How to create animated GIF images of a screencast?












443















I've seen animated GIF images of screen casts (like the one below) promoted a few times on this site as a way to improve answers.



Animated GIF image



What toolchain is being used to create these? Is there a program that does this automagically, or are people taking screencasts, converting them into a series of static frames, and then creating the GIF images?










share|improve this question




















  • 6





    LICEcap (http://www.cockos.com/licecap) is much simpler than any of the solutions below, because it's GUI-based. It's free as in freedom and price. The only downside is that you have to run it via Wine.

    – Dennis
    Jun 17 '14 at 22:56








  • 4





    Related: GIF screencasting; the UNIX way from the Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.

    – Cristian Ciupitu
    Oct 20 '14 at 12:37











  • Related: How do I convert a video to GIF using ffmpeg, with reasonable quality? on SuperUser.

    – Wilf
    Oct 17 '15 at 17:35






  • 2





    Is this example screenshot taken on Windows?

    – Clément
    Jul 5 '16 at 5:43











  • @Clément That was the first thing I noticed, too :)

    – UniversallyUniqueID
    Jul 9 '16 at 12:43
















443















I've seen animated GIF images of screen casts (like the one below) promoted a few times on this site as a way to improve answers.



Animated GIF image



What toolchain is being used to create these? Is there a program that does this automagically, or are people taking screencasts, converting them into a series of static frames, and then creating the GIF images?










share|improve this question




















  • 6





    LICEcap (http://www.cockos.com/licecap) is much simpler than any of the solutions below, because it's GUI-based. It's free as in freedom and price. The only downside is that you have to run it via Wine.

    – Dennis
    Jun 17 '14 at 22:56








  • 4





    Related: GIF screencasting; the UNIX way from the Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.

    – Cristian Ciupitu
    Oct 20 '14 at 12:37











  • Related: How do I convert a video to GIF using ffmpeg, with reasonable quality? on SuperUser.

    – Wilf
    Oct 17 '15 at 17:35






  • 2





    Is this example screenshot taken on Windows?

    – Clément
    Jul 5 '16 at 5:43











  • @Clément That was the first thing I noticed, too :)

    – UniversallyUniqueID
    Jul 9 '16 at 12:43














443












443








443


304






I've seen animated GIF images of screen casts (like the one below) promoted a few times on this site as a way to improve answers.



Animated GIF image



What toolchain is being used to create these? Is there a program that does this automagically, or are people taking screencasts, converting them into a series of static frames, and then creating the GIF images?










share|improve this question
















I've seen animated GIF images of screen casts (like the one below) promoted a few times on this site as a way to improve answers.



Animated GIF image



What toolchain is being used to create these? Is there a program that does this automagically, or are people taking screencasts, converting them into a series of static frames, and then creating the GIF images?







screencast






share|improve this question















share|improve this question













share|improve this question




share|improve this question








edited Sep 3 '12 at 2:19







andrewsomething

















asked Feb 25 '12 at 19:19









andrewsomethingandrewsomething

27.3k1075134




27.3k1075134








  • 6





    LICEcap (http://www.cockos.com/licecap) is much simpler than any of the solutions below, because it's GUI-based. It's free as in freedom and price. The only downside is that you have to run it via Wine.

    – Dennis
    Jun 17 '14 at 22:56








  • 4





    Related: GIF screencasting; the UNIX way from the Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.

    – Cristian Ciupitu
    Oct 20 '14 at 12:37











  • Related: How do I convert a video to GIF using ffmpeg, with reasonable quality? on SuperUser.

    – Wilf
    Oct 17 '15 at 17:35






  • 2





    Is this example screenshot taken on Windows?

    – Clément
    Jul 5 '16 at 5:43











  • @Clément That was the first thing I noticed, too :)

    – UniversallyUniqueID
    Jul 9 '16 at 12:43














  • 6





    LICEcap (http://www.cockos.com/licecap) is much simpler than any of the solutions below, because it's GUI-based. It's free as in freedom and price. The only downside is that you have to run it via Wine.

    – Dennis
    Jun 17 '14 at 22:56








  • 4





    Related: GIF screencasting; the UNIX way from the Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.

    – Cristian Ciupitu
    Oct 20 '14 at 12:37











  • Related: How do I convert a video to GIF using ffmpeg, with reasonable quality? on SuperUser.

    – Wilf
    Oct 17 '15 at 17:35






  • 2





    Is this example screenshot taken on Windows?

    – Clément
    Jul 5 '16 at 5:43











  • @Clément That was the first thing I noticed, too :)

    – UniversallyUniqueID
    Jul 9 '16 at 12:43








6




6





LICEcap (http://www.cockos.com/licecap) is much simpler than any of the solutions below, because it's GUI-based. It's free as in freedom and price. The only downside is that you have to run it via Wine.

– Dennis
Jun 17 '14 at 22:56







LICEcap (http://www.cockos.com/licecap) is much simpler than any of the solutions below, because it's GUI-based. It's free as in freedom and price. The only downside is that you have to run it via Wine.

– Dennis
Jun 17 '14 at 22:56






4




4





Related: GIF screencasting; the UNIX way from the Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.

– Cristian Ciupitu
Oct 20 '14 at 12:37





Related: GIF screencasting; the UNIX way from the Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.

– Cristian Ciupitu
Oct 20 '14 at 12:37













Related: How do I convert a video to GIF using ffmpeg, with reasonable quality? on SuperUser.

– Wilf
Oct 17 '15 at 17:35





Related: How do I convert a video to GIF using ffmpeg, with reasonable quality? on SuperUser.

– Wilf
Oct 17 '15 at 17:35




2




2





Is this example screenshot taken on Windows?

– Clément
Jul 5 '16 at 5:43





Is this example screenshot taken on Windows?

– Clément
Jul 5 '16 at 5:43













@Clément That was the first thing I noticed, too :)

– UniversallyUniqueID
Jul 9 '16 at 12:43





@Clément That was the first thing I noticed, too :)

– UniversallyUniqueID
Jul 9 '16 at 12:43










15 Answers
15






active

oldest

votes


















215














Peek is a new application that lets you easily record GIF's from your screen.



peek screencast demo



Anyway, keep in mind that GIF's have a very limited color palette so it's not a very good idea to use them.



Since Ubuntu 18.10 you can install Peek directly.



sudo apt install peek


For older versions of Ubuntu, you can install the latest versions of Peek from its PPA.



sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peek-developers/stable
sudo apt update
sudo apt install peek


Find more information in the GitHub repo: https://github.com/phw/peek






share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    Yes this one is great. its only works with X11 and is targeted at GNOME 3.

    – Ajith R Nair
    Nov 7 '16 at 18:06






  • 2





    @BeastWinterwolf and ExillustX: don't post bug reports here, use the issue tracker where people actually care about seeing them! Report it here: github.com/phw/peek/issues

    – oligofren
    Nov 30 '17 at 17:41






  • 2





    This is a great tool.

    – Mike
    May 25 '18 at 17:09






  • 1





    @Jop V. how did you do a record of a record?

    – milkovsky
    Jul 3 '18 at 18:36






  • 1





    @milkovsky I didn't record this. That having been said, I think they used a virtual machine and recorded that.

    – stomstack
    Jul 3 '18 at 19:40



















262














Best software I ever found to record GIF screencasts is Byzanz.



Byzanz is great because it records directly to GIF, the quality and FPS is impressive while maintaining the size of the files to a minimal.



Installation



Byzanz is now available from the universe repository:



sudo apt-get install byzanz


Usage



When it is installed you can run it in a terminal.



This is a small example I did just now with



byzanz-record --duration=15 --x=200 --y=300 --width=700 --height=400 out.gif


enter image description here






share|improve this answer





















  • 3





    Thanks, nice tool! The colours are not always accurate, but that's a minor detail. I've written a shell script which helps with capturing a window (selected on runtime by the user), posted in an answer below.

    – Rob W
    Oct 14 '12 at 15:46






  • 54





    Byzanz doesn't have any UI! Am I supposed to guess the x, y, width and height of the area I want to record? It's a little ridiculous that in 2014 I'd still have to do this.

    – Dan Dascalescu
    Nov 3 '14 at 23:35






  • 3





    @DanDascalescu No one says you need to use it... I much prefer a terminal than a GUI, what is wrong with that?

    – Bruno Pereira
    Nov 4 '14 at 8:39








  • 29





    @DanDascalescu There's no need to guess. You can use xwininfo to get the window properties.

    – Marcus Møller
    Jan 21 '15 at 12:53






  • 3





    Any way to avoid having to know the duration in advance? When recording I never know in advance how much time it will take.

    – Nicolas Raoul
    Jun 9 '16 at 5:30



















235














First install this:



sudo apt-get install imagemagick mplayer gtk-recordmydesktop


those are the required stuff, ImageMagick, MPlayer and Desktop Recorder.
Then use Desktop Recorder to capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast. After the Desktop Recorder has saved the recording into an OGV video, MPlayer will be used to capture JPEG screenshots, saving them into the 'output' directory.



On a terminal:



mplayer -ao null <video file name> -vo jpeg:outdir=output


Use ImageMagick to convert the screenshots into an animated gifs.



convert output/* output.gif


you can optimize the screenshots this way:



convert output.gif -fuzz 10% -layers Optimize optimised.gif





share|improve this answer



















  • 35





    another way to optimize gif is to use gifsicle: gifsicle -O in.gif -o out.gif I just tried and got 100x reduction in file size.

    – Yrogirg
    Mar 29 '13 at 17:37






  • 9





    For those wondering, the first flag in @Yrogirg command is a capital "O", not the digit "0" :)

    – brandizzi
    Jan 8 '14 at 19:51






  • 2





    Wow, gifsicle just made mine faster but no smaller, and the convert optimize command made it reaaaaally ugly.

    – MalcolmOcean
    May 25 '15 at 13:02






  • 6





    I recommend combining the last two convert steps into one: convert output/* -layers Optimize output.gif. For me, this sped up processing time as well as made the output file smaller. I don't see any reason to do those steps separately. (I didn't try the -fuzz 10% argument.)

    – thejoshwolfe
    Jul 13 '15 at 18:31






  • 1





    Like @MalcolmOcean, the convert statement made it beyond hideous. According to the docs ( imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#layers ), the optimize implementation can change over time. But a slightly tweaked convert statement with the -coalesce flag improved things, but still not to where it was acceptable. I ended up having to use the -layers optimize-transparency setting for best results: convert 'output/*.jpg' -coalesce -layers optimize-transparency optimised.gif

    – user486425
    Sep 27 '16 at 23:47



















136














Overview



This answer contains three shell scripts:





  1. byzanz-record-window - To select a window for recording.


  2. byzanz-record-region - To select a part of the screen for recording.

  3. A simple GUI front-end for 1, by MHC.


Introduction



Thanks Bruno Pereira for introducing me to byzanz! It's quite useful for creating GIF animations. The colours may be off in some cases, but the file size makes up for it. Example: 40 seconds, 3.7Mb.



Usage



Save one/all of the following two scripts in a folder within your $PATH. Here's an example on using the first script to make a screencast of a specific window.




  1. Run byzanz-record-window 30 -c output.gif

  2. Go to the window (alt-tab) you want to capture. Click on it.

  3. Wait 10 seconds (hard-coded in $DELAY), in which you prepare for recording.

  4. After the beep (defined in the beep function), byzanz will start.

  5. After 30 seconds (that's the meaning of 30 in step 1), byzanz ends. A beep will be broadcast again.


I included the -c flag in byzanz-record-window to illustrate that any arguments to my shell script are appended to byzanz-record itself. The -c flag tells byzanz to also include the cursor in the screencast.

See man byzanz-record or byzanz-record --help for more details.



byzanz-record-window



#!/bin/bash

# Delay before starting
DELAY=10

# Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
beep() {
paplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Irc-Event.ogg &
}

# Duration and output file
if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
D="--duration=$@"
else
echo Default recording duration 10s to /tmp/recorded.gif
D="--duration=10 /tmp/recorded.gif"
fi
XWININFO=$(xwininfo)
read X <<< $(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left X/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
read Y <<< $(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left Y/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
read W <<< $(awk -F: '/Width/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
read H <<< $(awk -F: '/Height/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")

echo Delaying $DELAY seconds. After that, byzanz will start
for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
echo $i
sleep 1
done

beep
byzanz-record --verbose --delay=0 --x=$X --y=$Y --width=$W --height=$H $D
beep


byzanz-record-region



Dependency: xrectsel from xrectsel. Clone the repository and run make to get the executable. (If it protests there is no makefile, run ./bootstrap and the ./configure before running `make).



#!/bin/bash

# Delay before starting
DELAY=10

# Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
beep() {
paplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Irc-Event.ogg &
}

# Duration and output file
if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
D="--duration=$@"
else
echo Default recording duration 10s to /tmp/recorded.gif
D="--duration=10 /tmp/recorded.gif"
fi

# xrectsel from https://github.com/lolilolicon/xrectsel
ARGUMENTS=$(xrectsel "--x=%x --y=%y --width=%w --height=%h") || exit -1

echo Delaying $DELAY seconds. After that, byzanz will start
for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
echo $i
sleep 1
done
beep
byzanz-record --verbose --delay=0 ${ARGUMENTS} $D
beep


Gui version of byzanz-record-window



(comment by MHC): I've taken the liberty to modify the script with a simple GUI dialogue



#!/bin/bash

# AUTHOR: (c) Rob W 2012, modified by MHC (https://askubuntu.com/users/81372/mhc)
# NAME: GIFRecord 0.1
# DESCRIPTION: A script to record GIF screencasts.
# LICENSE: GNU GPL v3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)
# DEPENDENCIES: byzanz,gdialog,notify-send (install via sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/byzanz; sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install byzanz gdialog notify-osd)

# Time and date
TIME=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S")

# Delay before starting
DELAY=10

# Standard screencast folder
FOLDER="$HOME/Pictures"

# Default recording duration
DEFDUR=10

# Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
beep() {
paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message-new-instant.oga &
}

# Custom recording duration as set by user
USERDUR=$(gdialog --title "Duration?" --inputbox "Please enter the screencast duration in seconds" 200 100 2>&1)

# Duration and output file
if [ $USERDUR -gt 0 ]; then
D=$USERDUR
else
D=$DEFDUR
fi

# Window geometry
XWININFO=$(xwininfo)
read X < <(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left X/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
read Y < <(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left Y/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
read W < <(awk -F: '/Width/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
read H < <(awk -F: '/Height/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")

# Notify the user of recording time and delay
notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Recording duration set to $D seconds. Recording will start in $DELAY seconds."

#Actual recording
sleep $DELAY
beep
byzanz-record -c --verbose --delay=0 --duration=$D --x=$X --y=$Y --width=$W --height=$H "$FOLDER/GIFrecord_$TIME.gif"
beep

# Notify the user of end of recording.
notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Screencast saved to $FOLDER/GIFrecord_$TIME.gif"





share|improve this answer





















  • 17





    Are these scripts kept someplace like github? They're super useful, it'd be nice if they were kept someplace better than text in StackOverflow answer.

    – KFro
    Jul 3 '14 at 22:30






  • 1





    @KFro This is Ask Ubuntu, not SO ;) No, I haven't put them in a git repository, because the scripts themselves are badly documented (for users). The accompanying documentation is included with the answer, so I see no benefit of splitting up the files and documentation in a Git repository.

    – Rob W
    Jul 4 '14 at 7:43






  • 1





    No more credits for editing, but done ;-).

    – Rmano
    Nov 4 '14 at 16:15








  • 2





    Just wanted to say a huge thanks for this - awesome answer and helped me out a lot. Here's what I ended up with. I like to use notify-send as well in case my sound is off.

    – Daniel Buckmaster
    Sep 10 '15 at 2:20








  • 2





    @Masi Byzanz - and these scripts - work just fine for me in 16.04

    – Jeff Puckett
    Aug 12 '16 at 16:23



















51














ffmpeg Install ffmpeg



One of the best tools I use is ffmpeg. It can take most video from a screencast tool such as kazam and convert it to another format.



Install this from software-center - it is automatically installed if you install the excellent ubuntu-restricted-extras package.



Kazam can output in the video formats mp4 or webm. Generally you get better results outputting in mp4 format.



example GIF making syntax



The basic syntax to convert video to gif is:



ffmpeg -i [inputvideo_filename] -pix_fmt rgb24 [output.gif]


GIFs converted - especially those with a standard 25/29 frame-per-second can be very large. For example - a 800Kb webm 15-second video at 25fps can output to 435Mb!



You can reduce this by a number of methods:



framerate



Use the option -r [frame-per-second]



for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -r 1 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



Size reduced from 435Mb to 19Mb



file-size limit



Use the option -fs [filesize]



for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -fs 5000k -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



Note - this is an approximate output file size so the size can be slightly bigger than specified.



size of output video



Use the option -s [widthxheight]



for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -s 320x200 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



This reduced the example 1366x768 video size down to 26Mb



loop forever



Sometimes you might want the GIF to loop forever.



Use the option -loop_output 0



ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -loop_output 0 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



further optimise and shrink



if you use imagemagick convert with a fuzz factor between 3% and 10% then you can dramatically reduce the image size



convert output.gif -fuzz 3% -layers Optimize finalgif.gif


finally



combine some of these options to reduce to something manageable for Ask Ubuntu.



ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -loop_output 0 -r 5 -s 320x200 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



followed by



convert output.gif -fuzz 8% -layers Optimize finalgif.gif





example



enter image description here







share|improve this answer


























  • If you have Docker and your video is demo.mkv you can run this commands: docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/tmp/video/ jrottenberg/ffmpeg -i /tmp/video/demo.mkv -framerate 1/2 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 /tmp/video/demo.gif, sudo chown $USER:$USER demo.gif

    – czerasz
    Dec 13 '15 at 0:35








  • 2





    To me it complains that there is no such option as -loop_output...

    – user364819
    Mar 14 '16 at 16:52






  • 1





    +1 Best answer. But one q do you still think ubuntu-restricted-extras is excellent ??

    – Severus Tux
    May 22 '16 at 14:48






  • 1





    @ParanoidPanda now the option is -loop. So it would be -loop 0. Here is a working command in Ubuntu 16.04.01 ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s 100x100 -i :0.0+500,500 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 out2.gif. +500,500 is the X,Y position to start the 100x100 rectangle. xgrab takes the screen as input.

    – sanbor
    Aug 11 '16 at 15:23



















34














Silentcast



Silentcast is another great gui based tool for creating animated .gif images. Its features include:





  • 4 recording modes:




    1. Entire screen


    2. Inside window


    3. Window with decoration


    4. Custom selection





  • 3 output formats:




    1. .gif


    2. .mp4


    3. .webm


    4. .png (frames)


    5. .mkv




  • No installation necessary (portable)


  • Custom working directory


  • Custom fps



Installation



If you want a regular installation and are running a supported version of Ubuntu you can install Silentcast by PPA:



sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sethj/silentcast  
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install silentcast


If you aren't running a supported version of Ubuntu (you should really upgrade!) you will need to download the latest version from the GitHub page and manually satisfy the dependencies (you can procure yad and ffmpeg from here and here respectively) or, if you are running a slightly more recent version such as 13.10 you could try downloading the .deb directly.



If you're using Gnome you might want to install the Topicons extension to make stopping Silentcast easier.



Usage



Start Silentcast from your desktop environment's gui or run the silentcast command in a terminal. Pick your settings and follow the on-screen prompts. When you're done recording you will be presented with a dialog for optimizing the final output by removing a certain number of frames.



For more in depth usage guidelines take a look at the README, either the online GitHub version or the local version stored in /usr/share/doc/silentcast with zless or your favourite editor.



Example



Notes:



Silentcast is still in the development stage and although it is quite stable you might encounter some bugs. If you do please report them on the project's GitHub issues tracker. If you have trouble installing from the PPA and are running a supported version of Ubuntu leave a comment below or contact the maintainer (me) on Launchpad.






share|improve this answer
























  • as soon as I hit 'Stop' it crashes...

    – Francisco Corrales Morales
    Nov 18 '14 at 2:35











  • @FranciscoCorralesMorales Can you run it from the command-line and then try? Once it crashes take the output and upload it to paste.ubuntu.com and link it back here so I can take a look. Thanks!

    – Seth
    Nov 18 '14 at 2:35













  • used this and it worked wonderfully. thanks!

    – JimB
    Apr 27 '16 at 10:46






  • 1





    I can confirm this works great! It creates a very small (650 KB) .gif file with great resolution outside of open windows as displayed in this answer: askubuntu.com/questions/882419/… I might add the poster @Seth is a great guy and helped me in AU general chat room set it up :)

    – WinEunuuchs2Unix
    Feb 11 '17 at 23:58



















8














There are all sorts of complicated and well-working (presumably) ways to do this listed here. However, I've never wanted to go through that process before nor since. So, I simply use an online converter which suits my needs the few times I need to do so. I've used this site:



http://ezgif.com/video-to-gif



It's not my site and I'm not affiliated with them in any way. They're just the one in my bookmarks and there are many more.






share|improve this answer
























  • I like this. I already use simplescreenrecorder to record my desktop for youtube on occassion, so turning the mkv into a gif was easy with this.

    – isaaclw
    Jul 7 '17 at 16:16



















8














I created record-gif.sh, an improved version of Rob W's byzanz-record-region:




A lame GUI for byzanz, improved the user experience (mouse-selectable area, record progress bar, replay-able recording).




record desktop with shell




  • set recording duration ;

  • set save_as destination ;


  • select –with the mouse– the area to record ;


  • create a script to replay recording (cf. $HOME/record.again).


Install



I also created an installation script



curl --location https://git.io/record-gif.sh | bash -





share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    You need to do sudo apt install autoconf byzanz before runing this script. it's not installed by default in ubuntu

    – Crantisz
    Oct 17 '16 at 7:50













  • @Crantisz thanks, I updated the install script to install autoconf and byzanz. Could you try it?

    – Édouard Lopez
    Oct 17 '16 at 8:33











  • I just tested it on other PC. There isn't git on my fresh-installed ubuntu system. And I don't know why, but the script stops just after second apt-get Y/N question. Can you pack all dependencies in one command?

    – Crantisz
    Oct 21 '16 at 21:17













  • @Crantisz the command is an installer script, if you just want record-gif.sh you can get it from the repo

    – Édouard Lopez
    Oct 24 '16 at 7:09



















4















  1. Install these 3 packages: imagemagick mplayer gtk-recordmydesktop

  2. Run Desktop Recorder to capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast

  3. Download ogv2gif.sh from https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/ogv2gif

  4. Run: ./ogv2gif.sh yourscreencast.ogv

  5. The GIF file will be put in the same directory


100% inspired from maniat1k's answer.






share|improve this answer

































    3














    If you want to get even fancier, you can use a more sophisticated method than animated gifs using HTMl5 canvas screencasting. The x11-canvas-screencast project will create an html5 canvas animated screen capture.



    You may have seen some famous examples of this tech on the Sublime Text website. x11-canvas-screencast takes this method a step further by incorporating tracking of the mouse cursor. Here's a demo of what x11-canvas-screencast produces



    The result is better than an animated gif since it's not limited to the number of colors it has and it takes less bandwidth.






    share|improve this answer



















    • 1





      That is nice and all but you cannot easily share this, e.g. Slack, Twitter etc.

      – Elijah Lynn
      Aug 11 '16 at 13:23











    • @ElijahLynn very true. This solution is optimized for high frame rate, low bandwidth, full color depth. It's not portable (to embedding in a tweet for example) as it requires javascript.

      – gene_wood
      Aug 11 '16 at 17:15



















    3














    Ok, so in order to also capture mouse clicks, the only thing I found was key-mon (via the README of screenkey):





    • https://code.google.com/archive/p/key-mon https://github.com/critiqjo/key-mon

    • sudo apt-get install key-mon


    Then I:




    • Start key-mon

    • Use xrectsel to get the screen coordinates put into a byzanz command

    • Run the byzanz command


    ... and it looks sort of like this:



    out.gif



    Note that key-mon --visible_click would draw a circle around the mouse pointer upon mouse click - which I would prefer, but in Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS this is somewhat broken, as this circle does not appear and disappear fast enough in order to correctly illustrate the clicks (i.e. mouse presses and releases).






    share|improve this answer

































      2














      I recently created combined version of scripts already posted here.

      Basically, it allows you to record screen region, but with simple GUI.



      Thanks for Rob W for providing those cool scripts



      Here's the code (or gist if you like):



      #!/bin/bash

      #Records selected screen region, with GUI

      #This is combined version of GIF recording scripts, that can be found here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/107726/how-to-create-animated-gif-images-of-a-screencast
      #Thanks to Rob W, and the other author (unmentioned), for creating this lovely scripts

      #I do not own any rights to code I didn't write
      # ~Jacajack

      DELAY=5 #Delay before starting
      DEFDUR=10 #Default recording duration
      TIME=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S") #Timestamp
      FOLDER="$HOME/Pictures/Byzanz" #Default output directory

      #Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
      beep() {
      paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message-new-instant.oga &
      }

      #Custom recording duration as set by user
      USERDUR=$(gdialog --title "Duration?" --inputbox "Please enter the screencast duration in seconds" 200 100 2>&1)

      #Duration and output file
      if [ $USERDUR -gt 0 ]; then
      D=$USERDUR
      else
      D=$DEFDUR
      fi

      #Get coordinates using xrectsel from https://github.com/lolilolicon/xrectsel
      REGION=$(xrectsel "--x=%x --y=%y --width=%w --height=%h") || exit -1

      notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Recording duration set to $D seconds. Recording will start in $DELAY seconds."

      for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
      sleep 1
      done

      #Record
      beep
      byzanz-record --cursor --verbose --delay=0 ${REGION} --duration=$D "$FOLDER/byzanz-record-region-$TIME.gif"
      beep

      notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Screencast saved to $FOLDER/byzanz-record-region-$TIME.gif"





      share|improve this answer

































        2














        If you also want visible recordings of mouse clicks or key strokes, then screenkey is your best bet: https://github.com/wavexx/screenkey






        share|improve this answer



















        • 2





          I don't see how screenkey would handle mouse clicks (it seems to be for keyboard indication only), however, its README refers to key-mon which can do that, see my answer below.

          – sdaau
          Aug 24 '16 at 4:36



















        1














        Use gtk-recordmydesktop and ffmpeg :



        apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop ffmpeg



        Run RecordMyDesktop capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast :



        gtk-recordmydesktop


        Create ogv2gif.sh with following content :



        INPUT_FILE=$1
        FPS=15
        WIDTH=320
        TEMP_FILE_PATH="~/tmp.png"
        ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -vf fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos,palettegen $TEMP_FILE_PATH
        ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -i $TEMP_FILE_PATH -loop 0 -filter_complex "fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos[x];[x][1:v]paletteuse" $INPUT_FILE.gif
        rm $TEMP_FILE_PATH


        Use it :



        ./ogv2gif.sh yourscreencast.ogv


        References :




        • https://gist.github.com/fedir/56aeddde59571402a0d94f78eb6c7a5c

        • https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/35282/convert-ogv-video-to-gif-animation






        share|improve this answer

































          1














          I test all above method, found the most simple one is:




          1. use gtk-recordmydesktop and key-mon to get a ogv


          2. ffmpeg -i xx.ogv xx.gif <-- without any parameter.


          the fps is original, and the gif size is less than ogv file.






          share|improve this answer






















            protected by Community Aug 1 '13 at 9:23



            Thank you for your interest in this question.
            Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).



            Would you like to answer one of these unanswered questions instead?














            15 Answers
            15






            active

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            15 Answers
            15






            active

            oldest

            votes









            active

            oldest

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            active

            oldest

            votes









            215














            Peek is a new application that lets you easily record GIF's from your screen.



            peek screencast demo



            Anyway, keep in mind that GIF's have a very limited color palette so it's not a very good idea to use them.



            Since Ubuntu 18.10 you can install Peek directly.



            sudo apt install peek


            For older versions of Ubuntu, you can install the latest versions of Peek from its PPA.



            sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peek-developers/stable
            sudo apt update
            sudo apt install peek


            Find more information in the GitHub repo: https://github.com/phw/peek






            share|improve this answer





















            • 1





              Yes this one is great. its only works with X11 and is targeted at GNOME 3.

              – Ajith R Nair
              Nov 7 '16 at 18:06






            • 2





              @BeastWinterwolf and ExillustX: don't post bug reports here, use the issue tracker where people actually care about seeing them! Report it here: github.com/phw/peek/issues

              – oligofren
              Nov 30 '17 at 17:41






            • 2





              This is a great tool.

              – Mike
              May 25 '18 at 17:09






            • 1





              @Jop V. how did you do a record of a record?

              – milkovsky
              Jul 3 '18 at 18:36






            • 1





              @milkovsky I didn't record this. That having been said, I think they used a virtual machine and recorded that.

              – stomstack
              Jul 3 '18 at 19:40
















            215














            Peek is a new application that lets you easily record GIF's from your screen.



            peek screencast demo



            Anyway, keep in mind that GIF's have a very limited color palette so it's not a very good idea to use them.



            Since Ubuntu 18.10 you can install Peek directly.



            sudo apt install peek


            For older versions of Ubuntu, you can install the latest versions of Peek from its PPA.



            sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peek-developers/stable
            sudo apt update
            sudo apt install peek


            Find more information in the GitHub repo: https://github.com/phw/peek






            share|improve this answer





















            • 1





              Yes this one is great. its only works with X11 and is targeted at GNOME 3.

              – Ajith R Nair
              Nov 7 '16 at 18:06






            • 2





              @BeastWinterwolf and ExillustX: don't post bug reports here, use the issue tracker where people actually care about seeing them! Report it here: github.com/phw/peek/issues

              – oligofren
              Nov 30 '17 at 17:41






            • 2





              This is a great tool.

              – Mike
              May 25 '18 at 17:09






            • 1





              @Jop V. how did you do a record of a record?

              – milkovsky
              Jul 3 '18 at 18:36






            • 1





              @milkovsky I didn't record this. That having been said, I think they used a virtual machine and recorded that.

              – stomstack
              Jul 3 '18 at 19:40














            215












            215








            215







            Peek is a new application that lets you easily record GIF's from your screen.



            peek screencast demo



            Anyway, keep in mind that GIF's have a very limited color palette so it's not a very good idea to use them.



            Since Ubuntu 18.10 you can install Peek directly.



            sudo apt install peek


            For older versions of Ubuntu, you can install the latest versions of Peek from its PPA.



            sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peek-developers/stable
            sudo apt update
            sudo apt install peek


            Find more information in the GitHub repo: https://github.com/phw/peek






            share|improve this answer















            Peek is a new application that lets you easily record GIF's from your screen.



            peek screencast demo



            Anyway, keep in mind that GIF's have a very limited color palette so it's not a very good idea to use them.



            Since Ubuntu 18.10 you can install Peek directly.



            sudo apt install peek


            For older versions of Ubuntu, you can install the latest versions of Peek from its PPA.



            sudo add-apt-repository ppa:peek-developers/stable
            sudo apt update
            sudo apt install peek


            Find more information in the GitHub repo: https://github.com/phw/peek







            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Jan 21 at 19:43









            Sk1d

            32




            32










            answered Oct 6 '16 at 21:36









            stomstackstomstack

            2,75221032




            2,75221032








            • 1





              Yes this one is great. its only works with X11 and is targeted at GNOME 3.

              – Ajith R Nair
              Nov 7 '16 at 18:06






            • 2





              @BeastWinterwolf and ExillustX: don't post bug reports here, use the issue tracker where people actually care about seeing them! Report it here: github.com/phw/peek/issues

              – oligofren
              Nov 30 '17 at 17:41






            • 2





              This is a great tool.

              – Mike
              May 25 '18 at 17:09






            • 1





              @Jop V. how did you do a record of a record?

              – milkovsky
              Jul 3 '18 at 18:36






            • 1





              @milkovsky I didn't record this. That having been said, I think they used a virtual machine and recorded that.

              – stomstack
              Jul 3 '18 at 19:40














            • 1





              Yes this one is great. its only works with X11 and is targeted at GNOME 3.

              – Ajith R Nair
              Nov 7 '16 at 18:06






            • 2





              @BeastWinterwolf and ExillustX: don't post bug reports here, use the issue tracker where people actually care about seeing them! Report it here: github.com/phw/peek/issues

              – oligofren
              Nov 30 '17 at 17:41






            • 2





              This is a great tool.

              – Mike
              May 25 '18 at 17:09






            • 1





              @Jop V. how did you do a record of a record?

              – milkovsky
              Jul 3 '18 at 18:36






            • 1





              @milkovsky I didn't record this. That having been said, I think they used a virtual machine and recorded that.

              – stomstack
              Jul 3 '18 at 19:40








            1




            1





            Yes this one is great. its only works with X11 and is targeted at GNOME 3.

            – Ajith R Nair
            Nov 7 '16 at 18:06





            Yes this one is great. its only works with X11 and is targeted at GNOME 3.

            – Ajith R Nair
            Nov 7 '16 at 18:06




            2




            2





            @BeastWinterwolf and ExillustX: don't post bug reports here, use the issue tracker where people actually care about seeing them! Report it here: github.com/phw/peek/issues

            – oligofren
            Nov 30 '17 at 17:41





            @BeastWinterwolf and ExillustX: don't post bug reports here, use the issue tracker where people actually care about seeing them! Report it here: github.com/phw/peek/issues

            – oligofren
            Nov 30 '17 at 17:41




            2




            2





            This is a great tool.

            – Mike
            May 25 '18 at 17:09





            This is a great tool.

            – Mike
            May 25 '18 at 17:09




            1




            1





            @Jop V. how did you do a record of a record?

            – milkovsky
            Jul 3 '18 at 18:36





            @Jop V. how did you do a record of a record?

            – milkovsky
            Jul 3 '18 at 18:36




            1




            1





            @milkovsky I didn't record this. That having been said, I think they used a virtual machine and recorded that.

            – stomstack
            Jul 3 '18 at 19:40





            @milkovsky I didn't record this. That having been said, I think they used a virtual machine and recorded that.

            – stomstack
            Jul 3 '18 at 19:40













            262














            Best software I ever found to record GIF screencasts is Byzanz.



            Byzanz is great because it records directly to GIF, the quality and FPS is impressive while maintaining the size of the files to a minimal.



            Installation



            Byzanz is now available from the universe repository:



            sudo apt-get install byzanz


            Usage



            When it is installed you can run it in a terminal.



            This is a small example I did just now with



            byzanz-record --duration=15 --x=200 --y=300 --width=700 --height=400 out.gif


            enter image description here






            share|improve this answer





















            • 3





              Thanks, nice tool! The colours are not always accurate, but that's a minor detail. I've written a shell script which helps with capturing a window (selected on runtime by the user), posted in an answer below.

              – Rob W
              Oct 14 '12 at 15:46






            • 54





              Byzanz doesn't have any UI! Am I supposed to guess the x, y, width and height of the area I want to record? It's a little ridiculous that in 2014 I'd still have to do this.

              – Dan Dascalescu
              Nov 3 '14 at 23:35






            • 3





              @DanDascalescu No one says you need to use it... I much prefer a terminal than a GUI, what is wrong with that?

              – Bruno Pereira
              Nov 4 '14 at 8:39








            • 29





              @DanDascalescu There's no need to guess. You can use xwininfo to get the window properties.

              – Marcus Møller
              Jan 21 '15 at 12:53






            • 3





              Any way to avoid having to know the duration in advance? When recording I never know in advance how much time it will take.

              – Nicolas Raoul
              Jun 9 '16 at 5:30
















            262














            Best software I ever found to record GIF screencasts is Byzanz.



            Byzanz is great because it records directly to GIF, the quality and FPS is impressive while maintaining the size of the files to a minimal.



            Installation



            Byzanz is now available from the universe repository:



            sudo apt-get install byzanz


            Usage



            When it is installed you can run it in a terminal.



            This is a small example I did just now with



            byzanz-record --duration=15 --x=200 --y=300 --width=700 --height=400 out.gif


            enter image description here






            share|improve this answer





















            • 3





              Thanks, nice tool! The colours are not always accurate, but that's a minor detail. I've written a shell script which helps with capturing a window (selected on runtime by the user), posted in an answer below.

              – Rob W
              Oct 14 '12 at 15:46






            • 54





              Byzanz doesn't have any UI! Am I supposed to guess the x, y, width and height of the area I want to record? It's a little ridiculous that in 2014 I'd still have to do this.

              – Dan Dascalescu
              Nov 3 '14 at 23:35






            • 3





              @DanDascalescu No one says you need to use it... I much prefer a terminal than a GUI, what is wrong with that?

              – Bruno Pereira
              Nov 4 '14 at 8:39








            • 29





              @DanDascalescu There's no need to guess. You can use xwininfo to get the window properties.

              – Marcus Møller
              Jan 21 '15 at 12:53






            • 3





              Any way to avoid having to know the duration in advance? When recording I never know in advance how much time it will take.

              – Nicolas Raoul
              Jun 9 '16 at 5:30














            262












            262








            262







            Best software I ever found to record GIF screencasts is Byzanz.



            Byzanz is great because it records directly to GIF, the quality and FPS is impressive while maintaining the size of the files to a minimal.



            Installation



            Byzanz is now available from the universe repository:



            sudo apt-get install byzanz


            Usage



            When it is installed you can run it in a terminal.



            This is a small example I did just now with



            byzanz-record --duration=15 --x=200 --y=300 --width=700 --height=400 out.gif


            enter image description here






            share|improve this answer















            Best software I ever found to record GIF screencasts is Byzanz.



            Byzanz is great because it records directly to GIF, the quality and FPS is impressive while maintaining the size of the files to a minimal.



            Installation



            Byzanz is now available from the universe repository:



            sudo apt-get install byzanz


            Usage



            When it is installed you can run it in a terminal.



            This is a small example I did just now with



            byzanz-record --duration=15 --x=200 --y=300 --width=700 --height=400 out.gif


            enter image description here







            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Jun 13 '17 at 23:44









            QwertyChouskie

            1,771924




            1,771924










            answered Apr 19 '12 at 19:47









            Bruno PereiraBruno Pereira

            59.9k26179207




            59.9k26179207








            • 3





              Thanks, nice tool! The colours are not always accurate, but that's a minor detail. I've written a shell script which helps with capturing a window (selected on runtime by the user), posted in an answer below.

              – Rob W
              Oct 14 '12 at 15:46






            • 54





              Byzanz doesn't have any UI! Am I supposed to guess the x, y, width and height of the area I want to record? It's a little ridiculous that in 2014 I'd still have to do this.

              – Dan Dascalescu
              Nov 3 '14 at 23:35






            • 3





              @DanDascalescu No one says you need to use it... I much prefer a terminal than a GUI, what is wrong with that?

              – Bruno Pereira
              Nov 4 '14 at 8:39








            • 29





              @DanDascalescu There's no need to guess. You can use xwininfo to get the window properties.

              – Marcus Møller
              Jan 21 '15 at 12:53






            • 3





              Any way to avoid having to know the duration in advance? When recording I never know in advance how much time it will take.

              – Nicolas Raoul
              Jun 9 '16 at 5:30














            • 3





              Thanks, nice tool! The colours are not always accurate, but that's a minor detail. I've written a shell script which helps with capturing a window (selected on runtime by the user), posted in an answer below.

              – Rob W
              Oct 14 '12 at 15:46






            • 54





              Byzanz doesn't have any UI! Am I supposed to guess the x, y, width and height of the area I want to record? It's a little ridiculous that in 2014 I'd still have to do this.

              – Dan Dascalescu
              Nov 3 '14 at 23:35






            • 3





              @DanDascalescu No one says you need to use it... I much prefer a terminal than a GUI, what is wrong with that?

              – Bruno Pereira
              Nov 4 '14 at 8:39








            • 29





              @DanDascalescu There's no need to guess. You can use xwininfo to get the window properties.

              – Marcus Møller
              Jan 21 '15 at 12:53






            • 3





              Any way to avoid having to know the duration in advance? When recording I never know in advance how much time it will take.

              – Nicolas Raoul
              Jun 9 '16 at 5:30








            3




            3





            Thanks, nice tool! The colours are not always accurate, but that's a minor detail. I've written a shell script which helps with capturing a window (selected on runtime by the user), posted in an answer below.

            – Rob W
            Oct 14 '12 at 15:46





            Thanks, nice tool! The colours are not always accurate, but that's a minor detail. I've written a shell script which helps with capturing a window (selected on runtime by the user), posted in an answer below.

            – Rob W
            Oct 14 '12 at 15:46




            54




            54





            Byzanz doesn't have any UI! Am I supposed to guess the x, y, width and height of the area I want to record? It's a little ridiculous that in 2014 I'd still have to do this.

            – Dan Dascalescu
            Nov 3 '14 at 23:35





            Byzanz doesn't have any UI! Am I supposed to guess the x, y, width and height of the area I want to record? It's a little ridiculous that in 2014 I'd still have to do this.

            – Dan Dascalescu
            Nov 3 '14 at 23:35




            3




            3





            @DanDascalescu No one says you need to use it... I much prefer a terminal than a GUI, what is wrong with that?

            – Bruno Pereira
            Nov 4 '14 at 8:39







            @DanDascalescu No one says you need to use it... I much prefer a terminal than a GUI, what is wrong with that?

            – Bruno Pereira
            Nov 4 '14 at 8:39






            29




            29





            @DanDascalescu There's no need to guess. You can use xwininfo to get the window properties.

            – Marcus Møller
            Jan 21 '15 at 12:53





            @DanDascalescu There's no need to guess. You can use xwininfo to get the window properties.

            – Marcus Møller
            Jan 21 '15 at 12:53




            3




            3





            Any way to avoid having to know the duration in advance? When recording I never know in advance how much time it will take.

            – Nicolas Raoul
            Jun 9 '16 at 5:30





            Any way to avoid having to know the duration in advance? When recording I never know in advance how much time it will take.

            – Nicolas Raoul
            Jun 9 '16 at 5:30











            235














            First install this:



            sudo apt-get install imagemagick mplayer gtk-recordmydesktop


            those are the required stuff, ImageMagick, MPlayer and Desktop Recorder.
            Then use Desktop Recorder to capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast. After the Desktop Recorder has saved the recording into an OGV video, MPlayer will be used to capture JPEG screenshots, saving them into the 'output' directory.



            On a terminal:



            mplayer -ao null <video file name> -vo jpeg:outdir=output


            Use ImageMagick to convert the screenshots into an animated gifs.



            convert output/* output.gif


            you can optimize the screenshots this way:



            convert output.gif -fuzz 10% -layers Optimize optimised.gif





            share|improve this answer



















            • 35





              another way to optimize gif is to use gifsicle: gifsicle -O in.gif -o out.gif I just tried and got 100x reduction in file size.

              – Yrogirg
              Mar 29 '13 at 17:37






            • 9





              For those wondering, the first flag in @Yrogirg command is a capital "O", not the digit "0" :)

              – brandizzi
              Jan 8 '14 at 19:51






            • 2





              Wow, gifsicle just made mine faster but no smaller, and the convert optimize command made it reaaaaally ugly.

              – MalcolmOcean
              May 25 '15 at 13:02






            • 6





              I recommend combining the last two convert steps into one: convert output/* -layers Optimize output.gif. For me, this sped up processing time as well as made the output file smaller. I don't see any reason to do those steps separately. (I didn't try the -fuzz 10% argument.)

              – thejoshwolfe
              Jul 13 '15 at 18:31






            • 1





              Like @MalcolmOcean, the convert statement made it beyond hideous. According to the docs ( imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#layers ), the optimize implementation can change over time. But a slightly tweaked convert statement with the -coalesce flag improved things, but still not to where it was acceptable. I ended up having to use the -layers optimize-transparency setting for best results: convert 'output/*.jpg' -coalesce -layers optimize-transparency optimised.gif

              – user486425
              Sep 27 '16 at 23:47
















            235














            First install this:



            sudo apt-get install imagemagick mplayer gtk-recordmydesktop


            those are the required stuff, ImageMagick, MPlayer and Desktop Recorder.
            Then use Desktop Recorder to capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast. After the Desktop Recorder has saved the recording into an OGV video, MPlayer will be used to capture JPEG screenshots, saving them into the 'output' directory.



            On a terminal:



            mplayer -ao null <video file name> -vo jpeg:outdir=output


            Use ImageMagick to convert the screenshots into an animated gifs.



            convert output/* output.gif


            you can optimize the screenshots this way:



            convert output.gif -fuzz 10% -layers Optimize optimised.gif





            share|improve this answer



















            • 35





              another way to optimize gif is to use gifsicle: gifsicle -O in.gif -o out.gif I just tried and got 100x reduction in file size.

              – Yrogirg
              Mar 29 '13 at 17:37






            • 9





              For those wondering, the first flag in @Yrogirg command is a capital "O", not the digit "0" :)

              – brandizzi
              Jan 8 '14 at 19:51






            • 2





              Wow, gifsicle just made mine faster but no smaller, and the convert optimize command made it reaaaaally ugly.

              – MalcolmOcean
              May 25 '15 at 13:02






            • 6





              I recommend combining the last two convert steps into one: convert output/* -layers Optimize output.gif. For me, this sped up processing time as well as made the output file smaller. I don't see any reason to do those steps separately. (I didn't try the -fuzz 10% argument.)

              – thejoshwolfe
              Jul 13 '15 at 18:31






            • 1





              Like @MalcolmOcean, the convert statement made it beyond hideous. According to the docs ( imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#layers ), the optimize implementation can change over time. But a slightly tweaked convert statement with the -coalesce flag improved things, but still not to where it was acceptable. I ended up having to use the -layers optimize-transparency setting for best results: convert 'output/*.jpg' -coalesce -layers optimize-transparency optimised.gif

              – user486425
              Sep 27 '16 at 23:47














            235












            235








            235







            First install this:



            sudo apt-get install imagemagick mplayer gtk-recordmydesktop


            those are the required stuff, ImageMagick, MPlayer and Desktop Recorder.
            Then use Desktop Recorder to capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast. After the Desktop Recorder has saved the recording into an OGV video, MPlayer will be used to capture JPEG screenshots, saving them into the 'output' directory.



            On a terminal:



            mplayer -ao null <video file name> -vo jpeg:outdir=output


            Use ImageMagick to convert the screenshots into an animated gifs.



            convert output/* output.gif


            you can optimize the screenshots this way:



            convert output.gif -fuzz 10% -layers Optimize optimised.gif





            share|improve this answer













            First install this:



            sudo apt-get install imagemagick mplayer gtk-recordmydesktop


            those are the required stuff, ImageMagick, MPlayer and Desktop Recorder.
            Then use Desktop Recorder to capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast. After the Desktop Recorder has saved the recording into an OGV video, MPlayer will be used to capture JPEG screenshots, saving them into the 'output' directory.



            On a terminal:



            mplayer -ao null <video file name> -vo jpeg:outdir=output


            Use ImageMagick to convert the screenshots into an animated gifs.



            convert output/* output.gif


            you can optimize the screenshots this way:



            convert output.gif -fuzz 10% -layers Optimize optimised.gif






            share|improve this answer












            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer










            answered Feb 25 '12 at 19:40









            maniat1kmaniat1k

            5,149103249




            5,149103249








            • 35





              another way to optimize gif is to use gifsicle: gifsicle -O in.gif -o out.gif I just tried and got 100x reduction in file size.

              – Yrogirg
              Mar 29 '13 at 17:37






            • 9





              For those wondering, the first flag in @Yrogirg command is a capital "O", not the digit "0" :)

              – brandizzi
              Jan 8 '14 at 19:51






            • 2





              Wow, gifsicle just made mine faster but no smaller, and the convert optimize command made it reaaaaally ugly.

              – MalcolmOcean
              May 25 '15 at 13:02






            • 6





              I recommend combining the last two convert steps into one: convert output/* -layers Optimize output.gif. For me, this sped up processing time as well as made the output file smaller. I don't see any reason to do those steps separately. (I didn't try the -fuzz 10% argument.)

              – thejoshwolfe
              Jul 13 '15 at 18:31






            • 1





              Like @MalcolmOcean, the convert statement made it beyond hideous. According to the docs ( imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#layers ), the optimize implementation can change over time. But a slightly tweaked convert statement with the -coalesce flag improved things, but still not to where it was acceptable. I ended up having to use the -layers optimize-transparency setting for best results: convert 'output/*.jpg' -coalesce -layers optimize-transparency optimised.gif

              – user486425
              Sep 27 '16 at 23:47














            • 35





              another way to optimize gif is to use gifsicle: gifsicle -O in.gif -o out.gif I just tried and got 100x reduction in file size.

              – Yrogirg
              Mar 29 '13 at 17:37






            • 9





              For those wondering, the first flag in @Yrogirg command is a capital "O", not the digit "0" :)

              – brandizzi
              Jan 8 '14 at 19:51






            • 2





              Wow, gifsicle just made mine faster but no smaller, and the convert optimize command made it reaaaaally ugly.

              – MalcolmOcean
              May 25 '15 at 13:02






            • 6





              I recommend combining the last two convert steps into one: convert output/* -layers Optimize output.gif. For me, this sped up processing time as well as made the output file smaller. I don't see any reason to do those steps separately. (I didn't try the -fuzz 10% argument.)

              – thejoshwolfe
              Jul 13 '15 at 18:31






            • 1





              Like @MalcolmOcean, the convert statement made it beyond hideous. According to the docs ( imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#layers ), the optimize implementation can change over time. But a slightly tweaked convert statement with the -coalesce flag improved things, but still not to where it was acceptable. I ended up having to use the -layers optimize-transparency setting for best results: convert 'output/*.jpg' -coalesce -layers optimize-transparency optimised.gif

              – user486425
              Sep 27 '16 at 23:47








            35




            35





            another way to optimize gif is to use gifsicle: gifsicle -O in.gif -o out.gif I just tried and got 100x reduction in file size.

            – Yrogirg
            Mar 29 '13 at 17:37





            another way to optimize gif is to use gifsicle: gifsicle -O in.gif -o out.gif I just tried and got 100x reduction in file size.

            – Yrogirg
            Mar 29 '13 at 17:37




            9




            9





            For those wondering, the first flag in @Yrogirg command is a capital "O", not the digit "0" :)

            – brandizzi
            Jan 8 '14 at 19:51





            For those wondering, the first flag in @Yrogirg command is a capital "O", not the digit "0" :)

            – brandizzi
            Jan 8 '14 at 19:51




            2




            2





            Wow, gifsicle just made mine faster but no smaller, and the convert optimize command made it reaaaaally ugly.

            – MalcolmOcean
            May 25 '15 at 13:02





            Wow, gifsicle just made mine faster but no smaller, and the convert optimize command made it reaaaaally ugly.

            – MalcolmOcean
            May 25 '15 at 13:02




            6




            6





            I recommend combining the last two convert steps into one: convert output/* -layers Optimize output.gif. For me, this sped up processing time as well as made the output file smaller. I don't see any reason to do those steps separately. (I didn't try the -fuzz 10% argument.)

            – thejoshwolfe
            Jul 13 '15 at 18:31





            I recommend combining the last two convert steps into one: convert output/* -layers Optimize output.gif. For me, this sped up processing time as well as made the output file smaller. I don't see any reason to do those steps separately. (I didn't try the -fuzz 10% argument.)

            – thejoshwolfe
            Jul 13 '15 at 18:31




            1




            1





            Like @MalcolmOcean, the convert statement made it beyond hideous. According to the docs ( imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#layers ), the optimize implementation can change over time. But a slightly tweaked convert statement with the -coalesce flag improved things, but still not to where it was acceptable. I ended up having to use the -layers optimize-transparency setting for best results: convert 'output/*.jpg' -coalesce -layers optimize-transparency optimised.gif

            – user486425
            Sep 27 '16 at 23:47





            Like @MalcolmOcean, the convert statement made it beyond hideous. According to the docs ( imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php#layers ), the optimize implementation can change over time. But a slightly tweaked convert statement with the -coalesce flag improved things, but still not to where it was acceptable. I ended up having to use the -layers optimize-transparency setting for best results: convert 'output/*.jpg' -coalesce -layers optimize-transparency optimised.gif

            – user486425
            Sep 27 '16 at 23:47











            136














            Overview



            This answer contains three shell scripts:





            1. byzanz-record-window - To select a window for recording.


            2. byzanz-record-region - To select a part of the screen for recording.

            3. A simple GUI front-end for 1, by MHC.


            Introduction



            Thanks Bruno Pereira for introducing me to byzanz! It's quite useful for creating GIF animations. The colours may be off in some cases, but the file size makes up for it. Example: 40 seconds, 3.7Mb.



            Usage



            Save one/all of the following two scripts in a folder within your $PATH. Here's an example on using the first script to make a screencast of a specific window.




            1. Run byzanz-record-window 30 -c output.gif

            2. Go to the window (alt-tab) you want to capture. Click on it.

            3. Wait 10 seconds (hard-coded in $DELAY), in which you prepare for recording.

            4. After the beep (defined in the beep function), byzanz will start.

            5. After 30 seconds (that's the meaning of 30 in step 1), byzanz ends. A beep will be broadcast again.


            I included the -c flag in byzanz-record-window to illustrate that any arguments to my shell script are appended to byzanz-record itself. The -c flag tells byzanz to also include the cursor in the screencast.

            See man byzanz-record or byzanz-record --help for more details.



            byzanz-record-window



            #!/bin/bash

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Irc-Event.ogg &
            }

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
            D="--duration=$@"
            else
            echo Default recording duration 10s to /tmp/recorded.gif
            D="--duration=10 /tmp/recorded.gif"
            fi
            XWININFO=$(xwininfo)
            read X <<< $(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left X/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read Y <<< $(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left Y/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read W <<< $(awk -F: '/Width/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read H <<< $(awk -F: '/Height/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")

            echo Delaying $DELAY seconds. After that, byzanz will start
            for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
            echo $i
            sleep 1
            done

            beep
            byzanz-record --verbose --delay=0 --x=$X --y=$Y --width=$W --height=$H $D
            beep


            byzanz-record-region



            Dependency: xrectsel from xrectsel. Clone the repository and run make to get the executable. (If it protests there is no makefile, run ./bootstrap and the ./configure before running `make).



            #!/bin/bash

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Irc-Event.ogg &
            }

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
            D="--duration=$@"
            else
            echo Default recording duration 10s to /tmp/recorded.gif
            D="--duration=10 /tmp/recorded.gif"
            fi

            # xrectsel from https://github.com/lolilolicon/xrectsel
            ARGUMENTS=$(xrectsel "--x=%x --y=%y --width=%w --height=%h") || exit -1

            echo Delaying $DELAY seconds. After that, byzanz will start
            for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
            echo $i
            sleep 1
            done
            beep
            byzanz-record --verbose --delay=0 ${ARGUMENTS} $D
            beep


            Gui version of byzanz-record-window



            (comment by MHC): I've taken the liberty to modify the script with a simple GUI dialogue



            #!/bin/bash

            # AUTHOR: (c) Rob W 2012, modified by MHC (https://askubuntu.com/users/81372/mhc)
            # NAME: GIFRecord 0.1
            # DESCRIPTION: A script to record GIF screencasts.
            # LICENSE: GNU GPL v3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)
            # DEPENDENCIES: byzanz,gdialog,notify-send (install via sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/byzanz; sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install byzanz gdialog notify-osd)

            # Time and date
            TIME=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S")

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Standard screencast folder
            FOLDER="$HOME/Pictures"

            # Default recording duration
            DEFDUR=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message-new-instant.oga &
            }

            # Custom recording duration as set by user
            USERDUR=$(gdialog --title "Duration?" --inputbox "Please enter the screencast duration in seconds" 200 100 2>&1)

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $USERDUR -gt 0 ]; then
            D=$USERDUR
            else
            D=$DEFDUR
            fi

            # Window geometry
            XWININFO=$(xwininfo)
            read X < <(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left X/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read Y < <(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left Y/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read W < <(awk -F: '/Width/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read H < <(awk -F: '/Height/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")

            # Notify the user of recording time and delay
            notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Recording duration set to $D seconds. Recording will start in $DELAY seconds."

            #Actual recording
            sleep $DELAY
            beep
            byzanz-record -c --verbose --delay=0 --duration=$D --x=$X --y=$Y --width=$W --height=$H "$FOLDER/GIFrecord_$TIME.gif"
            beep

            # Notify the user of end of recording.
            notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Screencast saved to $FOLDER/GIFrecord_$TIME.gif"





            share|improve this answer





















            • 17





              Are these scripts kept someplace like github? They're super useful, it'd be nice if they were kept someplace better than text in StackOverflow answer.

              – KFro
              Jul 3 '14 at 22:30






            • 1





              @KFro This is Ask Ubuntu, not SO ;) No, I haven't put them in a git repository, because the scripts themselves are badly documented (for users). The accompanying documentation is included with the answer, so I see no benefit of splitting up the files and documentation in a Git repository.

              – Rob W
              Jul 4 '14 at 7:43






            • 1





              No more credits for editing, but done ;-).

              – Rmano
              Nov 4 '14 at 16:15








            • 2





              Just wanted to say a huge thanks for this - awesome answer and helped me out a lot. Here's what I ended up with. I like to use notify-send as well in case my sound is off.

              – Daniel Buckmaster
              Sep 10 '15 at 2:20








            • 2





              @Masi Byzanz - and these scripts - work just fine for me in 16.04

              – Jeff Puckett
              Aug 12 '16 at 16:23
















            136














            Overview



            This answer contains three shell scripts:





            1. byzanz-record-window - To select a window for recording.


            2. byzanz-record-region - To select a part of the screen for recording.

            3. A simple GUI front-end for 1, by MHC.


            Introduction



            Thanks Bruno Pereira for introducing me to byzanz! It's quite useful for creating GIF animations. The colours may be off in some cases, but the file size makes up for it. Example: 40 seconds, 3.7Mb.



            Usage



            Save one/all of the following two scripts in a folder within your $PATH. Here's an example on using the first script to make a screencast of a specific window.




            1. Run byzanz-record-window 30 -c output.gif

            2. Go to the window (alt-tab) you want to capture. Click on it.

            3. Wait 10 seconds (hard-coded in $DELAY), in which you prepare for recording.

            4. After the beep (defined in the beep function), byzanz will start.

            5. After 30 seconds (that's the meaning of 30 in step 1), byzanz ends. A beep will be broadcast again.


            I included the -c flag in byzanz-record-window to illustrate that any arguments to my shell script are appended to byzanz-record itself. The -c flag tells byzanz to also include the cursor in the screencast.

            See man byzanz-record or byzanz-record --help for more details.



            byzanz-record-window



            #!/bin/bash

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Irc-Event.ogg &
            }

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
            D="--duration=$@"
            else
            echo Default recording duration 10s to /tmp/recorded.gif
            D="--duration=10 /tmp/recorded.gif"
            fi
            XWININFO=$(xwininfo)
            read X <<< $(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left X/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read Y <<< $(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left Y/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read W <<< $(awk -F: '/Width/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read H <<< $(awk -F: '/Height/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")

            echo Delaying $DELAY seconds. After that, byzanz will start
            for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
            echo $i
            sleep 1
            done

            beep
            byzanz-record --verbose --delay=0 --x=$X --y=$Y --width=$W --height=$H $D
            beep


            byzanz-record-region



            Dependency: xrectsel from xrectsel. Clone the repository and run make to get the executable. (If it protests there is no makefile, run ./bootstrap and the ./configure before running `make).



            #!/bin/bash

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Irc-Event.ogg &
            }

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
            D="--duration=$@"
            else
            echo Default recording duration 10s to /tmp/recorded.gif
            D="--duration=10 /tmp/recorded.gif"
            fi

            # xrectsel from https://github.com/lolilolicon/xrectsel
            ARGUMENTS=$(xrectsel "--x=%x --y=%y --width=%w --height=%h") || exit -1

            echo Delaying $DELAY seconds. After that, byzanz will start
            for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
            echo $i
            sleep 1
            done
            beep
            byzanz-record --verbose --delay=0 ${ARGUMENTS} $D
            beep


            Gui version of byzanz-record-window



            (comment by MHC): I've taken the liberty to modify the script with a simple GUI dialogue



            #!/bin/bash

            # AUTHOR: (c) Rob W 2012, modified by MHC (https://askubuntu.com/users/81372/mhc)
            # NAME: GIFRecord 0.1
            # DESCRIPTION: A script to record GIF screencasts.
            # LICENSE: GNU GPL v3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)
            # DEPENDENCIES: byzanz,gdialog,notify-send (install via sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/byzanz; sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install byzanz gdialog notify-osd)

            # Time and date
            TIME=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S")

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Standard screencast folder
            FOLDER="$HOME/Pictures"

            # Default recording duration
            DEFDUR=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message-new-instant.oga &
            }

            # Custom recording duration as set by user
            USERDUR=$(gdialog --title "Duration?" --inputbox "Please enter the screencast duration in seconds" 200 100 2>&1)

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $USERDUR -gt 0 ]; then
            D=$USERDUR
            else
            D=$DEFDUR
            fi

            # Window geometry
            XWININFO=$(xwininfo)
            read X < <(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left X/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read Y < <(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left Y/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read W < <(awk -F: '/Width/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read H < <(awk -F: '/Height/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")

            # Notify the user of recording time and delay
            notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Recording duration set to $D seconds. Recording will start in $DELAY seconds."

            #Actual recording
            sleep $DELAY
            beep
            byzanz-record -c --verbose --delay=0 --duration=$D --x=$X --y=$Y --width=$W --height=$H "$FOLDER/GIFrecord_$TIME.gif"
            beep

            # Notify the user of end of recording.
            notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Screencast saved to $FOLDER/GIFrecord_$TIME.gif"





            share|improve this answer





















            • 17





              Are these scripts kept someplace like github? They're super useful, it'd be nice if they were kept someplace better than text in StackOverflow answer.

              – KFro
              Jul 3 '14 at 22:30






            • 1





              @KFro This is Ask Ubuntu, not SO ;) No, I haven't put them in a git repository, because the scripts themselves are badly documented (for users). The accompanying documentation is included with the answer, so I see no benefit of splitting up the files and documentation in a Git repository.

              – Rob W
              Jul 4 '14 at 7:43






            • 1





              No more credits for editing, but done ;-).

              – Rmano
              Nov 4 '14 at 16:15








            • 2





              Just wanted to say a huge thanks for this - awesome answer and helped me out a lot. Here's what I ended up with. I like to use notify-send as well in case my sound is off.

              – Daniel Buckmaster
              Sep 10 '15 at 2:20








            • 2





              @Masi Byzanz - and these scripts - work just fine for me in 16.04

              – Jeff Puckett
              Aug 12 '16 at 16:23














            136












            136








            136







            Overview



            This answer contains three shell scripts:





            1. byzanz-record-window - To select a window for recording.


            2. byzanz-record-region - To select a part of the screen for recording.

            3. A simple GUI front-end for 1, by MHC.


            Introduction



            Thanks Bruno Pereira for introducing me to byzanz! It's quite useful for creating GIF animations. The colours may be off in some cases, but the file size makes up for it. Example: 40 seconds, 3.7Mb.



            Usage



            Save one/all of the following two scripts in a folder within your $PATH. Here's an example on using the first script to make a screencast of a specific window.




            1. Run byzanz-record-window 30 -c output.gif

            2. Go to the window (alt-tab) you want to capture. Click on it.

            3. Wait 10 seconds (hard-coded in $DELAY), in which you prepare for recording.

            4. After the beep (defined in the beep function), byzanz will start.

            5. After 30 seconds (that's the meaning of 30 in step 1), byzanz ends. A beep will be broadcast again.


            I included the -c flag in byzanz-record-window to illustrate that any arguments to my shell script are appended to byzanz-record itself. The -c flag tells byzanz to also include the cursor in the screencast.

            See man byzanz-record or byzanz-record --help for more details.



            byzanz-record-window



            #!/bin/bash

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Irc-Event.ogg &
            }

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
            D="--duration=$@"
            else
            echo Default recording duration 10s to /tmp/recorded.gif
            D="--duration=10 /tmp/recorded.gif"
            fi
            XWININFO=$(xwininfo)
            read X <<< $(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left X/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read Y <<< $(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left Y/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read W <<< $(awk -F: '/Width/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read H <<< $(awk -F: '/Height/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")

            echo Delaying $DELAY seconds. After that, byzanz will start
            for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
            echo $i
            sleep 1
            done

            beep
            byzanz-record --verbose --delay=0 --x=$X --y=$Y --width=$W --height=$H $D
            beep


            byzanz-record-region



            Dependency: xrectsel from xrectsel. Clone the repository and run make to get the executable. (If it protests there is no makefile, run ./bootstrap and the ./configure before running `make).



            #!/bin/bash

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Irc-Event.ogg &
            }

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
            D="--duration=$@"
            else
            echo Default recording duration 10s to /tmp/recorded.gif
            D="--duration=10 /tmp/recorded.gif"
            fi

            # xrectsel from https://github.com/lolilolicon/xrectsel
            ARGUMENTS=$(xrectsel "--x=%x --y=%y --width=%w --height=%h") || exit -1

            echo Delaying $DELAY seconds. After that, byzanz will start
            for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
            echo $i
            sleep 1
            done
            beep
            byzanz-record --verbose --delay=0 ${ARGUMENTS} $D
            beep


            Gui version of byzanz-record-window



            (comment by MHC): I've taken the liberty to modify the script with a simple GUI dialogue



            #!/bin/bash

            # AUTHOR: (c) Rob W 2012, modified by MHC (https://askubuntu.com/users/81372/mhc)
            # NAME: GIFRecord 0.1
            # DESCRIPTION: A script to record GIF screencasts.
            # LICENSE: GNU GPL v3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)
            # DEPENDENCIES: byzanz,gdialog,notify-send (install via sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/byzanz; sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install byzanz gdialog notify-osd)

            # Time and date
            TIME=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S")

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Standard screencast folder
            FOLDER="$HOME/Pictures"

            # Default recording duration
            DEFDUR=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message-new-instant.oga &
            }

            # Custom recording duration as set by user
            USERDUR=$(gdialog --title "Duration?" --inputbox "Please enter the screencast duration in seconds" 200 100 2>&1)

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $USERDUR -gt 0 ]; then
            D=$USERDUR
            else
            D=$DEFDUR
            fi

            # Window geometry
            XWININFO=$(xwininfo)
            read X < <(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left X/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read Y < <(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left Y/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read W < <(awk -F: '/Width/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read H < <(awk -F: '/Height/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")

            # Notify the user of recording time and delay
            notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Recording duration set to $D seconds. Recording will start in $DELAY seconds."

            #Actual recording
            sleep $DELAY
            beep
            byzanz-record -c --verbose --delay=0 --duration=$D --x=$X --y=$Y --width=$W --height=$H "$FOLDER/GIFrecord_$TIME.gif"
            beep

            # Notify the user of end of recording.
            notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Screencast saved to $FOLDER/GIFrecord_$TIME.gif"





            share|improve this answer















            Overview



            This answer contains three shell scripts:





            1. byzanz-record-window - To select a window for recording.


            2. byzanz-record-region - To select a part of the screen for recording.

            3. A simple GUI front-end for 1, by MHC.


            Introduction



            Thanks Bruno Pereira for introducing me to byzanz! It's quite useful for creating GIF animations. The colours may be off in some cases, but the file size makes up for it. Example: 40 seconds, 3.7Mb.



            Usage



            Save one/all of the following two scripts in a folder within your $PATH. Here's an example on using the first script to make a screencast of a specific window.




            1. Run byzanz-record-window 30 -c output.gif

            2. Go to the window (alt-tab) you want to capture. Click on it.

            3. Wait 10 seconds (hard-coded in $DELAY), in which you prepare for recording.

            4. After the beep (defined in the beep function), byzanz will start.

            5. After 30 seconds (that's the meaning of 30 in step 1), byzanz ends. A beep will be broadcast again.


            I included the -c flag in byzanz-record-window to illustrate that any arguments to my shell script are appended to byzanz-record itself. The -c flag tells byzanz to also include the cursor in the screencast.

            See man byzanz-record or byzanz-record --help for more details.



            byzanz-record-window



            #!/bin/bash

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Irc-Event.ogg &
            }

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
            D="--duration=$@"
            else
            echo Default recording duration 10s to /tmp/recorded.gif
            D="--duration=10 /tmp/recorded.gif"
            fi
            XWININFO=$(xwininfo)
            read X <<< $(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left X/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read Y <<< $(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left Y/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read W <<< $(awk -F: '/Width/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read H <<< $(awk -F: '/Height/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")

            echo Delaying $DELAY seconds. After that, byzanz will start
            for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
            echo $i
            sleep 1
            done

            beep
            byzanz-record --verbose --delay=0 --x=$X --y=$Y --width=$W --height=$H $D
            beep


            byzanz-record-region



            Dependency: xrectsel from xrectsel. Clone the repository and run make to get the executable. (If it protests there is no makefile, run ./bootstrap and the ./configure before running `make).



            #!/bin/bash

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/KDE-Im-Irc-Event.ogg &
            }

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then
            D="--duration=$@"
            else
            echo Default recording duration 10s to /tmp/recorded.gif
            D="--duration=10 /tmp/recorded.gif"
            fi

            # xrectsel from https://github.com/lolilolicon/xrectsel
            ARGUMENTS=$(xrectsel "--x=%x --y=%y --width=%w --height=%h") || exit -1

            echo Delaying $DELAY seconds. After that, byzanz will start
            for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
            echo $i
            sleep 1
            done
            beep
            byzanz-record --verbose --delay=0 ${ARGUMENTS} $D
            beep


            Gui version of byzanz-record-window



            (comment by MHC): I've taken the liberty to modify the script with a simple GUI dialogue



            #!/bin/bash

            # AUTHOR: (c) Rob W 2012, modified by MHC (https://askubuntu.com/users/81372/mhc)
            # NAME: GIFRecord 0.1
            # DESCRIPTION: A script to record GIF screencasts.
            # LICENSE: GNU GPL v3 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html)
            # DEPENDENCIES: byzanz,gdialog,notify-send (install via sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/byzanz; sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install byzanz gdialog notify-osd)

            # Time and date
            TIME=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S")

            # Delay before starting
            DELAY=10

            # Standard screencast folder
            FOLDER="$HOME/Pictures"

            # Default recording duration
            DEFDUR=10

            # Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
            beep() {
            paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message-new-instant.oga &
            }

            # Custom recording duration as set by user
            USERDUR=$(gdialog --title "Duration?" --inputbox "Please enter the screencast duration in seconds" 200 100 2>&1)

            # Duration and output file
            if [ $USERDUR -gt 0 ]; then
            D=$USERDUR
            else
            D=$DEFDUR
            fi

            # Window geometry
            XWININFO=$(xwininfo)
            read X < <(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left X/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read Y < <(awk -F: '/Absolute upper-left Y/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read W < <(awk -F: '/Width/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")
            read H < <(awk -F: '/Height/{print $2}' <<< "$XWININFO")

            # Notify the user of recording time and delay
            notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Recording duration set to $D seconds. Recording will start in $DELAY seconds."

            #Actual recording
            sleep $DELAY
            beep
            byzanz-record -c --verbose --delay=0 --duration=$D --x=$X --y=$Y --width=$W --height=$H "$FOLDER/GIFrecord_$TIME.gif"
            beep

            # Notify the user of end of recording.
            notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Screencast saved to $FOLDER/GIFrecord_$TIME.gif"






            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Nov 8 '17 at 13:27









            serv-inc

            1,6051420




            1,6051420










            answered Oct 14 '12 at 15:44









            Rob WRob W

            1,97211319




            1,97211319








            • 17





              Are these scripts kept someplace like github? They're super useful, it'd be nice if they were kept someplace better than text in StackOverflow answer.

              – KFro
              Jul 3 '14 at 22:30






            • 1





              @KFro This is Ask Ubuntu, not SO ;) No, I haven't put them in a git repository, because the scripts themselves are badly documented (for users). The accompanying documentation is included with the answer, so I see no benefit of splitting up the files and documentation in a Git repository.

              – Rob W
              Jul 4 '14 at 7:43






            • 1





              No more credits for editing, but done ;-).

              – Rmano
              Nov 4 '14 at 16:15








            • 2





              Just wanted to say a huge thanks for this - awesome answer and helped me out a lot. Here's what I ended up with. I like to use notify-send as well in case my sound is off.

              – Daniel Buckmaster
              Sep 10 '15 at 2:20








            • 2





              @Masi Byzanz - and these scripts - work just fine for me in 16.04

              – Jeff Puckett
              Aug 12 '16 at 16:23














            • 17





              Are these scripts kept someplace like github? They're super useful, it'd be nice if they were kept someplace better than text in StackOverflow answer.

              – KFro
              Jul 3 '14 at 22:30






            • 1





              @KFro This is Ask Ubuntu, not SO ;) No, I haven't put them in a git repository, because the scripts themselves are badly documented (for users). The accompanying documentation is included with the answer, so I see no benefit of splitting up the files and documentation in a Git repository.

              – Rob W
              Jul 4 '14 at 7:43






            • 1





              No more credits for editing, but done ;-).

              – Rmano
              Nov 4 '14 at 16:15








            • 2





              Just wanted to say a huge thanks for this - awesome answer and helped me out a lot. Here's what I ended up with. I like to use notify-send as well in case my sound is off.

              – Daniel Buckmaster
              Sep 10 '15 at 2:20








            • 2





              @Masi Byzanz - and these scripts - work just fine for me in 16.04

              – Jeff Puckett
              Aug 12 '16 at 16:23








            17




            17





            Are these scripts kept someplace like github? They're super useful, it'd be nice if they were kept someplace better than text in StackOverflow answer.

            – KFro
            Jul 3 '14 at 22:30





            Are these scripts kept someplace like github? They're super useful, it'd be nice if they were kept someplace better than text in StackOverflow answer.

            – KFro
            Jul 3 '14 at 22:30




            1




            1





            @KFro This is Ask Ubuntu, not SO ;) No, I haven't put them in a git repository, because the scripts themselves are badly documented (for users). The accompanying documentation is included with the answer, so I see no benefit of splitting up the files and documentation in a Git repository.

            – Rob W
            Jul 4 '14 at 7:43





            @KFro This is Ask Ubuntu, not SO ;) No, I haven't put them in a git repository, because the scripts themselves are badly documented (for users). The accompanying documentation is included with the answer, so I see no benefit of splitting up the files and documentation in a Git repository.

            – Rob W
            Jul 4 '14 at 7:43




            1




            1





            No more credits for editing, but done ;-).

            – Rmano
            Nov 4 '14 at 16:15







            No more credits for editing, but done ;-).

            – Rmano
            Nov 4 '14 at 16:15






            2




            2





            Just wanted to say a huge thanks for this - awesome answer and helped me out a lot. Here's what I ended up with. I like to use notify-send as well in case my sound is off.

            – Daniel Buckmaster
            Sep 10 '15 at 2:20







            Just wanted to say a huge thanks for this - awesome answer and helped me out a lot. Here's what I ended up with. I like to use notify-send as well in case my sound is off.

            – Daniel Buckmaster
            Sep 10 '15 at 2:20






            2




            2





            @Masi Byzanz - and these scripts - work just fine for me in 16.04

            – Jeff Puckett
            Aug 12 '16 at 16:23





            @Masi Byzanz - and these scripts - work just fine for me in 16.04

            – Jeff Puckett
            Aug 12 '16 at 16:23











            51














            ffmpeg Install ffmpeg



            One of the best tools I use is ffmpeg. It can take most video from a screencast tool such as kazam and convert it to another format.



            Install this from software-center - it is automatically installed if you install the excellent ubuntu-restricted-extras package.



            Kazam can output in the video formats mp4 or webm. Generally you get better results outputting in mp4 format.



            example GIF making syntax



            The basic syntax to convert video to gif is:



            ffmpeg -i [inputvideo_filename] -pix_fmt rgb24 [output.gif]


            GIFs converted - especially those with a standard 25/29 frame-per-second can be very large. For example - a 800Kb webm 15-second video at 25fps can output to 435Mb!



            You can reduce this by a number of methods:



            framerate



            Use the option -r [frame-per-second]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -r 1 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            Size reduced from 435Mb to 19Mb



            file-size limit



            Use the option -fs [filesize]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -fs 5000k -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            Note - this is an approximate output file size so the size can be slightly bigger than specified.



            size of output video



            Use the option -s [widthxheight]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -s 320x200 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            This reduced the example 1366x768 video size down to 26Mb



            loop forever



            Sometimes you might want the GIF to loop forever.



            Use the option -loop_output 0



            ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -loop_output 0 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            further optimise and shrink



            if you use imagemagick convert with a fuzz factor between 3% and 10% then you can dramatically reduce the image size



            convert output.gif -fuzz 3% -layers Optimize finalgif.gif


            finally



            combine some of these options to reduce to something manageable for Ask Ubuntu.



            ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -loop_output 0 -r 5 -s 320x200 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            followed by



            convert output.gif -fuzz 8% -layers Optimize finalgif.gif





            example



            enter image description here







            share|improve this answer


























            • If you have Docker and your video is demo.mkv you can run this commands: docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/tmp/video/ jrottenberg/ffmpeg -i /tmp/video/demo.mkv -framerate 1/2 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 /tmp/video/demo.gif, sudo chown $USER:$USER demo.gif

              – czerasz
              Dec 13 '15 at 0:35








            • 2





              To me it complains that there is no such option as -loop_output...

              – user364819
              Mar 14 '16 at 16:52






            • 1





              +1 Best answer. But one q do you still think ubuntu-restricted-extras is excellent ??

              – Severus Tux
              May 22 '16 at 14:48






            • 1





              @ParanoidPanda now the option is -loop. So it would be -loop 0. Here is a working command in Ubuntu 16.04.01 ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s 100x100 -i :0.0+500,500 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 out2.gif. +500,500 is the X,Y position to start the 100x100 rectangle. xgrab takes the screen as input.

              – sanbor
              Aug 11 '16 at 15:23
















            51














            ffmpeg Install ffmpeg



            One of the best tools I use is ffmpeg. It can take most video from a screencast tool such as kazam and convert it to another format.



            Install this from software-center - it is automatically installed if you install the excellent ubuntu-restricted-extras package.



            Kazam can output in the video formats mp4 or webm. Generally you get better results outputting in mp4 format.



            example GIF making syntax



            The basic syntax to convert video to gif is:



            ffmpeg -i [inputvideo_filename] -pix_fmt rgb24 [output.gif]


            GIFs converted - especially those with a standard 25/29 frame-per-second can be very large. For example - a 800Kb webm 15-second video at 25fps can output to 435Mb!



            You can reduce this by a number of methods:



            framerate



            Use the option -r [frame-per-second]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -r 1 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            Size reduced from 435Mb to 19Mb



            file-size limit



            Use the option -fs [filesize]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -fs 5000k -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            Note - this is an approximate output file size so the size can be slightly bigger than specified.



            size of output video



            Use the option -s [widthxheight]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -s 320x200 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            This reduced the example 1366x768 video size down to 26Mb



            loop forever



            Sometimes you might want the GIF to loop forever.



            Use the option -loop_output 0



            ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -loop_output 0 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            further optimise and shrink



            if you use imagemagick convert with a fuzz factor between 3% and 10% then you can dramatically reduce the image size



            convert output.gif -fuzz 3% -layers Optimize finalgif.gif


            finally



            combine some of these options to reduce to something manageable for Ask Ubuntu.



            ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -loop_output 0 -r 5 -s 320x200 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            followed by



            convert output.gif -fuzz 8% -layers Optimize finalgif.gif





            example



            enter image description here







            share|improve this answer


























            • If you have Docker and your video is demo.mkv you can run this commands: docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/tmp/video/ jrottenberg/ffmpeg -i /tmp/video/demo.mkv -framerate 1/2 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 /tmp/video/demo.gif, sudo chown $USER:$USER demo.gif

              – czerasz
              Dec 13 '15 at 0:35








            • 2





              To me it complains that there is no such option as -loop_output...

              – user364819
              Mar 14 '16 at 16:52






            • 1





              +1 Best answer. But one q do you still think ubuntu-restricted-extras is excellent ??

              – Severus Tux
              May 22 '16 at 14:48






            • 1





              @ParanoidPanda now the option is -loop. So it would be -loop 0. Here is a working command in Ubuntu 16.04.01 ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s 100x100 -i :0.0+500,500 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 out2.gif. +500,500 is the X,Y position to start the 100x100 rectangle. xgrab takes the screen as input.

              – sanbor
              Aug 11 '16 at 15:23














            51












            51








            51







            ffmpeg Install ffmpeg



            One of the best tools I use is ffmpeg. It can take most video from a screencast tool such as kazam and convert it to another format.



            Install this from software-center - it is automatically installed if you install the excellent ubuntu-restricted-extras package.



            Kazam can output in the video formats mp4 or webm. Generally you get better results outputting in mp4 format.



            example GIF making syntax



            The basic syntax to convert video to gif is:



            ffmpeg -i [inputvideo_filename] -pix_fmt rgb24 [output.gif]


            GIFs converted - especially those with a standard 25/29 frame-per-second can be very large. For example - a 800Kb webm 15-second video at 25fps can output to 435Mb!



            You can reduce this by a number of methods:



            framerate



            Use the option -r [frame-per-second]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -r 1 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            Size reduced from 435Mb to 19Mb



            file-size limit



            Use the option -fs [filesize]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -fs 5000k -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            Note - this is an approximate output file size so the size can be slightly bigger than specified.



            size of output video



            Use the option -s [widthxheight]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -s 320x200 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            This reduced the example 1366x768 video size down to 26Mb



            loop forever



            Sometimes you might want the GIF to loop forever.



            Use the option -loop_output 0



            ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -loop_output 0 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            further optimise and shrink



            if you use imagemagick convert with a fuzz factor between 3% and 10% then you can dramatically reduce the image size



            convert output.gif -fuzz 3% -layers Optimize finalgif.gif


            finally



            combine some of these options to reduce to something manageable for Ask Ubuntu.



            ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -loop_output 0 -r 5 -s 320x200 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            followed by



            convert output.gif -fuzz 8% -layers Optimize finalgif.gif





            example



            enter image description here







            share|improve this answer















            ffmpeg Install ffmpeg



            One of the best tools I use is ffmpeg. It can take most video from a screencast tool such as kazam and convert it to another format.



            Install this from software-center - it is automatically installed if you install the excellent ubuntu-restricted-extras package.



            Kazam can output in the video formats mp4 or webm. Generally you get better results outputting in mp4 format.



            example GIF making syntax



            The basic syntax to convert video to gif is:



            ffmpeg -i [inputvideo_filename] -pix_fmt rgb24 [output.gif]


            GIFs converted - especially those with a standard 25/29 frame-per-second can be very large. For example - a 800Kb webm 15-second video at 25fps can output to 435Mb!



            You can reduce this by a number of methods:



            framerate



            Use the option -r [frame-per-second]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -r 1 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            Size reduced from 435Mb to 19Mb



            file-size limit



            Use the option -fs [filesize]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -fs 5000k -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            Note - this is an approximate output file size so the size can be slightly bigger than specified.



            size of output video



            Use the option -s [widthxheight]



            for example ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -s 320x200 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            This reduced the example 1366x768 video size down to 26Mb



            loop forever



            Sometimes you might want the GIF to loop forever.



            Use the option -loop_output 0



            ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -loop_output 0 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            further optimise and shrink



            if you use imagemagick convert with a fuzz factor between 3% and 10% then you can dramatically reduce the image size



            convert output.gif -fuzz 3% -layers Optimize finalgif.gif


            finally



            combine some of these options to reduce to something manageable for Ask Ubuntu.



            ffmpeg -i Untitled_Screencast.webm -loop_output 0 -r 5 -s 320x200 -pix_fmt rgb24 out.gif



            followed by



            convert output.gif -fuzz 8% -layers Optimize finalgif.gif





            example



            enter image description here








            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Mar 11 '17 at 18:59









            Community

            1




            1










            answered Mar 5 '12 at 21:46









            fossfreedomfossfreedom

            149k37328373




            149k37328373













            • If you have Docker and your video is demo.mkv you can run this commands: docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/tmp/video/ jrottenberg/ffmpeg -i /tmp/video/demo.mkv -framerate 1/2 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 /tmp/video/demo.gif, sudo chown $USER:$USER demo.gif

              – czerasz
              Dec 13 '15 at 0:35








            • 2





              To me it complains that there is no such option as -loop_output...

              – user364819
              Mar 14 '16 at 16:52






            • 1





              +1 Best answer. But one q do you still think ubuntu-restricted-extras is excellent ??

              – Severus Tux
              May 22 '16 at 14:48






            • 1





              @ParanoidPanda now the option is -loop. So it would be -loop 0. Here is a working command in Ubuntu 16.04.01 ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s 100x100 -i :0.0+500,500 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 out2.gif. +500,500 is the X,Y position to start the 100x100 rectangle. xgrab takes the screen as input.

              – sanbor
              Aug 11 '16 at 15:23



















            • If you have Docker and your video is demo.mkv you can run this commands: docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/tmp/video/ jrottenberg/ffmpeg -i /tmp/video/demo.mkv -framerate 1/2 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 /tmp/video/demo.gif, sudo chown $USER:$USER demo.gif

              – czerasz
              Dec 13 '15 at 0:35








            • 2





              To me it complains that there is no such option as -loop_output...

              – user364819
              Mar 14 '16 at 16:52






            • 1





              +1 Best answer. But one q do you still think ubuntu-restricted-extras is excellent ??

              – Severus Tux
              May 22 '16 at 14:48






            • 1





              @ParanoidPanda now the option is -loop. So it would be -loop 0. Here is a working command in Ubuntu 16.04.01 ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s 100x100 -i :0.0+500,500 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 out2.gif. +500,500 is the X,Y position to start the 100x100 rectangle. xgrab takes the screen as input.

              – sanbor
              Aug 11 '16 at 15:23

















            If you have Docker and your video is demo.mkv you can run this commands: docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/tmp/video/ jrottenberg/ffmpeg -i /tmp/video/demo.mkv -framerate 1/2 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 /tmp/video/demo.gif, sudo chown $USER:$USER demo.gif

            – czerasz
            Dec 13 '15 at 0:35







            If you have Docker and your video is demo.mkv you can run this commands: docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/tmp/video/ jrottenberg/ffmpeg -i /tmp/video/demo.mkv -framerate 1/2 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 /tmp/video/demo.gif, sudo chown $USER:$USER demo.gif

            – czerasz
            Dec 13 '15 at 0:35






            2




            2





            To me it complains that there is no such option as -loop_output...

            – user364819
            Mar 14 '16 at 16:52





            To me it complains that there is no such option as -loop_output...

            – user364819
            Mar 14 '16 at 16:52




            1




            1





            +1 Best answer. But one q do you still think ubuntu-restricted-extras is excellent ??

            – Severus Tux
            May 22 '16 at 14:48





            +1 Best answer. But one q do you still think ubuntu-restricted-extras is excellent ??

            – Severus Tux
            May 22 '16 at 14:48




            1




            1





            @ParanoidPanda now the option is -loop. So it would be -loop 0. Here is a working command in Ubuntu 16.04.01 ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s 100x100 -i :0.0+500,500 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 out2.gif. +500,500 is the X,Y position to start the 100x100 rectangle. xgrab takes the screen as input.

            – sanbor
            Aug 11 '16 at 15:23





            @ParanoidPanda now the option is -loop. So it would be -loop 0. Here is a working command in Ubuntu 16.04.01 ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s 100x100 -i :0.0+500,500 -pix_fmt rgb24 -loop 0 out2.gif. +500,500 is the X,Y position to start the 100x100 rectangle. xgrab takes the screen as input.

            – sanbor
            Aug 11 '16 at 15:23











            34














            Silentcast



            Silentcast is another great gui based tool for creating animated .gif images. Its features include:





            • 4 recording modes:




              1. Entire screen


              2. Inside window


              3. Window with decoration


              4. Custom selection





            • 3 output formats:




              1. .gif


              2. .mp4


              3. .webm


              4. .png (frames)


              5. .mkv




            • No installation necessary (portable)


            • Custom working directory


            • Custom fps



            Installation



            If you want a regular installation and are running a supported version of Ubuntu you can install Silentcast by PPA:



            sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sethj/silentcast  
            sudo apt-get update
            sudo apt-get install silentcast


            If you aren't running a supported version of Ubuntu (you should really upgrade!) you will need to download the latest version from the GitHub page and manually satisfy the dependencies (you can procure yad and ffmpeg from here and here respectively) or, if you are running a slightly more recent version such as 13.10 you could try downloading the .deb directly.



            If you're using Gnome you might want to install the Topicons extension to make stopping Silentcast easier.



            Usage



            Start Silentcast from your desktop environment's gui or run the silentcast command in a terminal. Pick your settings and follow the on-screen prompts. When you're done recording you will be presented with a dialog for optimizing the final output by removing a certain number of frames.



            For more in depth usage guidelines take a look at the README, either the online GitHub version or the local version stored in /usr/share/doc/silentcast with zless or your favourite editor.



            Example



            Notes:



            Silentcast is still in the development stage and although it is quite stable you might encounter some bugs. If you do please report them on the project's GitHub issues tracker. If you have trouble installing from the PPA and are running a supported version of Ubuntu leave a comment below or contact the maintainer (me) on Launchpad.






            share|improve this answer
























            • as soon as I hit 'Stop' it crashes...

              – Francisco Corrales Morales
              Nov 18 '14 at 2:35











            • @FranciscoCorralesMorales Can you run it from the command-line and then try? Once it crashes take the output and upload it to paste.ubuntu.com and link it back here so I can take a look. Thanks!

              – Seth
              Nov 18 '14 at 2:35













            • used this and it worked wonderfully. thanks!

              – JimB
              Apr 27 '16 at 10:46






            • 1





              I can confirm this works great! It creates a very small (650 KB) .gif file with great resolution outside of open windows as displayed in this answer: askubuntu.com/questions/882419/… I might add the poster @Seth is a great guy and helped me in AU general chat room set it up :)

              – WinEunuuchs2Unix
              Feb 11 '17 at 23:58
















            34














            Silentcast



            Silentcast is another great gui based tool for creating animated .gif images. Its features include:





            • 4 recording modes:




              1. Entire screen


              2. Inside window


              3. Window with decoration


              4. Custom selection





            • 3 output formats:




              1. .gif


              2. .mp4


              3. .webm


              4. .png (frames)


              5. .mkv




            • No installation necessary (portable)


            • Custom working directory


            • Custom fps



            Installation



            If you want a regular installation and are running a supported version of Ubuntu you can install Silentcast by PPA:



            sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sethj/silentcast  
            sudo apt-get update
            sudo apt-get install silentcast


            If you aren't running a supported version of Ubuntu (you should really upgrade!) you will need to download the latest version from the GitHub page and manually satisfy the dependencies (you can procure yad and ffmpeg from here and here respectively) or, if you are running a slightly more recent version such as 13.10 you could try downloading the .deb directly.



            If you're using Gnome you might want to install the Topicons extension to make stopping Silentcast easier.



            Usage



            Start Silentcast from your desktop environment's gui or run the silentcast command in a terminal. Pick your settings and follow the on-screen prompts. When you're done recording you will be presented with a dialog for optimizing the final output by removing a certain number of frames.



            For more in depth usage guidelines take a look at the README, either the online GitHub version or the local version stored in /usr/share/doc/silentcast with zless or your favourite editor.



            Example



            Notes:



            Silentcast is still in the development stage and although it is quite stable you might encounter some bugs. If you do please report them on the project's GitHub issues tracker. If you have trouble installing from the PPA and are running a supported version of Ubuntu leave a comment below or contact the maintainer (me) on Launchpad.






            share|improve this answer
























            • as soon as I hit 'Stop' it crashes...

              – Francisco Corrales Morales
              Nov 18 '14 at 2:35











            • @FranciscoCorralesMorales Can you run it from the command-line and then try? Once it crashes take the output and upload it to paste.ubuntu.com and link it back here so I can take a look. Thanks!

              – Seth
              Nov 18 '14 at 2:35













            • used this and it worked wonderfully. thanks!

              – JimB
              Apr 27 '16 at 10:46






            • 1





              I can confirm this works great! It creates a very small (650 KB) .gif file with great resolution outside of open windows as displayed in this answer: askubuntu.com/questions/882419/… I might add the poster @Seth is a great guy and helped me in AU general chat room set it up :)

              – WinEunuuchs2Unix
              Feb 11 '17 at 23:58














            34












            34








            34







            Silentcast



            Silentcast is another great gui based tool for creating animated .gif images. Its features include:





            • 4 recording modes:




              1. Entire screen


              2. Inside window


              3. Window with decoration


              4. Custom selection





            • 3 output formats:




              1. .gif


              2. .mp4


              3. .webm


              4. .png (frames)


              5. .mkv




            • No installation necessary (portable)


            • Custom working directory


            • Custom fps



            Installation



            If you want a regular installation and are running a supported version of Ubuntu you can install Silentcast by PPA:



            sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sethj/silentcast  
            sudo apt-get update
            sudo apt-get install silentcast


            If you aren't running a supported version of Ubuntu (you should really upgrade!) you will need to download the latest version from the GitHub page and manually satisfy the dependencies (you can procure yad and ffmpeg from here and here respectively) or, if you are running a slightly more recent version such as 13.10 you could try downloading the .deb directly.



            If you're using Gnome you might want to install the Topicons extension to make stopping Silentcast easier.



            Usage



            Start Silentcast from your desktop environment's gui or run the silentcast command in a terminal. Pick your settings and follow the on-screen prompts. When you're done recording you will be presented with a dialog for optimizing the final output by removing a certain number of frames.



            For more in depth usage guidelines take a look at the README, either the online GitHub version or the local version stored in /usr/share/doc/silentcast with zless or your favourite editor.



            Example



            Notes:



            Silentcast is still in the development stage and although it is quite stable you might encounter some bugs. If you do please report them on the project's GitHub issues tracker. If you have trouble installing from the PPA and are running a supported version of Ubuntu leave a comment below or contact the maintainer (me) on Launchpad.






            share|improve this answer













            Silentcast



            Silentcast is another great gui based tool for creating animated .gif images. Its features include:





            • 4 recording modes:




              1. Entire screen


              2. Inside window


              3. Window with decoration


              4. Custom selection





            • 3 output formats:




              1. .gif


              2. .mp4


              3. .webm


              4. .png (frames)


              5. .mkv




            • No installation necessary (portable)


            • Custom working directory


            • Custom fps



            Installation



            If you want a regular installation and are running a supported version of Ubuntu you can install Silentcast by PPA:



            sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sethj/silentcast  
            sudo apt-get update
            sudo apt-get install silentcast


            If you aren't running a supported version of Ubuntu (you should really upgrade!) you will need to download the latest version from the GitHub page and manually satisfy the dependencies (you can procure yad and ffmpeg from here and here respectively) or, if you are running a slightly more recent version such as 13.10 you could try downloading the .deb directly.



            If you're using Gnome you might want to install the Topicons extension to make stopping Silentcast easier.



            Usage



            Start Silentcast from your desktop environment's gui or run the silentcast command in a terminal. Pick your settings and follow the on-screen prompts. When you're done recording you will be presented with a dialog for optimizing the final output by removing a certain number of frames.



            For more in depth usage guidelines take a look at the README, either the online GitHub version or the local version stored in /usr/share/doc/silentcast with zless or your favourite editor.



            Example



            Notes:



            Silentcast is still in the development stage and although it is quite stable you might encounter some bugs. If you do please report them on the project's GitHub issues tracker. If you have trouble installing from the PPA and are running a supported version of Ubuntu leave a comment below or contact the maintainer (me) on Launchpad.







            share|improve this answer












            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer










            answered Oct 29 '14 at 1:27









            SethSeth

            34.6k27112164




            34.6k27112164













            • as soon as I hit 'Stop' it crashes...

              – Francisco Corrales Morales
              Nov 18 '14 at 2:35











            • @FranciscoCorralesMorales Can you run it from the command-line and then try? Once it crashes take the output and upload it to paste.ubuntu.com and link it back here so I can take a look. Thanks!

              – Seth
              Nov 18 '14 at 2:35













            • used this and it worked wonderfully. thanks!

              – JimB
              Apr 27 '16 at 10:46






            • 1





              I can confirm this works great! It creates a very small (650 KB) .gif file with great resolution outside of open windows as displayed in this answer: askubuntu.com/questions/882419/… I might add the poster @Seth is a great guy and helped me in AU general chat room set it up :)

              – WinEunuuchs2Unix
              Feb 11 '17 at 23:58



















            • as soon as I hit 'Stop' it crashes...

              – Francisco Corrales Morales
              Nov 18 '14 at 2:35











            • @FranciscoCorralesMorales Can you run it from the command-line and then try? Once it crashes take the output and upload it to paste.ubuntu.com and link it back here so I can take a look. Thanks!

              – Seth
              Nov 18 '14 at 2:35













            • used this and it worked wonderfully. thanks!

              – JimB
              Apr 27 '16 at 10:46






            • 1





              I can confirm this works great! It creates a very small (650 KB) .gif file with great resolution outside of open windows as displayed in this answer: askubuntu.com/questions/882419/… I might add the poster @Seth is a great guy and helped me in AU general chat room set it up :)

              – WinEunuuchs2Unix
              Feb 11 '17 at 23:58

















            as soon as I hit 'Stop' it crashes...

            – Francisco Corrales Morales
            Nov 18 '14 at 2:35





            as soon as I hit 'Stop' it crashes...

            – Francisco Corrales Morales
            Nov 18 '14 at 2:35













            @FranciscoCorralesMorales Can you run it from the command-line and then try? Once it crashes take the output and upload it to paste.ubuntu.com and link it back here so I can take a look. Thanks!

            – Seth
            Nov 18 '14 at 2:35







            @FranciscoCorralesMorales Can you run it from the command-line and then try? Once it crashes take the output and upload it to paste.ubuntu.com and link it back here so I can take a look. Thanks!

            – Seth
            Nov 18 '14 at 2:35















            used this and it worked wonderfully. thanks!

            – JimB
            Apr 27 '16 at 10:46





            used this and it worked wonderfully. thanks!

            – JimB
            Apr 27 '16 at 10:46




            1




            1





            I can confirm this works great! It creates a very small (650 KB) .gif file with great resolution outside of open windows as displayed in this answer: askubuntu.com/questions/882419/… I might add the poster @Seth is a great guy and helped me in AU general chat room set it up :)

            – WinEunuuchs2Unix
            Feb 11 '17 at 23:58





            I can confirm this works great! It creates a very small (650 KB) .gif file with great resolution outside of open windows as displayed in this answer: askubuntu.com/questions/882419/… I might add the poster @Seth is a great guy and helped me in AU general chat room set it up :)

            – WinEunuuchs2Unix
            Feb 11 '17 at 23:58











            8














            There are all sorts of complicated and well-working (presumably) ways to do this listed here. However, I've never wanted to go through that process before nor since. So, I simply use an online converter which suits my needs the few times I need to do so. I've used this site:



            http://ezgif.com/video-to-gif



            It's not my site and I'm not affiliated with them in any way. They're just the one in my bookmarks and there are many more.






            share|improve this answer
























            • I like this. I already use simplescreenrecorder to record my desktop for youtube on occassion, so turning the mkv into a gif was easy with this.

              – isaaclw
              Jul 7 '17 at 16:16
















            8














            There are all sorts of complicated and well-working (presumably) ways to do this listed here. However, I've never wanted to go through that process before nor since. So, I simply use an online converter which suits my needs the few times I need to do so. I've used this site:



            http://ezgif.com/video-to-gif



            It's not my site and I'm not affiliated with them in any way. They're just the one in my bookmarks and there are many more.






            share|improve this answer
























            • I like this. I already use simplescreenrecorder to record my desktop for youtube on occassion, so turning the mkv into a gif was easy with this.

              – isaaclw
              Jul 7 '17 at 16:16














            8












            8








            8







            There are all sorts of complicated and well-working (presumably) ways to do this listed here. However, I've never wanted to go through that process before nor since. So, I simply use an online converter which suits my needs the few times I need to do so. I've used this site:



            http://ezgif.com/video-to-gif



            It's not my site and I'm not affiliated with them in any way. They're just the one in my bookmarks and there are many more.






            share|improve this answer













            There are all sorts of complicated and well-working (presumably) ways to do this listed here. However, I've never wanted to go through that process before nor since. So, I simply use an online converter which suits my needs the few times I need to do so. I've used this site:



            http://ezgif.com/video-to-gif



            It's not my site and I'm not affiliated with them in any way. They're just the one in my bookmarks and there are many more.







            share|improve this answer












            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer










            answered Oct 17 '15 at 17:45









            KGIIIKGIII

            1,2511817




            1,2511817













            • I like this. I already use simplescreenrecorder to record my desktop for youtube on occassion, so turning the mkv into a gif was easy with this.

              – isaaclw
              Jul 7 '17 at 16:16



















            • I like this. I already use simplescreenrecorder to record my desktop for youtube on occassion, so turning the mkv into a gif was easy with this.

              – isaaclw
              Jul 7 '17 at 16:16

















            I like this. I already use simplescreenrecorder to record my desktop for youtube on occassion, so turning the mkv into a gif was easy with this.

            – isaaclw
            Jul 7 '17 at 16:16





            I like this. I already use simplescreenrecorder to record my desktop for youtube on occassion, so turning the mkv into a gif was easy with this.

            – isaaclw
            Jul 7 '17 at 16:16











            8














            I created record-gif.sh, an improved version of Rob W's byzanz-record-region:




            A lame GUI for byzanz, improved the user experience (mouse-selectable area, record progress bar, replay-able recording).




            record desktop with shell




            • set recording duration ;

            • set save_as destination ;


            • select –with the mouse– the area to record ;


            • create a script to replay recording (cf. $HOME/record.again).


            Install



            I also created an installation script



            curl --location https://git.io/record-gif.sh | bash -





            share|improve this answer





















            • 1





              You need to do sudo apt install autoconf byzanz before runing this script. it's not installed by default in ubuntu

              – Crantisz
              Oct 17 '16 at 7:50













            • @Crantisz thanks, I updated the install script to install autoconf and byzanz. Could you try it?

              – Édouard Lopez
              Oct 17 '16 at 8:33











            • I just tested it on other PC. There isn't git on my fresh-installed ubuntu system. And I don't know why, but the script stops just after second apt-get Y/N question. Can you pack all dependencies in one command?

              – Crantisz
              Oct 21 '16 at 21:17













            • @Crantisz the command is an installer script, if you just want record-gif.sh you can get it from the repo

              – Édouard Lopez
              Oct 24 '16 at 7:09
















            8














            I created record-gif.sh, an improved version of Rob W's byzanz-record-region:




            A lame GUI for byzanz, improved the user experience (mouse-selectable area, record progress bar, replay-able recording).




            record desktop with shell




            • set recording duration ;

            • set save_as destination ;


            • select –with the mouse– the area to record ;


            • create a script to replay recording (cf. $HOME/record.again).


            Install



            I also created an installation script



            curl --location https://git.io/record-gif.sh | bash -





            share|improve this answer





















            • 1





              You need to do sudo apt install autoconf byzanz before runing this script. it's not installed by default in ubuntu

              – Crantisz
              Oct 17 '16 at 7:50













            • @Crantisz thanks, I updated the install script to install autoconf and byzanz. Could you try it?

              – Édouard Lopez
              Oct 17 '16 at 8:33











            • I just tested it on other PC. There isn't git on my fresh-installed ubuntu system. And I don't know why, but the script stops just after second apt-get Y/N question. Can you pack all dependencies in one command?

              – Crantisz
              Oct 21 '16 at 21:17













            • @Crantisz the command is an installer script, if you just want record-gif.sh you can get it from the repo

              – Édouard Lopez
              Oct 24 '16 at 7:09














            8












            8








            8







            I created record-gif.sh, an improved version of Rob W's byzanz-record-region:




            A lame GUI for byzanz, improved the user experience (mouse-selectable area, record progress bar, replay-able recording).




            record desktop with shell




            • set recording duration ;

            • set save_as destination ;


            • select –with the mouse– the area to record ;


            • create a script to replay recording (cf. $HOME/record.again).


            Install



            I also created an installation script



            curl --location https://git.io/record-gif.sh | bash -





            share|improve this answer















            I created record-gif.sh, an improved version of Rob W's byzanz-record-region:




            A lame GUI for byzanz, improved the user experience (mouse-selectable area, record progress bar, replay-able recording).




            record desktop with shell




            • set recording duration ;

            • set save_as destination ;


            • select –with the mouse– the area to record ;


            • create a script to replay recording (cf. $HOME/record.again).


            Install



            I also created an installation script



            curl --location https://git.io/record-gif.sh | bash -






            share|improve this answer














            share|improve this answer



            share|improve this answer








            edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23









            Community

            1




            1










            answered Oct 6 '16 at 20:27









            Édouard LopezÉdouard Lopez

            3,54342236




            3,54342236








            • 1





              You need to do sudo apt install autoconf byzanz before runing this script. it's not installed by default in ubuntu

              – Crantisz
              Oct 17 '16 at 7:50













            • @Crantisz thanks, I updated the install script to install autoconf and byzanz. Could you try it?

              – Édouard Lopez
              Oct 17 '16 at 8:33











            • I just tested it on other PC. There isn't git on my fresh-installed ubuntu system. And I don't know why, but the script stops just after second apt-get Y/N question. Can you pack all dependencies in one command?

              – Crantisz
              Oct 21 '16 at 21:17













            • @Crantisz the command is an installer script, if you just want record-gif.sh you can get it from the repo

              – Édouard Lopez
              Oct 24 '16 at 7:09














            • 1





              You need to do sudo apt install autoconf byzanz before runing this script. it's not installed by default in ubuntu

              – Crantisz
              Oct 17 '16 at 7:50













            • @Crantisz thanks, I updated the install script to install autoconf and byzanz. Could you try it?

              – Édouard Lopez
              Oct 17 '16 at 8:33











            • I just tested it on other PC. There isn't git on my fresh-installed ubuntu system. And I don't know why, but the script stops just after second apt-get Y/N question. Can you pack all dependencies in one command?

              – Crantisz
              Oct 21 '16 at 21:17













            • @Crantisz the command is an installer script, if you just want record-gif.sh you can get it from the repo

              – Édouard Lopez
              Oct 24 '16 at 7:09








            1




            1





            You need to do sudo apt install autoconf byzanz before runing this script. it's not installed by default in ubuntu

            – Crantisz
            Oct 17 '16 at 7:50







            You need to do sudo apt install autoconf byzanz before runing this script. it's not installed by default in ubuntu

            – Crantisz
            Oct 17 '16 at 7:50















            @Crantisz thanks, I updated the install script to install autoconf and byzanz. Could you try it?

            – Édouard Lopez
            Oct 17 '16 at 8:33





            @Crantisz thanks, I updated the install script to install autoconf and byzanz. Could you try it?

            – Édouard Lopez
            Oct 17 '16 at 8:33













            I just tested it on other PC. There isn't git on my fresh-installed ubuntu system. And I don't know why, but the script stops just after second apt-get Y/N question. Can you pack all dependencies in one command?

            – Crantisz
            Oct 21 '16 at 21:17







            I just tested it on other PC. There isn't git on my fresh-installed ubuntu system. And I don't know why, but the script stops just after second apt-get Y/N question. Can you pack all dependencies in one command?

            – Crantisz
            Oct 21 '16 at 21:17















            @Crantisz the command is an installer script, if you just want record-gif.sh you can get it from the repo

            – Édouard Lopez
            Oct 24 '16 at 7:09





            @Crantisz the command is an installer script, if you just want record-gif.sh you can get it from the repo

            – Édouard Lopez
            Oct 24 '16 at 7:09











            4















            1. Install these 3 packages: imagemagick mplayer gtk-recordmydesktop

            2. Run Desktop Recorder to capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast

            3. Download ogv2gif.sh from https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/ogv2gif

            4. Run: ./ogv2gif.sh yourscreencast.ogv

            5. The GIF file will be put in the same directory


            100% inspired from maniat1k's answer.






            share|improve this answer






























              4















              1. Install these 3 packages: imagemagick mplayer gtk-recordmydesktop

              2. Run Desktop Recorder to capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast

              3. Download ogv2gif.sh from https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/ogv2gif

              4. Run: ./ogv2gif.sh yourscreencast.ogv

              5. The GIF file will be put in the same directory


              100% inspired from maniat1k's answer.






              share|improve this answer




























                4












                4








                4








                1. Install these 3 packages: imagemagick mplayer gtk-recordmydesktop

                2. Run Desktop Recorder to capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast

                3. Download ogv2gif.sh from https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/ogv2gif

                4. Run: ./ogv2gif.sh yourscreencast.ogv

                5. The GIF file will be put in the same directory


                100% inspired from maniat1k's answer.






                share|improve this answer
















                1. Install these 3 packages: imagemagick mplayer gtk-recordmydesktop

                2. Run Desktop Recorder to capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast

                3. Download ogv2gif.sh from https://github.com/nicolas-raoul/ogv2gif

                4. Run: ./ogv2gif.sh yourscreencast.ogv

                5. The GIF file will be put in the same directory


                100% inspired from maniat1k's answer.







                share|improve this answer














                share|improve this answer



                share|improve this answer








                edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23









                Community

                1




                1










                answered Jun 30 '16 at 7:25









                Nicolas RaoulNicolas Raoul

                4,9901964115




                4,9901964115























                    3














                    If you want to get even fancier, you can use a more sophisticated method than animated gifs using HTMl5 canvas screencasting. The x11-canvas-screencast project will create an html5 canvas animated screen capture.



                    You may have seen some famous examples of this tech on the Sublime Text website. x11-canvas-screencast takes this method a step further by incorporating tracking of the mouse cursor. Here's a demo of what x11-canvas-screencast produces



                    The result is better than an animated gif since it's not limited to the number of colors it has and it takes less bandwidth.






                    share|improve this answer



















                    • 1





                      That is nice and all but you cannot easily share this, e.g. Slack, Twitter etc.

                      – Elijah Lynn
                      Aug 11 '16 at 13:23











                    • @ElijahLynn very true. This solution is optimized for high frame rate, low bandwidth, full color depth. It's not portable (to embedding in a tweet for example) as it requires javascript.

                      – gene_wood
                      Aug 11 '16 at 17:15
















                    3














                    If you want to get even fancier, you can use a more sophisticated method than animated gifs using HTMl5 canvas screencasting. The x11-canvas-screencast project will create an html5 canvas animated screen capture.



                    You may have seen some famous examples of this tech on the Sublime Text website. x11-canvas-screencast takes this method a step further by incorporating tracking of the mouse cursor. Here's a demo of what x11-canvas-screencast produces



                    The result is better than an animated gif since it's not limited to the number of colors it has and it takes less bandwidth.






                    share|improve this answer



















                    • 1





                      That is nice and all but you cannot easily share this, e.g. Slack, Twitter etc.

                      – Elijah Lynn
                      Aug 11 '16 at 13:23











                    • @ElijahLynn very true. This solution is optimized for high frame rate, low bandwidth, full color depth. It's not portable (to embedding in a tweet for example) as it requires javascript.

                      – gene_wood
                      Aug 11 '16 at 17:15














                    3












                    3








                    3







                    If you want to get even fancier, you can use a more sophisticated method than animated gifs using HTMl5 canvas screencasting. The x11-canvas-screencast project will create an html5 canvas animated screen capture.



                    You may have seen some famous examples of this tech on the Sublime Text website. x11-canvas-screencast takes this method a step further by incorporating tracking of the mouse cursor. Here's a demo of what x11-canvas-screencast produces



                    The result is better than an animated gif since it's not limited to the number of colors it has and it takes less bandwidth.






                    share|improve this answer













                    If you want to get even fancier, you can use a more sophisticated method than animated gifs using HTMl5 canvas screencasting. The x11-canvas-screencast project will create an html5 canvas animated screen capture.



                    You may have seen some famous examples of this tech on the Sublime Text website. x11-canvas-screencast takes this method a step further by incorporating tracking of the mouse cursor. Here's a demo of what x11-canvas-screencast produces



                    The result is better than an animated gif since it's not limited to the number of colors it has and it takes less bandwidth.







                    share|improve this answer












                    share|improve this answer



                    share|improve this answer










                    answered Sep 22 '15 at 17:37









                    gene_woodgene_wood

                    2711416




                    2711416








                    • 1





                      That is nice and all but you cannot easily share this, e.g. Slack, Twitter etc.

                      – Elijah Lynn
                      Aug 11 '16 at 13:23











                    • @ElijahLynn very true. This solution is optimized for high frame rate, low bandwidth, full color depth. It's not portable (to embedding in a tweet for example) as it requires javascript.

                      – gene_wood
                      Aug 11 '16 at 17:15














                    • 1





                      That is nice and all but you cannot easily share this, e.g. Slack, Twitter etc.

                      – Elijah Lynn
                      Aug 11 '16 at 13:23











                    • @ElijahLynn very true. This solution is optimized for high frame rate, low bandwidth, full color depth. It's not portable (to embedding in a tweet for example) as it requires javascript.

                      – gene_wood
                      Aug 11 '16 at 17:15








                    1




                    1





                    That is nice and all but you cannot easily share this, e.g. Slack, Twitter etc.

                    – Elijah Lynn
                    Aug 11 '16 at 13:23





                    That is nice and all but you cannot easily share this, e.g. Slack, Twitter etc.

                    – Elijah Lynn
                    Aug 11 '16 at 13:23













                    @ElijahLynn very true. This solution is optimized for high frame rate, low bandwidth, full color depth. It's not portable (to embedding in a tweet for example) as it requires javascript.

                    – gene_wood
                    Aug 11 '16 at 17:15





                    @ElijahLynn very true. This solution is optimized for high frame rate, low bandwidth, full color depth. It's not portable (to embedding in a tweet for example) as it requires javascript.

                    – gene_wood
                    Aug 11 '16 at 17:15











                    3














                    Ok, so in order to also capture mouse clicks, the only thing I found was key-mon (via the README of screenkey):





                    • https://code.google.com/archive/p/key-mon https://github.com/critiqjo/key-mon

                    • sudo apt-get install key-mon


                    Then I:




                    • Start key-mon

                    • Use xrectsel to get the screen coordinates put into a byzanz command

                    • Run the byzanz command


                    ... and it looks sort of like this:



                    out.gif



                    Note that key-mon --visible_click would draw a circle around the mouse pointer upon mouse click - which I would prefer, but in Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS this is somewhat broken, as this circle does not appear and disappear fast enough in order to correctly illustrate the clicks (i.e. mouse presses and releases).






                    share|improve this answer






























                      3














                      Ok, so in order to also capture mouse clicks, the only thing I found was key-mon (via the README of screenkey):





                      • https://code.google.com/archive/p/key-mon https://github.com/critiqjo/key-mon

                      • sudo apt-get install key-mon


                      Then I:




                      • Start key-mon

                      • Use xrectsel to get the screen coordinates put into a byzanz command

                      • Run the byzanz command


                      ... and it looks sort of like this:



                      out.gif



                      Note that key-mon --visible_click would draw a circle around the mouse pointer upon mouse click - which I would prefer, but in Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS this is somewhat broken, as this circle does not appear and disappear fast enough in order to correctly illustrate the clicks (i.e. mouse presses and releases).






                      share|improve this answer




























                        3












                        3








                        3







                        Ok, so in order to also capture mouse clicks, the only thing I found was key-mon (via the README of screenkey):





                        • https://code.google.com/archive/p/key-mon https://github.com/critiqjo/key-mon

                        • sudo apt-get install key-mon


                        Then I:




                        • Start key-mon

                        • Use xrectsel to get the screen coordinates put into a byzanz command

                        • Run the byzanz command


                        ... and it looks sort of like this:



                        out.gif



                        Note that key-mon --visible_click would draw a circle around the mouse pointer upon mouse click - which I would prefer, but in Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS this is somewhat broken, as this circle does not appear and disappear fast enough in order to correctly illustrate the clicks (i.e. mouse presses and releases).






                        share|improve this answer















                        Ok, so in order to also capture mouse clicks, the only thing I found was key-mon (via the README of screenkey):





                        • https://code.google.com/archive/p/key-mon https://github.com/critiqjo/key-mon

                        • sudo apt-get install key-mon


                        Then I:




                        • Start key-mon

                        • Use xrectsel to get the screen coordinates put into a byzanz command

                        • Run the byzanz command


                        ... and it looks sort of like this:



                        out.gif



                        Note that key-mon --visible_click would draw a circle around the mouse pointer upon mouse click - which I would prefer, but in Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS this is somewhat broken, as this circle does not appear and disappear fast enough in order to correctly illustrate the clicks (i.e. mouse presses and releases).







                        share|improve this answer














                        share|improve this answer



                        share|improve this answer








                        edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24









                        Community

                        1




                        1










                        answered Aug 24 '16 at 4:34









                        sdaausdaau

                        1,57512737




                        1,57512737























                            2














                            I recently created combined version of scripts already posted here.

                            Basically, it allows you to record screen region, but with simple GUI.



                            Thanks for Rob W for providing those cool scripts



                            Here's the code (or gist if you like):



                            #!/bin/bash

                            #Records selected screen region, with GUI

                            #This is combined version of GIF recording scripts, that can be found here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/107726/how-to-create-animated-gif-images-of-a-screencast
                            #Thanks to Rob W, and the other author (unmentioned), for creating this lovely scripts

                            #I do not own any rights to code I didn't write
                            # ~Jacajack

                            DELAY=5 #Delay before starting
                            DEFDUR=10 #Default recording duration
                            TIME=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S") #Timestamp
                            FOLDER="$HOME/Pictures/Byzanz" #Default output directory

                            #Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
                            beep() {
                            paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message-new-instant.oga &
                            }

                            #Custom recording duration as set by user
                            USERDUR=$(gdialog --title "Duration?" --inputbox "Please enter the screencast duration in seconds" 200 100 2>&1)

                            #Duration and output file
                            if [ $USERDUR -gt 0 ]; then
                            D=$USERDUR
                            else
                            D=$DEFDUR
                            fi

                            #Get coordinates using xrectsel from https://github.com/lolilolicon/xrectsel
                            REGION=$(xrectsel "--x=%x --y=%y --width=%w --height=%h") || exit -1

                            notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Recording duration set to $D seconds. Recording will start in $DELAY seconds."

                            for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
                            sleep 1
                            done

                            #Record
                            beep
                            byzanz-record --cursor --verbose --delay=0 ${REGION} --duration=$D "$FOLDER/byzanz-record-region-$TIME.gif"
                            beep

                            notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Screencast saved to $FOLDER/byzanz-record-region-$TIME.gif"





                            share|improve this answer






























                              2














                              I recently created combined version of scripts already posted here.

                              Basically, it allows you to record screen region, but with simple GUI.



                              Thanks for Rob W for providing those cool scripts



                              Here's the code (or gist if you like):



                              #!/bin/bash

                              #Records selected screen region, with GUI

                              #This is combined version of GIF recording scripts, that can be found here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/107726/how-to-create-animated-gif-images-of-a-screencast
                              #Thanks to Rob W, and the other author (unmentioned), for creating this lovely scripts

                              #I do not own any rights to code I didn't write
                              # ~Jacajack

                              DELAY=5 #Delay before starting
                              DEFDUR=10 #Default recording duration
                              TIME=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S") #Timestamp
                              FOLDER="$HOME/Pictures/Byzanz" #Default output directory

                              #Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
                              beep() {
                              paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message-new-instant.oga &
                              }

                              #Custom recording duration as set by user
                              USERDUR=$(gdialog --title "Duration?" --inputbox "Please enter the screencast duration in seconds" 200 100 2>&1)

                              #Duration and output file
                              if [ $USERDUR -gt 0 ]; then
                              D=$USERDUR
                              else
                              D=$DEFDUR
                              fi

                              #Get coordinates using xrectsel from https://github.com/lolilolicon/xrectsel
                              REGION=$(xrectsel "--x=%x --y=%y --width=%w --height=%h") || exit -1

                              notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Recording duration set to $D seconds. Recording will start in $DELAY seconds."

                              for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
                              sleep 1
                              done

                              #Record
                              beep
                              byzanz-record --cursor --verbose --delay=0 ${REGION} --duration=$D "$FOLDER/byzanz-record-region-$TIME.gif"
                              beep

                              notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Screencast saved to $FOLDER/byzanz-record-region-$TIME.gif"





                              share|improve this answer




























                                2












                                2








                                2







                                I recently created combined version of scripts already posted here.

                                Basically, it allows you to record screen region, but with simple GUI.



                                Thanks for Rob W for providing those cool scripts



                                Here's the code (or gist if you like):



                                #!/bin/bash

                                #Records selected screen region, with GUI

                                #This is combined version of GIF recording scripts, that can be found here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/107726/how-to-create-animated-gif-images-of-a-screencast
                                #Thanks to Rob W, and the other author (unmentioned), for creating this lovely scripts

                                #I do not own any rights to code I didn't write
                                # ~Jacajack

                                DELAY=5 #Delay before starting
                                DEFDUR=10 #Default recording duration
                                TIME=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S") #Timestamp
                                FOLDER="$HOME/Pictures/Byzanz" #Default output directory

                                #Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
                                beep() {
                                paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message-new-instant.oga &
                                }

                                #Custom recording duration as set by user
                                USERDUR=$(gdialog --title "Duration?" --inputbox "Please enter the screencast duration in seconds" 200 100 2>&1)

                                #Duration and output file
                                if [ $USERDUR -gt 0 ]; then
                                D=$USERDUR
                                else
                                D=$DEFDUR
                                fi

                                #Get coordinates using xrectsel from https://github.com/lolilolicon/xrectsel
                                REGION=$(xrectsel "--x=%x --y=%y --width=%w --height=%h") || exit -1

                                notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Recording duration set to $D seconds. Recording will start in $DELAY seconds."

                                for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
                                sleep 1
                                done

                                #Record
                                beep
                                byzanz-record --cursor --verbose --delay=0 ${REGION} --duration=$D "$FOLDER/byzanz-record-region-$TIME.gif"
                                beep

                                notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Screencast saved to $FOLDER/byzanz-record-region-$TIME.gif"





                                share|improve this answer















                                I recently created combined version of scripts already posted here.

                                Basically, it allows you to record screen region, but with simple GUI.



                                Thanks for Rob W for providing those cool scripts



                                Here's the code (or gist if you like):



                                #!/bin/bash

                                #Records selected screen region, with GUI

                                #This is combined version of GIF recording scripts, that can be found here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/107726/how-to-create-animated-gif-images-of-a-screencast
                                #Thanks to Rob W, and the other author (unmentioned), for creating this lovely scripts

                                #I do not own any rights to code I didn't write
                                # ~Jacajack

                                DELAY=5 #Delay before starting
                                DEFDUR=10 #Default recording duration
                                TIME=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S") #Timestamp
                                FOLDER="$HOME/Pictures/Byzanz" #Default output directory

                                #Sound notification to let one know when recording is about to start (and ends)
                                beep() {
                                paplay /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/message-new-instant.oga &
                                }

                                #Custom recording duration as set by user
                                USERDUR=$(gdialog --title "Duration?" --inputbox "Please enter the screencast duration in seconds" 200 100 2>&1)

                                #Duration and output file
                                if [ $USERDUR -gt 0 ]; then
                                D=$USERDUR
                                else
                                D=$DEFDUR
                                fi

                                #Get coordinates using xrectsel from https://github.com/lolilolicon/xrectsel
                                REGION=$(xrectsel "--x=%x --y=%y --width=%w --height=%h") || exit -1

                                notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Recording duration set to $D seconds. Recording will start in $DELAY seconds."

                                for (( i=$DELAY; i>0; --i )) ; do
                                sleep 1
                                done

                                #Record
                                beep
                                byzanz-record --cursor --verbose --delay=0 ${REGION} --duration=$D "$FOLDER/byzanz-record-region-$TIME.gif"
                                beep

                                notify-send "GIFRecorder" "Screencast saved to $FOLDER/byzanz-record-region-$TIME.gif"






                                share|improve this answer














                                share|improve this answer



                                share|improve this answer








                                edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:23









                                Community

                                1




                                1










                                answered May 26 '16 at 20:17









                                JacajackJacajack

                                564419




                                564419























                                    2














                                    If you also want visible recordings of mouse clicks or key strokes, then screenkey is your best bet: https://github.com/wavexx/screenkey






                                    share|improve this answer



















                                    • 2





                                      I don't see how screenkey would handle mouse clicks (it seems to be for keyboard indication only), however, its README refers to key-mon which can do that, see my answer below.

                                      – sdaau
                                      Aug 24 '16 at 4:36
















                                    2














                                    If you also want visible recordings of mouse clicks or key strokes, then screenkey is your best bet: https://github.com/wavexx/screenkey






                                    share|improve this answer



















                                    • 2





                                      I don't see how screenkey would handle mouse clicks (it seems to be for keyboard indication only), however, its README refers to key-mon which can do that, see my answer below.

                                      – sdaau
                                      Aug 24 '16 at 4:36














                                    2












                                    2








                                    2







                                    If you also want visible recordings of mouse clicks or key strokes, then screenkey is your best bet: https://github.com/wavexx/screenkey






                                    share|improve this answer













                                    If you also want visible recordings of mouse clicks or key strokes, then screenkey is your best bet: https://github.com/wavexx/screenkey







                                    share|improve this answer












                                    share|improve this answer



                                    share|improve this answer










                                    answered Jun 12 '16 at 6:25









                                    nachtigallnachtigall

                                    1635




                                    1635








                                    • 2





                                      I don't see how screenkey would handle mouse clicks (it seems to be for keyboard indication only), however, its README refers to key-mon which can do that, see my answer below.

                                      – sdaau
                                      Aug 24 '16 at 4:36














                                    • 2





                                      I don't see how screenkey would handle mouse clicks (it seems to be for keyboard indication only), however, its README refers to key-mon which can do that, see my answer below.

                                      – sdaau
                                      Aug 24 '16 at 4:36








                                    2




                                    2





                                    I don't see how screenkey would handle mouse clicks (it seems to be for keyboard indication only), however, its README refers to key-mon which can do that, see my answer below.

                                    – sdaau
                                    Aug 24 '16 at 4:36





                                    I don't see how screenkey would handle mouse clicks (it seems to be for keyboard indication only), however, its README refers to key-mon which can do that, see my answer below.

                                    – sdaau
                                    Aug 24 '16 at 4:36











                                    1














                                    Use gtk-recordmydesktop and ffmpeg :



                                    apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop ffmpeg



                                    Run RecordMyDesktop capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast :



                                    gtk-recordmydesktop


                                    Create ogv2gif.sh with following content :



                                    INPUT_FILE=$1
                                    FPS=15
                                    WIDTH=320
                                    TEMP_FILE_PATH="~/tmp.png"
                                    ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -vf fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos,palettegen $TEMP_FILE_PATH
                                    ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -i $TEMP_FILE_PATH -loop 0 -filter_complex "fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos[x];[x][1:v]paletteuse" $INPUT_FILE.gif
                                    rm $TEMP_FILE_PATH


                                    Use it :



                                    ./ogv2gif.sh yourscreencast.ogv


                                    References :




                                    • https://gist.github.com/fedir/56aeddde59571402a0d94f78eb6c7a5c

                                    • https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/35282/convert-ogv-video-to-gif-animation






                                    share|improve this answer






























                                      1














                                      Use gtk-recordmydesktop and ffmpeg :



                                      apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop ffmpeg



                                      Run RecordMyDesktop capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast :



                                      gtk-recordmydesktop


                                      Create ogv2gif.sh with following content :



                                      INPUT_FILE=$1
                                      FPS=15
                                      WIDTH=320
                                      TEMP_FILE_PATH="~/tmp.png"
                                      ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -vf fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos,palettegen $TEMP_FILE_PATH
                                      ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -i $TEMP_FILE_PATH -loop 0 -filter_complex "fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos[x];[x][1:v]paletteuse" $INPUT_FILE.gif
                                      rm $TEMP_FILE_PATH


                                      Use it :



                                      ./ogv2gif.sh yourscreencast.ogv


                                      References :




                                      • https://gist.github.com/fedir/56aeddde59571402a0d94f78eb6c7a5c

                                      • https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/35282/convert-ogv-video-to-gif-animation






                                      share|improve this answer




























                                        1












                                        1








                                        1







                                        Use gtk-recordmydesktop and ffmpeg :



                                        apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop ffmpeg



                                        Run RecordMyDesktop capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast :



                                        gtk-recordmydesktop


                                        Create ogv2gif.sh with following content :



                                        INPUT_FILE=$1
                                        FPS=15
                                        WIDTH=320
                                        TEMP_FILE_PATH="~/tmp.png"
                                        ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -vf fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos,palettegen $TEMP_FILE_PATH
                                        ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -i $TEMP_FILE_PATH -loop 0 -filter_complex "fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos[x];[x][1:v]paletteuse" $INPUT_FILE.gif
                                        rm $TEMP_FILE_PATH


                                        Use it :



                                        ./ogv2gif.sh yourscreencast.ogv


                                        References :




                                        • https://gist.github.com/fedir/56aeddde59571402a0d94f78eb6c7a5c

                                        • https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/35282/convert-ogv-video-to-gif-animation






                                        share|improve this answer















                                        Use gtk-recordmydesktop and ffmpeg :



                                        apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop ffmpeg



                                        Run RecordMyDesktop capture a portion of the screen/application to use as the screencast :



                                        gtk-recordmydesktop


                                        Create ogv2gif.sh with following content :



                                        INPUT_FILE=$1
                                        FPS=15
                                        WIDTH=320
                                        TEMP_FILE_PATH="~/tmp.png"
                                        ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -vf fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos,palettegen $TEMP_FILE_PATH
                                        ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -i $TEMP_FILE_PATH -loop 0 -filter_complex "fps=$FPS,scale=$WIDTH:-1:flags=lanczos[x];[x][1:v]paletteuse" $INPUT_FILE.gif
                                        rm $TEMP_FILE_PATH


                                        Use it :



                                        ./ogv2gif.sh yourscreencast.ogv


                                        References :




                                        • https://gist.github.com/fedir/56aeddde59571402a0d94f78eb6c7a5c

                                        • https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/35282/convert-ogv-video-to-gif-animation







                                        share|improve this answer














                                        share|improve this answer



                                        share|improve this answer








                                        edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:37









                                        Community

                                        1




                                        1










                                        answered Feb 14 '17 at 9:15









                                        Fedir RYKHTIKFedir RYKHTIK

                                        1,323198




                                        1,323198























                                            1














                                            I test all above method, found the most simple one is:




                                            1. use gtk-recordmydesktop and key-mon to get a ogv


                                            2. ffmpeg -i xx.ogv xx.gif <-- without any parameter.


                                            the fps is original, and the gif size is less than ogv file.






                                            share|improve this answer




























                                              1














                                              I test all above method, found the most simple one is:




                                              1. use gtk-recordmydesktop and key-mon to get a ogv


                                              2. ffmpeg -i xx.ogv xx.gif <-- without any parameter.


                                              the fps is original, and the gif size is less than ogv file.






                                              share|improve this answer


























                                                1












                                                1








                                                1







                                                I test all above method, found the most simple one is:




                                                1. use gtk-recordmydesktop and key-mon to get a ogv


                                                2. ffmpeg -i xx.ogv xx.gif <-- without any parameter.


                                                the fps is original, and the gif size is less than ogv file.






                                                share|improve this answer













                                                I test all above method, found the most simple one is:




                                                1. use gtk-recordmydesktop and key-mon to get a ogv


                                                2. ffmpeg -i xx.ogv xx.gif <-- without any parameter.


                                                the fps is original, and the gif size is less than ogv file.







                                                share|improve this answer












                                                share|improve this answer



                                                share|improve this answer










                                                answered Mar 10 '17 at 10:11









                                                utopic eexpressutopic eexpress

                                                10117




                                                10117

















                                                    protected by Community Aug 1 '13 at 9:23



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