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[Released] CamStudio Portable 2.0 Dev Test 3

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Pyromaniac
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[Released] CamStudio Portable 2.0 Dev Test 3

Official Release: This app has been officially released and can be found here. Below is an outdated/unsupported version of the app.

Application: CamStudio
Category: Utilities
Description: CamStudio is a free and open source screen recording suite. It includes a screen recorder, video player, advanced video player, and a AVI to SWF video converter.

CamStudio can also add high-quality, anti-aliased (no jagged edges) screen captions to your recordings in seconds and with the unique Video Annotation feature you can even personalise your videos by including a webcam movie of yourself "picture-in-picture" over your desktop.

And if all that wasn't enough, CamStudio also comes with its own Lossless Codec that produces crystal clear results with a much smaller filesize compared with other more popular codecs, like Microsoft Video 1.

You have total control over the output of your video: you can choose to use custom cursors, to record the whole screen or just a section of it and can reduce or increase the quality of the recording depending on if you want smaller videos (for emailing to people, for instance) or you can have "best quality" ones for burning onto CD/DVD.

But all of these features would be worthless if CamStudio wasn't easy to use ... fortunately that's not the case. CamStudio can be learned in a matter of minutes and comes with a comprehensive built-in helpfile, so if you do manage to get stuck, you can simply hit "Help" and get the answers you need.

Takeover: This is a continuation of a project started off by one dude, then passed on to another, but he didn't wanna do it, so now I'm taking over. I made a few changes, fixed a couple bugs and updated the format to 2.0 specifications.

Download CamStudio Portable Development Test 3 English
1.4 MB Download, 4 MB Installed
MD5:

Release Notes
February 10, 2011: Removed all the launchers except CamStudioPortable.exe, as per John's comments. Removed unneeded icons from appinfo.
February 6, 2011: Took care of registry entries, speeded up launcher startup/closing time. Fixed appinfo.ini.
February 3, 2011: Initial Release

Enjoy!

depp.jones
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Good news to see this one

Good news to see this one reactivated!

I did some testing and found some minor issues (WinXP SP3 admin as usual):
1. Traces?
Regshot snippet:

...
HKU\S-1-5-21-1435418733-1019311667-1915037111-1005\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.avi\OpenWithList\a: "cut_assistant.exe"
HKU\S-1-5-21-1435418733-1019311667-1915037111-1005\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.avi\OpenWithList\a: "Producer.exe"
...

Don't know if these matter. Apart from some usual MRUs in HKLM it seems clean so far.

2. Menu entries?
CamStudio Portable consists of 4 icons but only the main one CamStudio Portable is functional. The other optional tools Movie Player, Movie Player Plus and Producer don't work here. As they are normally started by CamStudio itself I consider them redundant for the Platform - where icon space is precious today ;). One can hide them on the other hand.

3. Default Video folder?
Now it points to App\CamStudio. Maybe it better defaults to Documents\Videos?

Apart from that it works flawless. I'll try drive letter changing etc. later on.
Thanks, "you are awesome". Biggrin

Yours
dj

-edit-
Found bug no. 2. Typo in appinfo.ini... should be CamStudioMoviePlayerPortable.exe instead of MoviePlayerPortable.exe etc.
MoviePlayers and Producer(?) point to My Documents per default, should be Documents\Videos, too.

dagardner
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I don't know...

I don't have a warm fuzzy about pointing the default videos folder to Documents\Videos. I think it would be better\more standard to redirect it to the Data directory. The user can then redirect them to Documents\Videos, if they so desire.

I'm thinking of the possibility of a user running it from outside of the PA menu, where that folder wouldn't exist. Is it possible for the launcher to detect whether that folder exists before using it?

depp.jones
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Good point. Maybe it's time

Good point. Maybe it's time for some enlightment on this topic. It is not clearly defined in the PortableAppFormat and seems to be handled differently by several apps.

As I see it, the documents folders are for personal data and the data folders for everything that's connected to the specific app, but that's just as I interpret it. Maybe i'm mistaken. But that's another topic... I should start one. Wink

I checked some official apps and they seem to default for "My Documents" on the host pc.

3D1T0R
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Of-course ... but,

Of-course it's possible, but the question is "Is it feasible?", or "Does Pyromaniac want to spend time implementing it".
If you just want a simple solution, I guess pointing to the Data directory would probably be fine, but I kind of like the idea of having it use X:\Documents\Videos, excepting that some people use these Apps in nonstandard places and might not have one.

~3D1T0R

Pyromaniac
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yes

"Is it feasible?"

It is feasible

"Does Pyromaniac want to spend time implementing it"

I want to spend time to give the users what they want.

I'll probably implement a method where it will check to see if X:\Documents\Videos is available and default to that if it is, otherwise it will default to Data\Videos (to be created if needed).

I apologize for them other icons not working in PAM. The menu don't work right with my 10-year-old and so I have to trust the testers (thanks!).

3D1T0R
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Sw33t!

That'll be a nice thing to have. SmileSmile

~3D1T0R

Pyromaniac
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k

I'll take care of those entries in DT2.

John T. Haller
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Default

If you default it to X:\Documents\Videos and it doesn't exist, does CamStudio recover gracefully (example, prompt the user)? If so, just leave that as the default and we're good to go. If not, default it to root for now.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Pyromaniac
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Update

The registry entries have been handled, as well as the appinfo.ini.

3. Default Video folder?
Now it points to App\CamStudio. Maybe it better defaults to Documents\Videos?

Can't be done. It looks like CamStudio just uses the directory that CamStudio.exe is in to save files. But Firefox Portable does that to when you want to save downloads (it defaults to the FirefoxPortable directory) so I don' think this is really a problem.

Expect a new dev test release Sunday.

Pyromaniac
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Updated to dev test 2

see release notes for changes.

John T. Haller
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Instances

I was going to post this today but looking at the code, I think the launchers will step on each other when attempting to handle the registry entries. Example: CS proper launched and backs up registry. Then CS Producer launched and it backs up the backup.

I think a better option would be to just have the main CamStudio launcher and skip the player and player plus. Then have the Producer launched from the main CamStudio app (it's on the toolbar and in the menu). This would be a solid candidate for the PA.c Launcher in that case, actually, which would make maintenance a lot easier.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

OliverK
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if I remember what I was

if I remember what I was thinking when I was working on this, I had decided that some sort of a lock file was needed. I didn't know enough to finish it then, and I'm happy enough to let someone else handle this.

Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world

John T. Haller
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Launcher Handling

Ah, that makes sense. The current main launcher can handle waiting properly, I think, it's just a matter of ditching the other launchers. The player is unnecessary and can be left off. And the SWF producer is launchable right from within the main app. So one launcher is just fine.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

Pyromaniac
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k

I'll upload a new dev test asap.

Pyromaniac
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Updated to Dev Test 3

see release notes for changes

tech.freak243
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date mixup.

hey pyro you mixed up the date. its supposed to be February 10, 2011. the 11th is tomorrow. just thought i would point that out for you.

Pyromaniac
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ah

thanks

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