Mouse Clicks and Key Presses
Showing the mouse and keyboard in your recordings.
What is shown on-screen is only half of what happens on a computer, which is why Screenflick pioneered displaying mouse and keyboard events in Mac screen recording programs, providing you with a number of options to customize what is shown and how it's shown.
Choosing What to Show #
Screenflick records your mouse and keyboard events along with the screen, and you decide what to show when you export. Select a recording in the Export view and open the "Mouse & Keyboard" options, which are the first icon in the row at the bottom of the window.
The mouse part shows a short summary of what's turned on, such as "Cursor (200%), Clicks, Modifiers", or "Don't Show Mouse" if none of it is. Click it to change these options:
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Show mouse cursor | Shows the mouse cursor in the movie. You can also scale it bigger or smaller, which can make it easier to see on a small video. |
| Show clicks | Shows each mouse click. You can scale the clicks, too. |
| Show modifier keys during clicks | Shows the modifier keys (such as Command and Option) that were held down during a click, right next to the mouse. |
The keyboard part starts with "Show:" and a summary like "Commands, Characters", or "Don't Show Key Presses" if none are shown. Click it to choose which kinds of key presses to show: commands (keyboard shortcuts such as Command-C for Copy), characters (letters, numbers, and punctuation), and others (keys such as the arrow keys and the Delete key). If the recording doesn't have any key presses in it, it says "Recording Has No Key Events" instead.
The mouse options you choose are used for the next recording you make.
Customizing the Appearance #
How clicks, modifier keys, and key presses look is set in Screenflick's preferences. Choose "Preferences…" from the Screenflick menu and click on "Visualizers".
Mouse Click Style #
To show a mouse click, Screenflick animates a small circle at the point of the click which grows and fades out. You can customize the duration of this animation, as well as the colors for left and right clicks separately. You can also change the color of the "Other Buttons" clicks, the outline, and the shadow.
Keyboard Modifiers #
Because it's often important to show a keyboard modifier held down during a mouse click, Screenflick can show modifiers right next to the mouse when a click occurs, and allows you to customize the font size, and colors of that as well.
Key Press Style #
Key presses can be shown in one of two styles: "Keyboard" or "Classic". Choose one with "Key Press Style", and then change its options. Both styles let you choose where on the video key presses appear, how long each one is shown, and which shortcuts to never show.
Keyboard #
Each key press is drawn as a key on a keyboard. You can choose:
- Appearance: Light, Dark, or a color (Blue, Violet, Magenta, Pink, Red, Orange, Yellow, or Green).
- Size: Mini, Small, Regular, Large, Extra Large, or Super Large.
- Position: the center, any side, or any corner of the video.
- Display for: how long each key press is shown.
- Exceptions: shortcuts you never want shown.
Classic #
Key presses are drawn as text on a background, in a bar on the video. You can choose:
- Display for: how long each event is displayed for.
- Event gap: To determine what constitutes a single "event", Screenflick uses the "Event Gap" setting to coalesce multiple keypresses into a single "event". When pressing letters such as if you're typing a word, technically each letter is an independent event, but displaying it as such would use a lot of space. The "Event Gap" says that if events happen within X seconds, consider them part of the same "event" and display them together. Changing the default value shouldn't be necessary.
- Display: which kinds of keyboard events to show: commands, characters, or other keys.
- Position and Width: where the bar is on the video, and how wide it is compared to the video.
- Font Size, Text Color, and Background: how the text looks.
- Exceptions: shortcuts you never want shown.
Exceptions #
If there are certain keyboard shortcuts, or combinations you don't want to ever display, you can add them to the Exceptions list. Very commonly pressed shortcuts such as those used in text editing are in the list by default because it's generally not necessary to show them.