I’ve been an avid user of SnagIt for a few years now. It’s a great tool for taking screenshots of things and adding boxes, arrows and a variety of effects to explain something. It’s fantastic for putting together documentation or explaining to someone how to use a piece of software. You click a button and it captures either a window or you can draw a box around what you’re interested in. You can then annotate it all you want and save it in the format of your choice. It’s quick, simple and powerful. Well, that is until SnagIt 9.
First of all, let’s look at SnagIt 8:
SnagIt 8 is simple. The tools you need are on the left, such as boxes, arrows, highlighter, text and so forth. The image you’ve captured is in the middle and all effects are on the right such as resizing the image, adding a drop shadow, a torn effect (which is what I’ve used), adding a caption and so on. I frequently capture an image, draw some boxes, arrows and text on it, then add an edge effect – usually that torn paper one – then resize it and save it. Since everything is in one place it takes the minimal number of mouse clicks, all the tools such as the arrow tool remember the settings I’d used before (such as the colour, thickness and depth of shadow) so once I’ve used SnagIt one time it’ll remember everything from then on. Simple.
Now let’s look at SnagIt 9:
The first thing to note is that it uses the fancy new Ribbon control that was introduced by Microsoft in Office 2007 (it’s the strip at the top of the dialog labelled Draw, Image, Hotspots, Tags, etc. and when you click on one it reveals a bunch of related controls). When Microsoft introduced the ribbon a lot of people complained – people hate change after all. However Microsoft put a great deal of effort into deciding what controls to put on which section of the ribbon so that commonly used controls lived next to each other and were easy to discover. After struggling with it for a bit myself I have to admit that Office is far better for the new ribbon. Sadly I can’t say the same about SnagIt.
While the ribbon looks sexy in SnagIt, it’s pretty clear that not a great deal of thought went into deciding what goes where. OK, there may have been a lot of thought about it, but unlike the Office team TechSmith didn’t have the usability statistics to see how people actually use the product. And in a straw poll of one person (me) I have to say that SnagIt 9 has actually made my life harder and as a result I’ve rolled back to version 8 – the first time I’ve ever preferred an older product over a new one.
Take my standard workflow. I’ll capture an image, draw some boxes and arrows, resize it, add a torn edge effect and save. In SnagIt 8 I’d do the following (and I’m assuming I’ve run through the process previously and SnagIt has saved my preferences):
- Capture the image
- Click the ‘box’ tool and draw a box
- Click the ‘arrow’ tool and draw an arrow
- Click the ‘Resize Image’ button on the right and choose the size
- Click the ‘Edge Effects’ button then choose ‘Torn Edge’
- Save image
In SnagIt 9, things are no longer as simple. Now I have to do the following (and note that I’m assuming I’ve run through the process before so SnagIt should really remember my presets like SnagIt 8 does):
Capture the image (same as before)- Click the ‘Draw’ tab
- Click the ‘box’ button and find that it’s chosen the default one and not the one I want so I have to…
- Click the drop-down next to the styles to find one I’ve saved before in ‘Quick Styles’ noting that after a reboot my quick style has disappeared so I have to…
- Use the default box and draw it, then click the ‘Outline’ button and choose the red colour I prefer to the default dark red (note that red isn’t in any of the presets)
- Next click Effects > Shadow > More Shadows so that I can change the default shadow (note that in SnagIt 8 I’d do this once only and it would be remembered for ever more)
- Click the arrow next to ‘Styles’ to add the current style to ‘Quick Styles’ knowing it’ll be forgotten later
- Now to draw the arrow I’ll have to go back to point 3, but click the arrow instead of the box button – sigh
- Ok, time to resize the image, that means clicking the ‘Image’ tab
- Click Resize > Resize image – pretty much the same as SnagIt 8
- Now to add the edge effect, as usual it’s forgotten my quick style so I click Edges > Torn Edges and set the values I want (click ‘Add to Quick Styles’ and hope it’s there next time)
- Save image
Ok, I admit that if they manage to fix the fact that the quick styles keep being lost (and kept in view every time) it’ll make things slightly better, but nevertheless for my workflow – which is nothing special – it would mean a lot of flitting between the ‘Draw’ and ‘Image’ tabs and indeed that’s been the frustration. I love the fact that SnagIt 8 has all the tools you need in one place – changing tabs is like walking into another room and it just slows me down. It’s a real shame as SnagIt 9 has a lot of other cool features like being able to do multiple captures in a row and having a library recording all the snapshots you’ve taken. I gave it a few months to see if I liked it but when I happened to use SnagIt 8 on one of my machines it reminded me how much better it was so I rolled back.
I can see why as a software vendor you’d see the Microsoft Office ribbon and want to put it in your application – if nothing else it looks cool – but it’s easy to forget that the ribbon was designed to handle software containing hundreds of functions such as Word and was laid out with a great deal of care and thought. And while it works well in Word it’s not necessarily of benefit to applications with a couple of dozen functions. In the case of SnagIt it takes a light, quick and simple application and makes it just that little bit less light, quick and simple – which for me has always been its defining strength.
If you don’t take a lot of captures or are happy with all the defaults, then SnagIt 9 may be fine for you. But I’m a bit particular and fussy, so all that new GUI just gets in my way and means I’m better sticking with SnagIt 8. Bah humbug!
Wow. In about 8 years, I think this is the first hint-let of negativity I have ever seen from Mr Conners.
On a more serious note, I’d actually never heard of SnagIt before today (which shows I am in corporate IT hell and not doing enough geeking at home, or maybe I have and I’ve just forgotten about it). I must confess I am not a fan of the “ribbon” even when deployed in a role it was designed to fulfil, so I would imagine having it inflicted upon me in a known and loved app would annoy the pants off me, but I’d have a good old rant rather than write a rational explanation of why I felt that way. 🙂
I know, I’m usually such a complete optimist! Maybe I’m getting old and grouchy!
Google chat, 12th June 2008, 10am:
John: “hi ian. there’s a new version of snagit out, version 9, and it rocks! you can do multiple captures at the same time, it has a library so it remembers all your captures and it even uses the ribbon control to good effect!”
:-p
Personally I like the new version just for the library functionality – I didn’t like the way that each capture in SnagIt 8 overwrote the previous one.
And I don’t really amend the captures all that much so the defaults work fine for me.
Heh heh, well my first impression was that it indeed did rock – and to a large extent it does – but over time the little things started to bother me more and more. Still, each to their own!
You’ve hit the nail on the head there. (UI design is one of my “pet peeves,” so to speak.) Far to many people are just slapping the “ribbon” interface onto programs that have absolutely no business using a ribbon (or, if they do, it’s all done wrong, wrong, wrong).
I’ve always used a program called “MWSnap” to do screen captures. I don’t know if you’ll like it, but I figured I’d mention it, just in case it helps.
Hi John,
Nice blog.
I can’t agree with you. I have been an avid Snagit user since version 6 and I would have to say that version 9 is a big step up. All I needed was to spend about an hour customizing the quick access toolbar.
I just created buttons of all the commands I normally use, placed them in order (if I do a several steps process) and I had a fantastic increase in workflow.
Now I have access to 39 quick styles and several hundred stamps, shadows and everything I normally use directly from the top bar.
I also did a blog post about Snagit First impression on Snagit Guide and we have gotten a very good response (see: http://www.snagitguide.com/75/snagit-9-first-impressions/ )
Just my two cents 😉
All the best,
Peter
Thanks Peter! I’m sure that for most people SnagIt 9 is indeed a better experience but for me and the limited way I’ve always used it that’s not the case. The way the GUI was laid out in 8 happened to fit the way I worked perfectly. Since I spend most of my time drawing boxes or applying edge effects / resizing, then the fact that those two functions live on different tabs in the ribbon means I’m having to do more work to get the job done. Sure it’s only an extra couple of mouse clicks but the to-ing and fro-ing adds up.
I guess my main focus was from a user-interface perspective and the choice of using the ribbon because it’s cool rather than useful. SnagIt 9 could have been far more usable and literally had its cake and eaten it had the designers spent more time focusing on usability and less on implementing the latest cool Microsoft control.
That said, I’ll have a go customising the styles and quick access toolbar and see if it changes my mind!
Oh dear! Don’t you like any modern software, John? 😉
So I take it this means that we won’t be seeing the Ribbon in John’s Background Switcher any time soon? One of the problems with Windows software is that lots of vendors seem to feel the need to copy all the doodats from the latest version of Microsoft Office, regardless of whether they’re appropriate or not.
@Peter – a big step up, after you’ve spent an hour customizing it?! It sounds like TechSmith really have embraced the Microsoft disease that equates more stuff with better.
I know, I seem to be turning into one of those old software guys who doesn’t like anything and reckons nothing interesting has happened in the field for 30 years! 😉
Don’t worry, I’ve read Jensen Harris’s blog about the development of the ribbon and appreciate why it only adds value to software with the amount of functionality Word has. For further reading on the subject:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/11/10/the-office-2007-ui-bible.aspx
I just saw a website called http://www.jingproject.com/ that has a program that does screen captures, and video casting as well, and lets you share it online.
I did not look into snag it that much, could be it does the same thing…
Hi John – Thank you for your feedback about SnagIt 9. I appreciate it. I have shared your blog post with the SnagIt and Usability teams.
Sorry to hear that you do not like updates to SnagIt 9. I can assure you that we were conducting user studies even before SnagIt v8 was released. And, from our usability testing and beta testing, we learned about how people were using our software and what they weren’t using in SnagIt. During our testing and studies, we explored several different ways of arranging the tools in the SnagIt Editor. Microsoft’s new ribbon interface tested as a fast and easy way for people to learn and use the SnagIt editor.
Keep the feedback coming. We need it. We’re always working on SnagIt and looking to improve it. Would you be interested in participating in a beta or usability test?
Betsy Weber, Chief Evangelist
TechSmith
PS @Shmuli – TechSmith makes the Jing Project too.
Hi Betsy,
Don’t get me wrong, I love SnagIt and always have! I just found that for me the ribbon got in my way more than it helped – although one of your engineers (Adam) was kind enough to point me in the direction of a fix for the ‘Quick Styles’ being forgotten so that’s my major gripe sorted.
I’d be delighted to participate in any beta / usability testing, just let me know. 🙂
Hi John,
Thanks for the SnagIt love and feedback. 🙂
Yep, I forgot to mention the QuickStyles fix. For your other blog readers, they can find it here – http://tinyurl.com/6k5663
I’ll drop you an email about testing.
Bets
I completely agree with you John. I think v9 is too complicated/bloaty and is generally a step backwards. I prefer Snagit v8 and will not be using v9
I think it’s a step backwards. It’s slower to load and where’s my “Done” button. I’ve got to carpal-tunnel my way over to the “x” to close the window. Why black? and stop installing so many add-ins to all the microsoft applications making them slow and buggy…now I’m trying to get back to snagit 8. the extra configuration of snagit 9 may have been killed by making the basics more cumbersome…standard bloatware move (no need to copy microsoft on everything).
I can’t stand the slow performance of SnagIt 9 on my 4 year old machine.
And yes, I had to revert back to version 8.
Maybe when I buy a new PC next time.. but definitely not now 🙂
[…] Pro: The techsmith team implemented a ribbon on snagit 9 and say their research showed it worked well. […]
Glad I’m not the only one that finds Snagit 9 a backwards step. Maybe I need to play around and reconfigure things? I don’t know, I never did in Snagit 8 and 7. I’ll give it a bash. If that doesn’t work I’m going back to 8.
I agree about the controls down the left hand side. Much quicker to work with than having to go through menu’s. I’ve been using 9 for several months and frankly find it annoying to use. 7 and 8 were a joy to use and quicker for me.
Cheers
Nigel
I am no expert when it comes to snagit but I just installed SnagIt9 and there are definitely some usability issues. I would consider myself an intermediate user who has used previous snagIT versions to do complex editing (except when it came to multiple layers requiring Photoshop). This time, all I needed to do was to crop an image and resize it. I fumbled my way to the “Image” tab but I still was unable to do this simple function. Every time I click on the crop icon a message displays “there is no area selected.” In version 8, you would deselect the image (click anywhere outside of the image) and then could use any tools. Ugh…to think we were making things better! I’ll play around with version 9 later but for the time being, I’ve reverted to version 8. It seems Techsmith could have used the previous intuitive and simpler interface.
I found Peter’s comment very telling:
“I can’t agree with you. I have been an avid Snagit user since version 6 and I would have to say that version 9 is a big step up. All I needed was to spend about an hour customizing the quick access toolbar.”
If it takes an experienced user an hour to customize to where he will be more productive, how is the average pre-9 SnagIt user going to function. If that much work is needed, why wasn’t that version of the toolbar introduced as an option.
I am a long-time SnagIt user – daily since 1999 – and I had to go back to 8 as well. For most of the other versions, I upgraded the day they came out. While I did have a problem with 8 where they did away with the table listing of profiles, I finally came around.
I was a SnagIt 9 Beta tester and I had the same problems with the ribbon. I had probably a dozen suggestions and I don’t think any of them got fixed.
The one that was the deal breaker for me so that I could recommend the upgrade to nearly 40 users is the merging of the Catalog Browser into the editing screen. The screen just got too busy and confusing and then the black (and not changeable) background.
Sorry, SnagIt, this dog don’t hunt.
I’ve recently upgraded to SnagIT 9 (from 7) and find it to be a bit cumbersome and a resource hog. There is an unusual capture delay and SnagIT doesn’t appear to play well with RoboHelp (or the other way around) as I can’t have the two apps opened and working at the same time – too slow. (I’ve got 1.5 gig of ram so I don’t think memory is a problem, or is it?)
Yeah, I’ve found it’s definitely slower than previous version – and 1.5GB of RAM is plenty, the software shouldn’t even break sweat with that amount of memory. It’s just the new version to blame I’d say!
That and for some reason Symantec does not like SnagIt. There’s this little thing called snagpriv.exe that runs in the background with tschelp.exe. Symantec detects SnagIt as broadcasting traffic and kicks off a scan causing SnagIt to crash and burn. The System Admins won’t do a thing about it so I have to end both tasks each time I launch SnagIt and hope that it won’t be tooooo slow. I would love to remove snagpriv.exe but software won’t start without it. Am so frustrated and thinking of downgrading.
I landed here on your site after googling a complaint question about snagit 9.
I have been so frustrated with the way it won’t open, then pauses and odd moments it opens after I try to open it.
Then there was the “invalid arguement” problem, which they have a fix for on their website. ( if anyone needs that)
It won’t work when I have certain sites open and overall it has been driving me crazy! It was nice to know some other people feel the same.
I am rolling back to vs 8 as well now. I don’t like the “ribbon” either. I use this for graphics and screen captures, so all the bells and whistles are not something I need.
(plus who has time to learn so many great programs out there)
I am never caught up with all the stuff I own already.
🙂
Linda, thanks for sharing that. I thought it was just me suffering the ‘lag’ time. e.g. performing a capture is way slooooowww while waiting for SnagIt Editor to wake up. (already have SnagIt opened and minimized in the toolbar.) Then the delays while editing your shots. yikes.
I agree with you 100%. I’ve been an avid user of SnagIt since version 6. I use it every day (IT Tech support) for troubleshooting and how-to documents. So far, v9 has been a major step backward. It’s slow as frozen molasses and I really don’t care for the capture history as much as I originally anticipated. It ends up being clutter with no easy way to clean it up. I sent the SnagIt folks my thoughts (professionally of course) on the new version. Let’s hope they listen to their loyal customers.
Hello from London,
I was an avid Snagit 7 user for many years.
As it happened I upgraded my computer (after 5 years) and installed all my trusted programs Snagit being on of them.
I went with the newest version (9) and am heavily disappointed that I am presented with ribbons, a ‘cute’ GUI, and laggy response.
(it’s far slower now compared to my older computer)
In addition I’m unhappy that there is no option to switch back to the pull down menus.
I like the multiple clipboard feature at the bottom but will revert to version 8 in about 10 minutes.
During the course of upgrading my PC I also installed MS-Office 2007, coming from Office 2003.
I was very upset about the inefficient ribbon and the GUI in general.
I feel that ribbons steal a lot of screen space vertically.
What has the world come down to??
Cheers,
Andrew
Several weeks ago SnagIt 9.1.0 began crashing as soon as a capture went to the editor for preview. A box would pop up saying ‘snagiteditor.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close,’ inviting me to send a report to Microsoft. I uninstalled and reinstalled with no change in results. Yesterday I completely uninstalled and/or deleted all snagit folders and files and installed v. 9.1.1. I get the same crash and error in editor, and now I also get the same thing in snagit32.exe. Any ideas where I should look for the conflict?
I haven’t got a clue, I’ve stuck with SnagIt 8. Your best bet would be to try SnagIt support:
http://support.techsmith.com/
Thanks, I’ll see what they say and report back if it’s helpful. Meanwhile I’ve gone back to SnagIt 8, which works just fine (and fast!). I’ve been a user since v. 5, and it’s disappointing to see mission-creep make a good product less desirable. They all seem to do it, the Peter Principle for software. 🙁
Yeah, v8 rocks and unfortunately I think they passed a tipping point from “light and fast” to “bloated and slow”. Too clever for their own good!
I’ve never expressed as strong an emotion about a tool before, but I HATE Version 9. I use snagit 7.2.1 as part of my daily routine. I’m in marketing and therefore need it for my marketing campaigns however the new version leaves me at a loss!
I’ve tried to buy version 8 and Techsmith refuse to sell it to me!
Sigh, well, I’m going to try and go back to my lowly 7.2.1!!!1
I was doing a search to see why Snag-It 9 was running when I thought I had shut the product down. Little did I know that Snag-It 9 stays active in the tray on the right even after openig nand closing the app. You need to right click on the icon in the right tray and exit the product. It causes numerous problems and I agree with John Conners that Snag-It 9 is a HUGE step backwards in usability IMHO. I’ve always loved Snag-it even though I am no technoid. It was easy to use, qucik and simple. Now everything is a giant PITA! It is almost as bad as the new Office 97, which I also hate!
Hi all,
As a user experience designer, I use SnagIt 8 (not 9, anymore!) almost every day. It is indispensable, and I enjoy using it because it’s so easy and lightweight. Yes, it’s great for simple screen captures. What I most love, though, is the ability to quickly crop, highlight, insert arrows, add comment bubbles, and drag things around. Pound for pound it’s the best tool I have for quickly communicating visually.
I installed SnagIt 9 several months ago. Right away I was struck by the time it took to load. I also struggled with formatting text on this floating palette that appears and disappears. The ribbon was not immediately understandable. I know new interfaces take a while to adjust to, so I allowed some time to get acquainted with the new UI. I probably gave it 4-6 weeks. As I continued to use it, the floating text palette continued to be awkward and annoying. The startup time made me get a sinking feeling every time I wanted to take a screen capture. Everything took longer.
The *only* advantage of SnagIt 9 over 8, in my opinion, is the capture history, where earlier captures are within easy reach. Unfortunately this was outweighed by other factors.
Ultimately I had to revert back to SnagIt 8, and I am happy again. I wrote Techsmith several times to say that SnagIt 9 is a classic example of bloatware, with many features I don’t care about which drag down performance and make the UI more complex. To me, the performance is unacceptable. I want to hit print screen and see the crosshairs. Now that I’m back to SnagIt 8, that’s what I get, and I’m happy.
I should note that my computer is equipped to handle heavyweight software — I use Visio and Photoshop and they run fine. A simple screen capture program should really not tax my machine as much as SnagIt 9 does.
I urge the product team to consider scrapping 9 entirely, going back to 8, and making small incremental improvements (such as capture history), a la 37signals.
> The *only* advantage of SnagIt 9 over 8, in my opinion, is the capture
> history, where earlier captures are within easy reach. Unfortunately
> this was outweighed by other factors.
Agree, the history thing is nice but I rarely ever have a use for it.
After half a year of SnagIt 9, I’ve also downgraded to version 8. I’m sticking with XP SP2 for as long as I can. Any extra bloat for Vista/Windows 7 and new UI changes I won’t be following TechSmith’s roadmap anymore.
I’m the owner of the full version of Snagit 7 and downloaded the trial of Snagit 9 yesterday.
I was just about to post a review in my blog, because I couldn’t believe how clumsy version 9 feels compared to version 7. Then I found your post, so I don’t need to write my article any longer.
You are 100% right.
The ribbon bar in MS Office is all there is – so you know where to look. But in Snagit Main Window you have
– the menu
– the ribbon (which is empty in the main Window)
– the profiles
– the profiles settings
– the quick launch links
– the related tasks
– a little toolbar on the top right site of the screen
– the capture button
I was looking on how to save a change I made of a capture profile. Something which took me know time to figure out in Snagit 7, it was just obvious in version 7.
Here in version 9 I had to look up how to do this in the help file.
While downloading the trial of version 9, I was already thinking of buying the full version, just because I like version 7 so much and I thought that version must be even better. But now I think I stay with version 7.
In case you are wondering
Hello all. I got here by Googling a complaint about SnagIt 9 also. Formerly an avid user of 8, 9 is a big step backward in usability. As an example, I’m not a fan of shadows. The process to quickly remove the shadow is a huge pain. (It would also be nice to permanently set the defaults of such things, ie, NO SHADOWS.) Betsy! Please take note. 🙂 Thank you.
Where is the old Snagit tech support fixing bugs almost as soon as you reported them.
I was using the scrolling feature in 8.2.3 and noticed that the profile description listed Auto Scroll even when it was Scroll Active Window. I wrote tech support about it and the following is their response. They have known about it, but didn’t fix it when they came out with 9.
The last fix to scrolling was in
10 January, 2005: Snagit v7.2.1 and there have had *18* minor or major releases since then!!
Response from Techsmith Support 05/14/2009 08:07 AM
Hi Alex. Our developers are currently aware that there are limitations in scrolling captures. This will be addressed in a future release. There were no updates to scrolling capture between 8 and 9 so if you are happy with 8, there may be no express need for you to update.
I have to take this complaint back about the Tech Support. They don’t control what the developers work on. They just take the flack for what the developers don’t fix.
I agree, the new Snagit 9 is awful. Annoying pop-up balloons all the time, no classic view, convuluted interface requires a lot more clicking than the older versions. What they’ve tried to do here is dumb it down for retards. What they’ve actually done is stolen functionality from power users.
Thank you so much for all the feedback. I have continued to send it to our user experience and Snagit teams so they hear your comments.
Would anyone be willing to help usability tests and beta test future versions of Snagit? We need your feedback so we can improve…
If you’re interested, drop me an email.
Betsy Weber | Chief Evangelist | TechSmith
+1 (517) 410-0030 | b.weber@techsmith.com
blog: http://visuallounge.techsmith.com
twitter: @betsyweber and @techsmith
I’d be happy to test a new version but I think it will be hard for your team to understand that moving backwards is really moving forwards. SnagIt 8 is a tool I use on a daily basis. SnagIt 9 was not an upgrade. Keep in mind that keeping an application fast and easy for 90% of the things you want to do is better than continuously adding features and making screen grabbing so slow.
-Jim
Sorry Usability people – you really missed some testing on ver 9. The thing I hate most id I can’t save the items as objects like I could in 8. Now each time I want to make changes to the original it is like starting from scratch. I pgraded but I neve use 9. it’s way to different. hopefully you will make lots of money on the new users.
PS I hate the black background. It make me feel depressed as I use it.
Just noticed a revealing statistic in Add/Remove Programs:
Size of SnagIt 8: 27 MB
Size of SnagIt 9.1: 146 MB
Maybe this is a factor in the slower performance I was getting with 9.1
P.S. Betsy at TechSmith was responsive to my concerns (above) and shared them within the company, which is appreciated.
P.P.S. I still use SnagIt 8 just about every day, and love it. Whenever I recommend SnagIt, I always say, install 8, not version 9. I would encourage TechSmith to focus more on simplicity and having fewer features that are more valuable, while making snappy performance an absolute requirement.
Thanks for your article John. I have to say, you had a simper time of it than me in Step 10 “Click Resize > Resize image – pretty much the same as SnagIt 8”. All I wanted to do was capture an image and resize it, but however I selected the image the resize options were greyed out. So my replacement (most effcient so far) for step 10 was:
a) Click on resize and find it greyed out
b) Click on rotate, flip, horizontal
c) Click again on resize and find it’s come to life
d) Click on rotate, flip, horizontal to get back to my original image
e) Click on resize and resize image
f) Confirm that I want to flatten the object
g) Choose my percentage and finally resize.
By the way, a few years ago I tried the *Microsoft* ribbon bar: once, during a busy project, and could find nothing that I needed. Tasks that had taken less than a second before took me quarter of an hour. I rolled-back to Office 2000 and I will never upgrade again… not to another Microsoft product.
What do you think of SnagIt 10?
Funny you should mention it as I’m taking a look just now. There look like some nice new features, but my point about commonly used tasks not being well placed still holds true. I’ve been forced to use SnagIt 9 on my Win7 64bit machine as version 8 kept crashing so I spend a lot of time flicking between the ‘Draw’ and ‘Image’ tabs. I mostly fade the edges of a capture, then copy it to a clipboard so I have about 5 times as many mouse clicks to do that as SnagIt 8 and that’ll still be the case with SnagIt 10.
I still stand by my assertion that nice though the ribbon looks, from a usability standpoint in SnagIt, it was the wrong option.
Oh, and it still won’t remember that I want my saved quick styles showing in the ‘Image Style’ control so that’s yet more mouse clicks.
While I still use Snagit 8, I try the new versions of Snagit to give them a chance to redeem themselves. However, in version 10, they really screwed the pooch. I sent the following email to Snagit about problems I found in the All Commands list of the Quick Access Toolbar.
I have found some other ones that appear to be bugs or commands that ought to have more explanation in the All Commands list.
I am also listing multiple apparently different commands with the same balloon help. I am also listing commands that are too little information for me to understand.
1. Add to Quick Styles – 2
2. Bottom – 2
3. Center – 4
4. Clipboard – 3
5. Dashes – 2
6. Dn
7. Email
8. Ends – 2
9. Fill – 2
10. Flip – 4
11. Font – 2
12. Gradient – 2
13. Group – 3
14. H – 3
15. Halftone – 2
16. Histo-contrast – 2
17. Horizontal – 2
18. I – 2
19. Learning Center – 2
20. Left – 3
21. Oil Painting – 2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
22. Opacity (Draw) – 2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
23. Opacity (Hotspots) -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
24. Order – 2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
25. Page Curl – 2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
26. Perspective – 2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
27. Perspective/Shear Options… – 2
28. Pixelate – 2
29. Popup Size -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
30. Posterize – 2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
31. Remove Noise – 2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
32. Right – 3
33. Select Color from Image – 4
34. Send -2
35. Sh – 1
36. Shadow (Draw) -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
37. Shadow (Shadow Image) – 2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
38. Shape -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
39. Sharpen -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
40. Shear -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
41. Sm -2
42. Solarize -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
43. Styles – 2
44. Text Color
45. Tolerance -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
46. Top – 2
47. U – 2
48. Vertical -2
49. Width (Draw) -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
50. Width (Hotspots) -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
51. Width (Image) -2 (appears to be error since I can only add the first one)
52. Zoom -2
I too dislike the much reduced performance I see of SnagIt 9. I see 10-20 sec delays before being ready to capture, and the same before being ready to edit. I plan to ask our IT folks if we can go back to SnagIt 8.
It takes guts for any blogger to say this. Because it hurts potential income. In the form of advertisements by the software company or other financial support/reward for saying good things.
I like Snag-It(Ver 8) a lot.
I agree completely that Snag-It 8 is better than the newer versions. I have used Ver 8 for many years. Version 8.2.3 (Build14) 1 May 2007.
Did not fall for the trap of buying “new” “improved” versions of any software. My Microsoft Office 2003 is still serving me well.
Am well aware that in software – NEWER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER.
Don’t like the ribbon interface.
All software companies have to earn money. Their staff got bills to pay, families to support, limosuines to buy, etc…
So they have to grind out “new” “improved” versions to sell to you.
They are not evil.
It is just that when they plan the new software. Someone decides that in order to cram in all the “new” features, they have to remove some of the existing features of the existing software. Sometimes, this is techincal due to programming conflicts. Sometimes this is due to cost reasons. They have to make compromises.
Just found this very interested post. I used snagit 8 for years, and decided to upgrade to snagit 11, as I needed video for some short tutorial screencast.
I agree with a lot of the above on usability. For now, I’m sticking with Snagit 11 though. The main drawback initially with 11 was the time it took to open the editor after a capture and add some stamps on top of the capture.
I did some changes in the config to speed things a little:
– First, I created a profile that does not open the editor for very simple cases where I only want a snapshot of pieces of the screen. That’s probably 70% of my use of Snagit.
– The 2nd profile I create opens the editor. In Tools/Program Preferences/Program Options I checked “Always keep Editor running in background”. There is a memory cost to that, but it seems acceptable. And now I get the capture in the editor in an acceptable time
– I also try to keep the content of the library small (delete captures I don’t need). I was not able to find away _not_ to save captures in the library.
Hope this helps others…
Weird question for you: any chance you have a copy of the stamps. I just had a computer crash, and when I installed SnagIt 8 on the new computer, I realized that I don’t have any of the stamps, and the versions they have online now aren’t compatible.
I’ve actually not got SnagIt installed just now so only have the installer. Did the stamps not get installed with the installer? If not then I’m afraid I won’t have them either.
I’ve just used SnagIt 9 for the first time (our IT Group is loading V9 on all “new” computers). What an obnoxious POS that takes FOREVER to load! I still use V7 at home, and my previous work computer had V8 (as far as I’m concerned just a fancy-shmancy update of V7). As a person whom has absolutely NO USE for the gaudy, bloated current crop of Windows OS’ that have been foisted upon users, (I still run in Classic Mode on my corporate WinXP64 workstation), the SnagIt 9 interface is an unacceptable garrish hodgepodge (in addition to being slow as molasses to load). As I have corporate keys and download files for both V7 and V8, my next step is to flush SnagIt 9 and “downgrade” to a more FUNCTIONAL (for me) version of the software.
DITTO – NEWER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER. V9 is a bloated pig of an application compared to its predecessor.
Wow! I just “upgraded” to Snagit 11 and have the same frustrations as you. The “standard workflow” you describe above is exactly what I am accustomed to doing using v8. I’m finding v11 very frustrating!