GIF Like a Pro

simonschreibt.de

24 points·tobr··6 comments

On linux, i like peek[0] quite a lot. Its ui is straighforward, and it can export to gif, webv and mp4. However it's only compatible with X11 as far as i know.

[0] https://github.com/phw/peek

Peek supports gifski (https://gif.ski) encoder, so it can have very high quality.

MacOS has a decent screen recorder hidden away in QuickTime Player (File -> New Screen Recording). Might be worth a try if you're inspired by this but don't want to install anything.

Also, why do people like GIF? Isn't MP4 just a better codec all-round?

H.264 (which is what most people mean by MP4) will force chroma subsampling, which makes saturated color edges look blurry or dirty.

VP9 (aka WebM) can do better (has full-res color). AV1 is even better for this, because it supports lossless block types that are great for screen content like text and icons.

…but GIF works everywhere. GIF is technically outdated in every way, but has unbeatable interoperability.

I’ve made it a requirement in my team to have Screen2Gif for windows or Gifox for Mac installed.

All MRs which add or change UI functionality must be demoed with a GIF as a quick sanity check and gives reviewers a visual overview of the change.

I use QuickTime screen recording and then after trimming the video as needed run it through GIF Brewery. My team had been on GitHub for a decade and at least when we used it GIF was the only way to embed video. We've switched to GitLab, and while I can drag and drop the 50% smaller .mov I've found myself still taking the extra step to convert it to a GIF. GIFs auto play and auto repeat, it's just nicer for demonstrating UI changes, especially with a Before/After table.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com