• You can now upload manuals and lessons to ScreenSteps Live as drafts.
• Editor and Author permissions are enforced in the upload interface (i.e. Editors and Authors must attach manuals to a space and must attach lessons to a bucket or manual).
• You can now jump straight to the web administration interface for your ScreenSteps Live account right from the File menu.

For non-ScreenSteps Live user:

• Exporting to Confluence now uses fileName property rather than URL property for image embedding. This makes pages portable between different urls.
• You can now filter by draft status on export.
• Holding down the option or alt key while dragging a lesson onto a manual now adds a copy of the lesson to the manual (also works with multiple lessons selection).

No major enhancements in this one. Just some small improvements to make your work with ScreenSteps easier. You can update by selecting “Help > Check for Updates” or downloading the full installer here:

http://www.bluemangolearning.com/screensteps/downloads

The full release notes are here:

Release notes

You couldn’t do it.

Now you can.

Earlier this week we pushed an update to ScreenSteps Live that will give you much more control over what content authorized users can access, create and update in your ScreenSteps Live account.

The video below gives you a quick overview of the new permissions.

If you want to learn how to add Editors and Authors to spaces, see here:

• How do I Add an Editor to a Space?
• How do I Add an Author to a Space and Manual/Bucket?

New Draft Support

You can now upload draft lessons to ScreenSteps Live. This means you can put lessons that are in progress anywhere in your manual. They won’t show up to your end users until you change the draft status. In addition, you can also mark buckets and entire manuals as drafts.

This week we added another key component — Remote Authentication.

What is it?

Remote authentication allows you to use your existing user authentication system to grant users access to your ScreenSteps Live spaces. This gives you single sign on when integrating ScreenSteps Live with your existing systems.

How does it work?

The example below shows remote authentication integrating with a WordPress blog. When a user requests protected content on your ScreenSteps Live site ScreenSteps Live normally displays a login screen. But with remote authentication enabled you take control of user authentication. Here is how a request for protected content works:

• The user requests (1) protected content on your ScreenSteps Live account (2).
• With remote authentication enabled ScreenSteps Live redirects the user to a url that you specify (3).
• This url contains a login screen where the user enters a username and password (4).
• When the user successfully enters a valid username and password your system tells ScreenSteps Live to let the user in (5) at which point ScreenSteps Live grants access to the protected content (6).

But remote authentication does more than just log a user in. Here are some other benefits:

• If you update user information in your existing user management system, the next time that user logs into ScreenSteps Live the information will automatically be updated in ScreenSteps Live.
• If you remove a user from your user management system they will not be able to access ScreenSteps Live anymore.
• You never have to keep track of separate logins or passwords. All user management happens in a centralized location on your servers.

You can find out more about remote authentication, try our free WordPress plugin and view example code at our online manual.

Remote Authentication Online Manual

Your can sign up for a free 30-day trial of ScreenSteps Live here.

What does it do?

Once you deactivate a user they no longer count against the total number of admin/author users on your account. Deactivated users cannot login to the ScreenSteps Live site and cannot authenticate their ScreenSteps Desktop software.

Why should you care?

This new feature adds a lot of flexibility to your ScreenSteps Live account. Remember that with the new account plans, your ScreenSteps Pro Desktop license is included in your monthly subscription. Let’s look at an example scenario of how you might use this new functionality.

Let’s say you have a plan that includes 5 admin/author users. That means you have 5 ScreenSteps Pro Desktop licenses. Now suppose that you are launching a new product and need to get some documentation ready. You can have 2 people on your engineering team with ScreenSteps Live accounts and 3 people on your support team. The engineering team may create a lot of those initial documents that the support team will then enhance and expand upon.

Once the product is released you may not need ScreenSteps Live content from the engineering team anymore. What you really want is new content from the sales team. Just deactivate the engineering accounts and create two new users accounts for the sales team members. Your monthly costs never change but you are able to adapt your documentation team based on the needs of your organization at any given time.

We hope that you find the feature useful and that it helps you expand your use of ScreenSteps Live in your organization.

Learn how to deactivate users on ScreenSteps Live

Watch the video below to get an idea of how it works. The video shows an example with a WordPress plugin we have developed that lets your WordPress users log in to your ScreenSteps Live account.

How does it work? You just install a simple script on your server that can authenticate users. When a user comes to your ScreenSteps Live account they are redirected to your servers where the script resides. Once they login on your server they are redirected back to your ScreenSteps Live account.

This feature is still in beta. If you would like to try it out on your account just contact us at support@bluemangolearning.com an we can help you get set up.

Now we want to make the ScreenSteps Live purchase process just as easy as everything else in the service.

With that goal in mind we are happy to announce a new pricing model for ScreenSteps Live that includes a license for ScreenSteps Desktop Pro. For $19/month you get a ScreenSteps Live account and your ScreenSteps Desktop Pro software. You also, automatically get all future upgrades to ScreenSteps Pro for as long as your account is active.

Previously the purchase process of ScreenSteps Live was a little confusing. You had to:

1. Figure out how many users in your organization were going to post lessons
2. Purchase a ScreenSteps Desktop Pro License ($79.95) for each user
3. Sign up for the appropriate ScreenSteps Live Plan

Things got even more complicated when you needed to expand the number of users on your ScreenSteps Live account. You had to go purchase more desktop licenses and then upgrade your ScreenSteps Live account.

Now all you have to do is pay $19 per user per month and you get everything you need. This new pricing model makes it much easier to scale your documentation team up and down depending on your needs.

New Pricing Makes ScreenSteps Live More Economical For Solo Users

This new pricing also makes ScreenSteps Live much more economical for solo users. Previously a solo user would have to pay over $100 to get started with a ScreenSteps Live account ($79.95 for the desktop software, $24 for the monthly service). Now for $19/month they get everything they need.

Special Benefits for Existing License Holders

If you already own a ScreenSteps Desktop Standard or Pro license and are interested in a ScreenSteps Live account please contact us. We have special discounts available that allow you to apply some of your desktop license cost towards a ScreenSteps Live account.

Sign Up for a Free Trial Now

If you haven’t tried out ScreenSteps Live yet, sign up for a free trial account.

You and your customers will be glad you did.

• Embedding of videos
• Export to Microsoft Word/Apple Pages (Pro only)

We have also added some nice updates for ScreenSteps Live users. Checkout the video below to get a quick overview of what is new.

This is a free upgrade to all 2.x users. As you may have heard, with this update the price of ScreenSteps Pro will increase by $20 to $79.95. We have extended the old price of $59.95 through Monday, June 22 so purchase a copy before then to save $20. The price of ScreenSteps Standard will stay the same at $39.95.

Download ScreenSteps 2.6

Purchase ScreenSteps Now

With this 2.6 release, the price of ScreenSteps Pro is going to be increasing from $59.95 to $79.95.

Does that mean that existing users will have to pay for an upgrade? No! All 2.x updates to ScreenSteps have been free for registered 2.x customers and the good news is that 2.6 will continue the tradition. ScreenSteps 2.6 will still be a free upgrade to all ScreenSteps 2.x users.

So how does this affect you?

If you are already a ScreenSteps Pro user then it does not affect you at all. The upgrade will still be free.

If you are a ScreenSteps Standard user, the only thing that will change will be your upgrade price (it was previously $20, but will increase to $40).

If you haven’t purchased ScreenSteps Pro yet then you have through next Wednesday, June 17th to still get it at the current price of $59.95. After that the price will go up to $79.95.

So, If you have been thinking about either upgrading or purchasing, the time to act is now!

You can even download a preview of version 2.6 to test out the new Microsoft Word and Apple Pages export options here.

The new pricing will not take effect for at least one more week which means there is still time to buy a copy of ScreenSteps Pro for $59.95 or upgrade to ScreenSteps Pro for $20.

Purchase ScreenSteps 2 Pro

Upgrade from ScreenSteps Standard to ScreenSteps Pro

Getting Images into ScreenSteps: Windows

Contents include:

• Capture Palette
• Integrating with Windows Print Screen
• Integrating with Windows Alt-Print Screen
• Integrating with SnagIt
• Capturing still clips from QuickTime videos
• Importing Photos or other Image files

Getting Images into ScreenSteps: Mac

Contents include:

• Capture Palette
• Keyboard Shortcut
• Capturing still clips from QuickTime videos
• Integrating with Snapz Pro X
• Integrating with Skitch
• Integrating with OmniGraffle
• Importing Photos or other Image files

These screencasts came directly from content we have prepared and presented in our weekly webinars. To get some more great tips on using ScreenSteps be sure to register for one:

http://www.bluemangolearning.com/webinars

ScreenSteps Live Support Client uses the powerful ScreenSteps Live API to retrieve data from your account and is another example of how you can manage your content in ScreenSteps Live but use it just about anywhere. We also have plugins for WordPress and Zendesk that use the ScreenSteps Live API.

The application is available for Mac and Windows and you can download it here.

Watch the video below to get an idea of how this can speed up your support process.