Article: generate animated gifs

Animated gifs are a convenient way to show features of a tool.

The art of a great animated gif is to clearly demonstrate information, so the gif should

• not be too fast (or incredibly slow) - Emacs
• should be obvious what is being shown (commands and key bindings used should be clearly understood)
• should be easy to see on all devices (ensure text is big enough, good contrast between text and background)

Desktop tools

• https://github.com/phw/peek#ubuntu - looks very good, although Ubuntu PPA version not installable on my Linux setup (Regolith Linux) - TODO: try peek flatpack or appimage install

Command line tools

• https://gif.ski/ - convert video to animated gif

GifSki

Convert any video to an animated gif.

Create a screen capture video using any tool, e.g. OBS, simplescreenrecorder. Save the video. Carry out any edits required using a video editor, e.g. Blender. Convert the final video into an animated gif.

Installed as a debian package (other options available) using dpkg -i package-name.deb

Does a good job by default

gifski -o animated-gif-name.gif video-screencast.mkv  

Set frames per second to reduce size of gif

gifski --fps 10 -o screengrab-fps10.gif screengrab-2022-03-06_15.51.41.mkv  

Emacs projects

• camcorder.el - no longer seems to work with Spacemacs (or it might be Emacs 29)
• emacs-director - https://github.com/bard/emacs-director

Emacs Director - automating screencasts

Automate Spacemacs using Emacs in a terminal (GUI not supported).
Write a script that types out actions at a consistent pace
https://www.philnewton.net/blog/emacs-animated-gifs/

Start by reviewing the issue's guidance on GIF pacing, readability, and key bindings, then test the referenced GifSki and Emacs Director workflows. The article is done when it documents a reproducible animated-GIF workflow, including the shown commands and relevant Emacs or terminal limitations.