This tutorial demonstrates how to create a screencast from your Linux or Windows desktop, save it in a Flash file, and publish on your blog or a web site.

Step 1. Download and install Wink – a Tutorial and Presentation creation software. Wink captures screenshots and screencasts, adds explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc. Screencasts are saved as Flash (*.swf) files with a corresponding HTML file. It will allow you to publish your content screencasts to your blog. A YouTube account is not required.

Wink is freeware, current versions don’t have source code publicly available. Installation procedures are quite easy, versions for both Linux and Windows are provided. Under Linux Wink requires GTK 2.4 or higher. Some other libraries may be also needed. If Wink finds that all of the requirements listed above were not met, it generates appropriate error messages:

Wink requires that the following packages be installed to run properly. Please install them and try again.
libexpat.so.0

The installation package comes as a zip file. Unzip this file and run setup.exe (under Windows) or ./installer.sh (under Linux). Root privileges are not required.

Step 2. Run Wink (for instance by typing /usr/local/wink/wink). Choose File > New. This brings up a wizard. By default it sets Wink to capture screenshots of the entire screen. Of course, you may change the capture region to a specific window or a custom area (Custom Rectangle, then press Choose and draw a rectangle).

Step 3. Turn off the NumLock key. Otherwise hotkeys in Wink do not work under Linux. Then press OK and minimize Wink to the system tray (Minimize To Tray). Now you can take screenshot by pressing the Pause key. When activated with Shift + Pause hotkey, Wink will continuously capture screenshots. This will allow us to create a custom screencast.

After finishing capturing screenshots right click the Wink icon in the system Tray and choose Finish. We must specify the name of the output Flash file to create. Use the menu Project > Settings. Option Use Palette checkbox field should be checked. This will reduce the number of colours in a palette and the file size of the rendered Flash file.

Now choose Project > Edit Palette and click Create New button. Leaving the default settings is usually recommended. Simply press OK button.

Step 4. To create a Flash file choose Project > Render. Rendering will create either a Flash file with a corresponding HTML, placed in the same folder.

Step 5. Place both files (SWF and HTML) on your blog or a web site. Use your FTP client software to upload the files.