Videos on Workflow processes for code capture and quotes

I wanted to link a couple of things I’ve been learning and doing and highlight them in videos.  In some demonstrations seeing is better than listing

Vid 1. Screen Capture & Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

In this video I wanted to show how to use screen capture process to get code from YouTube and other sites via screen capture and convert to Characters to speed up copying coding longhand.

Along the way I want to highlight some other productivity processes that I am using that make me more organised and productive.

In the video above these are the programmes I’m using:

• Febooti Automation Workshop (free version)
• GreenShot Screen capture  (free)
• Google Keep (free)
• Notepad++ (free)
• Firefox Google Keep Open in New Tab extension (free)
• PyWinContext (free)

Image management

Folder structure, 2 image folders, say:

• Today Images Folder,
• Yesterday Images Folder

Greenshot images opens screenshot in editor and setup to save images to Today Images Folder. The images I usually use in Posts in my WordPress site, so I upload them from this folder.

I use Automation Workshop in Manual mode with 2 operations:

Operation 1: Delete all images in Yesterday Images Folder.

Operation2: Move all images from Today Images Folder to Yesterday Images Folder.

That way I have an empty folder for all my new images and dont have to hunt through to find any. I keep one days worth of images in case I need one of them, then I delete them all.

I can trigger Automation Workshop  for the first action on Logout of computer at night, and 2nd process at login in morning.  I generally just run them manually.

YouTube (or Image) screen capture code & other text  and convert to Characters

If I’m trying to capture code from a YouTube video I pause the video where the code is, zoom in with Firefox Zoom Level and then take a screenshot of only the code with GreenShot.

I then use the “Google Keep Open in New Tab”  Firefox Extension. In Google Keep I open a new Picture note and upload the screenshot (from the “Today Images Folder,”)

I then use the “Get Text From Image”  to copy the text.

It is usually not exact but you can check the text/code with the image above and edit to match.

If it is code, you can copy the code to Notepad++ and save it with the code’s extension (eg .html, .js etc) and Notepad++ will usually check the code syntax for obvious errors which it will highlight.

Then use the code where you intended to use it.

PyWinContext

This part was just highlighting an interesting tool. Hopefully people will use and explore it and share code on it. I have a post on it here.

Vid2. Workflow for getting an online estimate and Quote for a service

In this video I want to show a part process of showing how I can automate sending forma l quote for service after interested people have explored costs of service with estimate sheet.

In the video above these are the programmes I’m using:

• Firefox (free) -Bookmark link properties “Keyword”
• Google Forms (free)
• Google Sheets (free)
• Document Studio- Google Sheets Addon (free version)- An alternative is AutoCrat  Addon (free)
• WordPress plugin “Calculated Fields Form” (free version)
• Gmail (free )

Firefox keyword

Using Firefox keyword where I abbreviate URL code to 2 letters and type this into address bar. Quick way to open web pages you commonly use. Saves hunting through lots of bookmarks.

Google forms linked to Sheets with Document Studio add-on

To get formal quote for a service, in the video, my panorama service is being demonstrated, people interested in the service can fill out an online Google Form. They get an email response with a PDF attachment with a formal quote for the service.

The form populates a linked google sheet. The google Sheet has an Add-on “Document Studio (although AutoCrat could be used also) that takes the information in the sheet, using a sheet template , it populates the template and merges the data from the linked form sheet to create a Quote which it saves in a new folder it creates specific to that query.

It also sends an email (Gmail) to the email address with the quote attached.

It also sends me an email (Gmail) of the quote as well, so that i know there has been an enquiry for the service.

This process is completely automated after the form is filled out and sent.

See these posts for process

• Creating free embedded automated quote for service with Google Docs
• Creating embedded form with alternative choices in Google Docs

Estimate cost of services

Google forms do not do calculated fields on the form. So you could possibly embed a spreadsheet into a post to do some calculations or use “Calculated Fields Form” WordPress plugin to give interested people a way to get an estimate for the service. See this post Calculated Fields Form & Sidebar Image links.

The free version does not let you save the estimates but you can always do a screenshot to capture the information.

End comment

The cam studio played up again and I had to reboot the computer to get it to work for the 2nd vid. I had previously downloaded Flashback Express recorder but it saves its files  as .fbr extension. On trying to save a copy (export I think) to .avi it took ages, so I stopped it and went back to CamStudio. I will have to keep looking for a simple, reliable free video creation tool.

I think the video is a good way to link the ideas of the processes and show their effectiveness far better than writing posts. I think they are worth doing in specific cases.

The 2nd video shows me I’m only part way through that process and need to see about the next parts of the process.