About visualization using video and snapshots



Adobe Device Central offers visualization tools that help you create both still and moving images of mobile content. These images (videos and snapshots) can be used to quickly and visually identify problems, or to show colleagues and clients what your mobile content looks like. Snapshots are also useful for testing your content. You can use them to do a visual comparison of content on multiple devices created as part of an automated test.

You create videos and snapshots of your content by doing one of the following:

  • Click the video or camera icon at the bottom of the Emulator tab.

  • With the Emulator tab open, select File >Take Snapshot or File >Start Recording Video Presentation.

    Note: You can use a keyboard shortcut (Command+R for Mac OS® or Ctrl+R for Windows®) to take snapshots. If you are recording a script for automated testing that includes snapshots, using keyboard shortcuts is often the most practical way to do it.

About recording video

You can create a video recording (QuickTime .mov) of a bitmap, video, or Flash Lite application showing its different parts and how the user would navigate through them. This allows anyone with a computer to view a demonstration of the application running on a desktop, without needing to have any of the Adobe Creative Suite® applications installed. You can use this functionality to make presentations to clients as well as to record test sequences.
Note: You must have the QuickTime player installed on your computer to record and play back video.

Record and save video

  1. In the bottom control bar of the Emulator tab, click Start recording video presentation icon . The icon changes to show that recording has begun  .

  2. Interact with your content as needed to emulate the behavior you want to record.

  3. To stop recording, click Stop recording video presentation . The Save Movie dialog appears.

  4. Enter a name and path for your file and click Save. By default, the file is saved to the folder that contains the content being emulated.

About snapshots

You can take snapshots of the device screen in Device Central. Snapshots can be viewed in the Log window. They can be used as a visual debugging tool to compare how mobile content appears on a selection of devices. They can also be used as a visualization tool to help you communicate concepts for mobile content to clients. When using them for debugging, you can also include snapshot taking as part of automated testing. The snapshot log created can also be exported as HTML so that you can post it for review on a website.

Create snapshots of device screen content

 In the bottom control bar of the Emulator tab, click Take snapshot. Alternatively, choose File > Take Snapshot, or press Command+R (Mac OS) or Ctrl+R (Windows).

View snapshots in the log

Every new snapshot-taking session creates a new row in the snapshot log. The beginning of a new snapshot-taking sessions is determined by any of the following:

  • You double-click a device in either a library or the Device Sets panels.

  • You open a new test file.

  • You change the content type to what you want to test.

  • A new test script is loaded.

To view the snapshots in the log, do one of the following:

 In the bottom control bar of the Emulator tab, click Show snapshots. Alternatively, choose Window > Log, or press Command-L (Mac OS) or Ctrl-L (Windows).

Export snapshot log as HTML

You can use exported snapshots to let persons who do not have Device Central review your mobile content concepts. Export the snapshot log as HTML to create a folder with the snapshot in that format, which you can deploy on a website. The folder includes an index.html page, CSS files, and snapshot images.

  1. In the Log window, click Export Snapshot Log as.

  2. Choose Export as HTML.

  3. Specify a name and destination location for a folder that will contain the exported index.html, CSS, and images. Then click Save.

Delete snapshot sessions from the log

The Snapshot Log is automatically cleared when Device Central exits. To delete one or more snapshot sessions (rows) in the log while you are running Device Central, do the following:

  1. In the Log window, select the session that you want to delete. You can also use Command-A (Mac OS) or Ctrl-A (Windows) to select all rows in the session log.

  2. Click Delete.

Include snapshots in test scripts

Test scripts can take snapshots when they run.

  • When you record a script, you can tell the script to take individual snapshots as you use the emulator. Device Central does not actually generate snapshots when you are recording. Instead, when you play the script, the script takes snapshots at the specified points.

  • You can edit the script to take snapshots. For example, you can take a snapshot at the beginning of the session or explicit time intervals. You do this by adding emulator.snapshot() functions to the script. For an example, see the One Snapshot Per Second sample script that is provided with Device Central.

When you record a script, click Command-R (Mac OS) or Ctrl-R (Windows) to tell Device Central to take a snapshot. You can also click the snapshot icon at the bottom of the emulator tab. However, if you are recording using the phone keypad, the keyboard shortcut is more convenient, and does not require extra mouse movements.

You can run the script on a single device or multiple devices. When the script completes, the log window automatically opens and shows all the snapshots that were taken.