opensoul.org

A GIF is worth a thousand screenshots

February 26, 2014 code 1 min read

Did you know that GIFs have productive uses? Yep, deal with it! Lately, I have been including GIF screencasts on pull requests that include user interface changes as a way to clearly demonstrate the changes.

GIF demoing a pull request feature.

It’s an extermely effective way to communicate what has changed. These screencasts have other uses, such as showing how to use a feature or demonstrating a bug.

There are a lot of ways to make a GIF screencast, but LICEcap is the best tool I have found found. It is not the prettiest piece of software that I have ever laid eyes on, but it just works and makes fantastic GIFs. The GIF above is 26 seconds long, great quailty, but only 500 KB.

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— @bkeepers

avatar of Brandon Keepers I am Brandon Keepers, and I work at GitHub on making Open Source more approachable, effective, and ubiquitous. I tend to think like an engineer, work like an artist, dream like an astronaut, love like a human, and sleep like a baby.