Show HN: Scribe generates step-by-step guides for GUI workflows

Show HN: Scribe generates step-by-step guides for GUI workflows(get.scribehow.com)

55 points by apodolny 4 years ago | 33 comments

pugworthy 4 years ago |

edit

Why didn't you just send people to https://scribehow.com/? It explains the product so much.

I'd love to see some examples of this other than just little animations on the main screen. Right now it's just simple animations and a request to register.

The world is full of "solutions", as is my inbox from products I had to sign up for just to see what it did. Not sure I want to bother with that barrier to entry just to evaluate (and get on some mail list).

apodolny 4 years ago | |

Hi — sorry about that. If you want to see some example Scribes, there's a gallery with some basics here: https://scribehow.com/gallery. The real difference here is how these are made.

mohanmcgeek 4 years ago | | |

I saw this on producthunt the other day. This would really save hours of my team's time!

My first question when I saw this was if the produced documentation was persisted in scribehow's servers and if it would ever work on pages not accessible from open web

apodolny 4 years ago |

Hey all, looking forward to hearing your feedback on Scribe - a browser extension and desktop app that automatically generates step-by-step guides for any GUI-based process you choose to record on your computer.

Me and my cofounder originally set out to build an RPA tool. Along the way, we discovered that the bigger problem most teams were facing had to do with capturing and sharing each individual’s specialized knowledge. Most of this knowledge wasn’t written down, let alone stored in some sort of shareable format. With hybrid and remote working models becoming the new norm, this struck us as a problem that really couldn’t wait any longer, so we decided to address this need instead.

We wanted to create something that felt quite different to the manual and tedious nature that’s often associated with putting together process documentation or how-to guides. That meant that Scribe had to be able to intelligently recognize the key steps in your process, while still feeling very lightweight and easy to use.

The tool generates instructions and screenshots based on your clicks and keystrokes to build your step-by-step guide--to do this, there were a few key technical challenges we had to solve: 1. Going from a set of keystrokes and clicks to actual steps 2. Recognizing when to take the screenshot (i.e. before you do a key action) 3. Reconciling different DPI screens (pixel densities) 4. Automatically identifying and combining similar (but distinct) steps

We have Basic (free) and Pro (paid) tiers. Basic gives you a Chrome extension to record web-based apps while Pro comes with a desktop recorder so you can record any program on your computer. I’d love to hear your feedback on either. If you’d like to check out Pro, you can use the code HN2021 after you sign up for a one-month free trial.

pca2 4 years ago | |

As someone who's documented a lot of users flows by hand this would be a really handy service. However, it'd be great if there was more of a demo available without a sign up. At the moment it seems like there's just a couple of tiny screeenshots and a single GIF showing what your product actually looks like. How about a sample screencast or a sample PDF of a finished guide?

tiffanyz 4 years ago | | |

for sure, check out our gallery: https://scribehow.com/gallery to view Scribes (you don't need an account to view them)

GordonS 4 years ago | |

How long have you been running for - I see you have more than 10,000 companies using Scribe, which is amazing!

Echoing what another person here said, I'd really like to see some decent examples of the end result - I love the idea of Scribe, but a small screenshot and a small gif really isn't hooking me in to spend the time to find out more.

tiffanyz 4 years ago | | |

hey there! sorry about that - you can check out what the end product looks like on our gallery: https://scribehow.com/gallery

the team has been building this product quietly over the past year and a half, and we launched last month on PH.

klintcho 4 years ago | |

Are the scribes hosted somewhere so that they can be linked? Would love this on a FAQ page for end users / customers.

tiffanyz 4 years ago | | |

yup! all Scribes can be set to "shareable with link" - thanks for the feedback re: including this on the FAQ page!

DougWebb 4 years ago |

I skimmed very quickly, and this seems pretty similar to the Windows built-in tool Problem Steps Recorder. I assume it's cross-platform, which is a nice advantage. Any other big differences?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/record-steps-to-...

fishtoaster 4 years ago |

Well this is really neat. As an engineer at a tiny startup "How do I do X in <our nascent internal tooling>" is a common refrain. I'm already pitching this internally - if this significantly cuts down on the time I spent writing up directions for people (and the time they spend being confused by my incomplete directions), it'll be worth its weight in gold. :)

nickphx 4 years ago |

Interesting idea, congrats on putting it all together. Do you have any working examples of the end result? The landing page only had a few screen shots and it was not entirely clear to me what the results looked like. Are users able to export or copy the created guides? Are user accounts required to view the created guides?

tiffanyz 4 years ago | |

Definitely! Here's a Scribe I recently created to show all the different ways you can share your Scribe: https://scribehow.com/shared/Sharing-your-Scribe-with-others...

User accounts are not required to view Scribes, and yes, users are able to export and copy the created guides.

mickgardner 4 years ago | | |

Are the guides all PDF or HTML? Or can the guides be videos too? You mention 'Markdown' export, do those include images etc?

fudged71 4 years ago |

Looking at an example https://scribehow.com/shared/Setting-a-great-LinkedIn-cover_... I was expecting to see animations of the workflow (like Live Photos?).

tiffanyz 4 years ago | |

you can combine steps to create a GIF effect. Check out this short Scribe for an example: https://scribehow.com/shared/Toggling-between-teams-in-Scrib...

pugworthy 4 years ago |

I was assuming at first from the examples that this was just for web based applications. But I see it also supports desktop apps. Which OS?

I'm being picky but I'm also pretty intrigued. The idea is quite nice.

tiffanyz 4 years ago | |

our desktop app works on Mac and Windows :)

jasonpeacock 4 years ago |

Is this a desktop app, a hosted solution, or self-hosted?

For work use, we need on-premise only and can’t have internal tools exposed/captured by external tools.

tiffanyz 4 years ago | |

We have a desktop app and a browser extension, but all Scribes are hosted on AWS. We do offer a few export options which would enable you to take the Scribes "offline" after creating them, but in those cases the Scribes wouldn't be "living" docs

bradknowles 4 years ago |

It’s a shame there is not a local-only version of such a tool.

niros_valtos 4 years ago |

Who designed your landing page? The design is amazing!

tiffanyz 4 years ago | |

thanks! we used unbounce to put it together and have a great contract designer we work with!

niros_valtos 4 years ago | | |

Mind sharing?

kposehn 4 years ago |

Go Scribe! Glad to see you launch :)

jennifer78909 4 years ago |

oh this is fun! would save hours of time spent on screenshots, writing up documentation, etc

iammisc 4 years ago |

This is great... Thanks. I hate making how-to guides.