screengif

Screengif

A commandline tool to convert SCREENCAST.mov into ANIMATED.gif

Here's what happens when you apply it to demo.mov

Usage

…

Installation

Under Docker

If you have docker running, this is the quickest way to get started with screengif:

git clone [email protected]:dergachev/screengif.git
cd screengif

make build      # or alternatively, 'docker pull dergachev/screengif'

make docker-convert args="-i demo.mov -o demo-docker.gif"

# input files must be relative to cloned screengif repo
cp /path/to/myMovie.mov .

make docker-convert args="-i myMovie.mov -o myMovie.gif"

See Dockerfile and Makefile for how it works.

With Vagrant

If you have Vagrant and Virtualbox already installed, this is both faster and cleaner than downloading and compiling all the dependencies in OS X. To install, simply do the following:

vagrant up

The easiest way to use it is to copy your image to screengif project directory (shared in the VM under /vagrant), and run the following:

cp ~/screencast.mov ./screencast.mov
vagrant ssh -- '/vagrant/bin/screengif --input /vagrant/screencast.mov --output /vagrant/output/screencast.gif'
ls ./output/screencast.gif # should exist!

# when finished, destroy the VM
vagrant destroy -f

On OSX, with homebrew

The following works with OS X and homebrew, assuming you have ruby 1.9.2+:

You may need to install brew-cask: https://github.com/phinze/homebrew-cask

# x-quartz is a dependency for gifsicle, no longer installed starting on 10.8
brew cask install xquartz
open /usr/local/Caskroom/xquartz/2.7.11/XQuartz.pkg # runs the XQuartz installer

brew install ffmpeg imagemagick@6 gifsicle pkg-config
gem install screengif       # might need sudo

To be able to use the --progressbar option, you also need to install ghostscript and some fonts for it:

brew install gs
cd /usr/local/share/ghostscript/
wget https://ghostscript.googlecode.com/files/ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11.tar.gz
tar xzvf ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11.tar.gz

If running screengif shows an errror Library not loaded: libMagickCore-6.Q16.1.dylib, see #26.

Tips

See https://gist.github.com/dergachev/4627207#os-x-screencast-to-animated-gif for a guide on how to use Quicktime Player to record a screencast on OS X.
Keep in mind that other tools (like Screenflow) produce better video quality.

If you install dropbox-screenshots, the following will automatically upload your new gif to Dropbox:

cp out.gif ~/Dropbox/Public/screenshots

Resources

See DEVNOTES