- The signup process felt disjointed. I was excited to give Zappy a try but then fell into a Zapier signup and onboarding flow with Zapier messaging, etc. I was greeted with a Zapier trial when all I really signed up for was Zappy? Anyhow, not to nitpick but the experience and value perception here could be better. I understand Zappy is an acquisition tool but think it could be more relevant, example, when I actually do take a Zappy, poke me with an automation suggestion on how i might leverage Zapier to easily share that to a slack channel..
- I honestly could not figure out how to use Zappy. I installed the tool successfully, clicked the donut in my top bar and couldn't figure it out. I finally realized you have to click the orange donut in the drop-down to activate the tool. Suggestion, instead of your empty state CTA being a push to join a Zapier paid plan, make it an arrow pointing to the orange donut, I bet you a donut that'll alone increase conversion on # of Zappy's taken. Run an experiment and let me know. I bet this also represents a large friction point for your users.
- How do I delete a Zappy? I still can't figure this one out.
- I am unable to create a shortcut. I keep pressing "press combination" but can't seem to create a shortcut.
One thing I always try to strive towards is extreme empathy for the user, literally put yourself into the shoes of your customer and make every effort to see/experience the product through their mindset. Complexity is an unfortunate aspect of most products, the good products just do a good job of emerging users into that complexity.
Thank you for sharing this on HN. You are the Co-Founder and posted on Show HN[1] before this thread but this thread posted by someone else gained more steam.
If a product requires online credentials to use it, but the use-case doesn't demand them, I delete it.
It's nothing personal, there's just not a bright line from "take a screenshot, mark it up, make a video etc." to "login to some site", so off it goes.
Videos are great, but they aren't searchable in Slack. And when you're trying to share team knowledge, the text is important.
A descent transcription would be a good start.
Did you have a look at Jumpshare (https://jumpshare.com)? We offer video recording, screenshot capture + annotation, file sharing, and more - all wrapped up in an easy to use Mac menu bar and Windows system tray app. On quick capture (or upload), it copies a shareable link to the clipboard so you can quickly share it anywhere. :-)
The reason for so many features is because we've been working on our platform since 2012 and we continue to add more features every month.
Lightshot comes the closest to a decent, light, free alternative but it's still not ideal.
The built in Windows tool is nice (win + shift + S) but there's no arrows, it's a faff to get straight lines and it's just up to the quality of the OSX tools.
I started making one but like all side projects it just sits there waiting for that elusive "free time".
Thanks
I am amazed it hasnt been ported to linux yet
- Draw a straight line on an image (you have to pick the ruler, then draw along the ruler)
- Drawn an arrow on an image (not freehand)
- surround something with a box
- Add some text
It just falls too short
They also let me use a custom domain as part of their platform. That makes it look like the images are hosted by me and not them.
I’d have switched a long, long, long, time ago if they didn’t have that feature.
Might make sense to also add that to your tool.
I'm not interested in the selfie tool.
As well as having a bunch of useful tools for people working with screens, such as ruler, color picker, and a QR reader.
It can things I didn't know I would like to have :D
For example, I once needed to take a very precise crop off a screenshot, and thought "it would be nice if there was a way of fine tuning the mouse position". My first thought was somehow using the arrow keys, I pressed one of them and voila! The mouse moved a single pixel in that direction.
It's hard to pinpoint in specific features, but the best description is that ShareX is a very well laid out workshop, with everything within reach and nothing in the way.
In addition to speed, it's an all-in-one tool that does annotations, GIFs, and screen recording (with optional audio and selfie camera) and we optimized those flow for speed, too.
In comparison, shareX is far more feature rich with the exception of selfie capture.
However, it appears that shareX is only available on Windows and Zappy only on Mac
Oh well, maybe it can evolve into that.
If you're compiling feature requests, it would also be nice if this could generate simulations in SCORM format for e-learning: that will help for onboarding.
I'm Mike, co-founder at Zapier and head of Zapier Labs. Today our Labs team is launching a public version of Zappy: a fast, free screen capture tool that we built for our remote team. At Zapier, we have 300+ teammates working from across the globe with no central office—we've been fully remote since day one. We've learned that increasing communication bandwidth is crucial when you're working remotely.
I wanted a tool for screenshots/GIFs to supplement apps like Slack, but nothing on the market had the mix of speed and features we were looking for. So, built it internally. Zappy is a cornerstone of how we work at Zapier, nearly everyone at Zapier uses Zappy every week (voluntarily)! And we want to share it.
Why share now? People around the world just experienced a sudden shift to remote work—and we know life sans-office comes with unique challenges. We want to share our experience and make that transition a little easier.
Our goal with Zappy was to provide a screen capture experience that was so fast, people would actually want to use it to communicate. To capture something, you hit a keyboard shortcut, draw a square, and press enter. Zappy copies the image to your clipboard so you can paste it anywhere (or provides a path to your GIF/video).
You can draw annotations, record a selfie view, and stitch shots together. Captures support image, GIF, and MP4 formats. One of my favorite features is being able to grab past captures from the Mac menu bar, instead of digging through folders.
We're working on more features, too, like self-hosted captures on S3, sharing permissions, and a Zapier integration. :-)
Zappy is free to download and use for anyone (you'll need a free Zapier account to log in once). And, for paid Zapier customers, you'll get free capture hosting while it's in early access.
I'd love to hear your feedback and ideas. I hope you find Zappy useful!