Genesis Subtheme Screencasts

Hi, there, glad you asked! I need a good prod to get moving:)

I've been holding off for a week or two because I have been massively improving the framework. I have made hundreds of small improvements over the past few days and a new release will be out early next week (probably 3rd or 4th Nov, certainly no longer).

Certainly the subtheme has improved a lot.

So, once I get the new release out I will go strait in a do the screencast, which will take me a day or so I think. I've never done one before so it might be some trial and error. I'll most likley break it down into logical chuncks:

Set the layout
Theme Primary and Secondary Menus
Theme Blocks
Theme Nodes
Theme Comments
Theme your Admin

And so on.

What do you think of that idea?

I've started with a few basic tutorials - http://adaptivethemes.com/genesis-tutorials

For the longer more in depth ones I'm having some issue finding suitable OSS to get the job done without enormous file sizes and keeping the quality up (so you can actually see the code...). I dont really want to spend 300 bucks on software for this so I'll have to keep mucking around with Camstudio until I hit a sweet spot:)

Hiho,

thank you so much for your work! I love yout theme(s), the idea behind it/them, the concept of being understandable for the non-pros in theming and especially Genesis Webify!

The tutorials you already produced are great - your problem is the filesize? Two suggestions:

Did you already give a try to http://jingproject.com/?

And how about uploading to http://www.blip.tv

I would like to encourage you to gon on with your project together with screencasting!

Sincerly
JUleran

Edit: Sorry, as I see now, you are already using JING

The screencasts are made with Jing - but it has a 5 minute limit. I need to buy Camtasia and get a pro screencasts.com account, I'm thinking about starting a tip jar to raise the money by donation - then we can have 1hr long tutorials and even build entire themes in one screencast.

I found that Blip, you cant upload a Flash file, so I had to use CamStudio AVI format and the files are like 20mb per minute! And, when you upload it Blip resizes it and the quality goes to shit.

I wonder how the Drupal dojo guys get this done, I know they use mpeg, wondering if they have a pro Blip account and some tricky software to put their screenscasts together, something like Camtasia I would think.

Thanks for the feedback, really appreciate it.

Maybe there is somebody out there, who has some technical advices.

But the idea of a tip jar is a good idea too. - Tell me, when you are ready with it, I am certainly going to contribute to it!

If you had a mac, it would be easyer, there are great applications, there is Screenflow, which is not only less expensive (99 bucks), but even better an mor sophisticated!
http://www.flip4mac.com/screenflow.htm

@JuLearn, I have to tell you my sad story - I am a Mac user, I let some friends stay in my apartment a few months ago and they left the door unlocked, we got robbed and they stole my Mac (left the Winboxes, I give them credit for having taste...).

I'm desperate for a new Mac, I have my eye on a new Imac, with 24inch screen etc. Hopefully I can get one after Christmas, until then I am stuck on the Winboxes, which is actually not to bad now I've spent a few months with them - better than I would have expected actually. I have been Mac user for 15 years before this...

I just want to add:

If anyone has a specific request for a screencast please let me know, I'll certainly take it into consideration.

@ciberligre - its an interesting question. If you look at what Mark is doing with the Drupal redesign you'll notice these are simple html pages. albeit with a high level of design applied to them. The prototype-with-html is a good methodology and you could use the Genesis templates to do this.

Take a look at this. Now, this looks like something thrashed out in Photoshop, but in fact is a real subtheme where I have converted all the variables to plain text and gave each DIV some basic styles.

What I could do is make that available, not as a real subtheme (its unusable in Drupal) - but as a simple plain XHTML template with a very small stylesheet you can use to manipulate the design.

Is that the sort of thing you are after?

I actually start on paper, doing many sketches and then prototype directly in Drupal, I think I have luxury of knowing the code so well that its very easy for me to do this.

I have started the Chipin fundraising - you can chipin here - even if its just one dollar it makes a difference. The tutorials get about 300 page views a day so if everyone gives one dollar:)

you would have to port any changes made to the layout to the genesis sub-theme anyway...

Yes, but that is par-for-the-course anyway. One nice advantage of prototyping in plain HTML is that clients dont worry as to why things don't fully work, they seem to grasp that its a prototype and not the real deal, yet they can see an actual web-page and get strong feel for what the real thing will be like.

The screencasts are well linked to elsewhere now, and getting plenty of hits, closing to clear my issue queue.