by Robin Rowe 11/23/05
How to create a flash "movie" of screen shots under Linux with Wink
I had a hard time finding anything that would allow me to make flash "movies" under Linux (and I practically have forgotten how to use Windows, heh), so I was really grateful to Phil Shapiro for turning me on to Wink. The front page for Wink is here:
If you are a relatively simple end user like me, you will be grateful for a few tips on how to download the gzipped tar file, and so that will be the first thing we will discuss here. If you know how to open gzipped tar files, please skip this next section, and scroll down to the actual tips on using Wink.
Basic Newbie Stuff: installing Wink
This is basic newbie stuff. If you are not a newbie, please scroll down, because otherwise you will be tearing your hair out.
Make sure that you are using a distro that comes with Macromedia Flash, or none of this will work. I use SuSE 10.0, and I recommend it.
Go to your file manager to create a directory in which to put your Wink files. If you are like me, you use Konqueror. I hope that you know how to create a directory with Konqueror, because that is pretty basic. If not, you will have a few difficulties here. But I was also frustrated with the lack of basic documentation when I was first starting Linux, and I swore that if I ever wrote documentation, I would help the rank newbies. So here we go.
First make sure you are in your home directory. In Konqueror, your path should look like this:
/home/christian (unless your name is also christian, you will have a different name where "christian" appears).
In Konqueror, click Edit > Create new > folder. You will get a dialog box that offers you the option of creating a new directory. I recommend that you call your new directory "Wink." You will be deleting this directory later, after you have finished installing Wink. Next, open Firefox. Click on Edit > Preferences > Downloads. Make note of the directory into which Firefox will save files. Go to the Wink page given above. Go to the Wink download page and look for the direct download link. Press shft + click on the link to get the option to decide to open the file or save it to disk. Save it to disk. Now use Konqueror to go back to the directory into which Firefox saved the file. Open that directory. Use Konqueror to move the file from that directory into your newly-created Wink directory. Now you are ready to open the package you downloaded.
You will see a file in the Wink directory that is called Wink15.tar.gz . Of course, if you are reading this message after April 10, 2006, the Wink developers might have upgraded Wink to, say, 2.0, at which time the file might be called Wink15.tar.gz. In Konqueror, extract the Wink15.tar.gz file by right clicking on the file name. You will get a list of options. Look for the option that says "extract here". Chose that option. You will see a dialog box flash past your screen that says "extracting." When it disappears, you will see three items in your recently created Wink directory. One of those items should read installer.sh. If not, you are lost. Go back to the beginning and repeat the steps above. If you do see that file, you have now extracted the original Wink15.tar.gz package, and are ready to install the Wink program. We will be using a shell terminal to do that.
In the Wink directory in Konqueror, open a shell terminal by clicking on Tools > Open Terminal. A shell window will appear. A shell window is the part of Linux that looks like the old DOS command line. If you don't know that by now, you are going to have a difficult time, and you need some basic lessons. In the shell window, you will be a user. You need to become a super user. Type su and hit enter. You will be asked for your root password. Type it. Now you will see a hash mark at the end of the line. A hash looks like this ----> # . Now type exactly this
./installer.sh
hit enter.
You will now be asked to specify where you want to install Wink. Type this:
/opt/wink
hit enter. You have now installed Wink in the /opt/wink directory, and you will see a message telling you that Wink has been installed. You are now ready to create a symbolic link for ease of launching Wink. To do so, type
ln -s /opt/wink/wink /usr/bin/wink (that first character there is a lower case L, not a one).
You have created a symbolic link to launch Wink, and now you need to put an icon on your desktop for ease of launching Wink. Right click anywhere on clear space on your desktop. You will get a list of options. Choose Create New > Link to Application. A dialog box will appear called "Properties for Program.desktop - KDesktop. The box will have three tabs. The first tab, called "General" will be open. You will see a picture of a blue gear. Click on it. You will see a bunch of icons. Choose one, any one. It doesn't matter. This is just a picture to help you remember that you are going to launch Wink. The icon you chose will appear where the blue gear formerly was. Beside that box you will see a white field with the words "link to application" it it. Delete those words and type Wink in the box. Do not click Okay until I tell you to do so. Instead, now you should click on the "Application" tab. You will see four narrow white fields with words beside them. Look for the field labelled command. In that field, type this
/opt/wink/wink . Click Okay. You have now created a Wink icon for your desktop and are ready to click on that icon to lauch Wink
How to use Wink to create a flash "movie" with Wink
Wink is not all that intuitive, so don't feel stupid if you don't get it at first. Launch Wink by clicking on the icon that you have just created. Or, you could use Konqueror to navigate to /opt/wink , where you will see a blue gear. Click on that blue gear. Wink will launch. You can also launch Wink from your shell terminal by typing cd /opt/wink to get to your wink directory and then typing wink, at which point wink will launch. The window that appears is the main Wink window. Now you are ready to work with Wink.
To work with Wink, click on File > New . A dialog box will appear labelled New Project Wizard - step 1 of 2. You should see that the box marked "start by capturing screenshots" is checked. If not, check it. Below that box, you will see the word "screen" with a "down" arrow beside it. If you leave the word screen there, you will capture your full screen in your movie. If you click on that arrow and choose Window, you will capture the image in your Window. Let's leave it at screen for now.
Look for the words Timed Capture Rate. You will see a window beside it. The number 4 might be in that window. To the right of that window, you will see the words "frames / second" with a "down" arrow beside it. I recommend using 15 frames per second to start with, but obviously you will want to play with that. The more frames per second, the bigger the file, but the better it will look. So delete 4 and type 15 in the field. Click Ok.
You will now notice two new things on your screen. First, you will see a dialog box on your screen. Second, you will see a new green little icon in your tray in the lower right hand of your screen. That is your Wink icon. Right click on it. You will get a list of options. Click on "Start Timed Capture." You are now capturing the images on your screen. Whatever you do on your screen will be part of the movie. If you move the mouse, that will be in the movie. If you type, your key strokes will be in the movie. Look at the new Wink dialog box on your screen. As time goes by, it counts the frames it has captured. When you are done capturing, right click again on the little green Wink icon in the tray. Choose Stop Timed Capture. Now your dialog will tell you how many frames you have captured. In the bottom middle of the dialog box, you will see the word Finish. Click on it. You will notice that the Wink program is assembling slides at the bottom of the main Wink window. You are now ready to choose whether to export your file as a .pdf or .html, or to turn it into a .swf flash movie.
Turning the project into a flash movie
Since we are not interested in turning the project into a .pdf or .html file, I'm going to pass on that. Instead, here's what you do to turn it into a .swf flash movie. In the main Wink window, click on Project > Render . You will get a dialog box called "project settings" in which you have the option to choose where to save your file. Click on the browse button, and navigate to the directory where you want to save it. For the sake of simplicity, let's say that you are going to save it in your "Documents" directory. Once you have navigated to that directory, type the name of the file that you want. Click Ok. You will be taken back to the "project settings" dialog box. You will now have the opportunity to render your work as a .swf flash file. But before you click okay, make sure that you see the words "Macromedia Flash *.swf" because otherwise, you should see the words "Windows executable" and who wants that? ick. Also, check your frame rate. I recommend 15 frames per second for this example. Click Ok. Wink will now create a .swf file in the directory that you chose, and will give it the name that you chose. Go to that directory using Konqueror. Left click one on the file name. Konqueror will play the Flash file. You are ready to bowl the world over with your awesome new flash movie.
I have not tried playing too much with any of the settings in Wink, so you are going to have to experiment, and come back here and document your findings when you are done. Have fun!