takes a sound, simple approach to capturing; begin by dragging the crosshairs to define your capture field and then take a still or start a recording. When youre done, save it to your computer or upload it to Screencast.com (operated by Jings publisher), an FTP site, Flickr, or YouTube (for a premium). If youve got Snagit or Camtasia Studio, TechSmiths premium programs for capturing and editing stills and videos, respectively, you can click a button on the post-capture toolbar to send the capture along for deeper editing than Jings basics can supply.
There is no proper interface for the application. After the installation process is complete the application can be accessed from a little yellow ball (well, only half of it is visible) perched in the upper part of your desktop, right in the middle. That is if it doesnt take you too long to find the launching executable (Ill save you some time, it is in Start>Programs>TechSmith) as there is no shortcut placed on the desktop. It is not at all intrusive as its small size and fade effect make it almost invisible if you did not know it is there. All the options of the software extend like tentacles as soon as you hover your mouse over the unfinished ball. The three alternatives let you capture images or video on your desktop, go into History menu and take a peek into settings area.
Making a screen capture, still image or
video is always done with the help of a grid. The place where the X and Y axis intersect is actually where the pointer of your mouse is. Clicking and dragging it will cause the entire desktop to turn grey and only the area that will be captured will still be colored. This way you will know exactly how much of the screen is included in the capture. Release your mouse button and the borders of the selected rectangle will start to glow. Now is the time to decide whether the capture should be video or a still image (check the lower left hand corner for these options). The image will be saved in PNG format and the video is actually a SWF file.
For more options when
capturing images, take a look in the top left hand corner. Jing makes available basic editing tools like drawing arrows (very handy when you are trying to point out something), text tool, frame tool and highlight option. The last alternative available is color tool which can change the color of all the other tools (save text which can be configured from the text editor). Dont fret if you scribble on the image, Undo works just fine at a press of Ctrl+Z or from the button at the bottom of the page.
When you are done with all the explanations and drawing, you can choose to post the image on the web or share it locally. In the first case, depending on your Internet connection, you will wait a while an then Jing will kindly inform you that the URL is available on the clipboard (paste it in a text editor if you are not convinced).
When recording a video with your desktop or a clip running in some player there arent any drawing options, unfortunately. But you can pause the recording at any time you wish and even mute the volume. The time elapsing is also displayed. This is useful when you are shooting a
video with the purpose of sharing it with others. The larger the size, the more time itll take you to upload the file and for the others to view it.
Time for checking out the settings. This is an arid place as there is almost nothing to configure. All you can do is add more functionality to the application by setting a capture hotkey and choosing a different location (top, left, right, bottom) of the dock site (the half yellow ball doming your desktop).
The minute I learned that Jing can store all the
captures online, I kept wondering if they can be removed so space should be gained and the developer not be forced to provide the service subscription based. Jing History seems to solve the problem admirably. Deleting all the files in History window will also eliminate them from your online storage account.
