Getting Started

Sign up for a free account to get started

Add your company email address and password to create an Account. For security reasons, we’ll send a verification to the email address provided to complete your setup. It will arrive in seconds and you’ll be ready to set your Account preferences.

Fill in your name and update your Team Settings

Update your name in the Account Settings section. If you are the first person on your team to sign up, you will automatically be designated an Admin and have a set of Team Settings available in your preferences.

Add your Company as the team name associated with your Account and provide a filename for the root screenshot folder (this is where all your captured screenshots will be saved to the cloud). We save all captured screenshots in a customizable and easy-to-understand folder structure which will include your team name.

/ team name / product name / screenshot mode / filename .PNG

Add team members

Upon saving your Account preferences you will be able to add team members under the Team Settings section. We will automatically send an invite to the email address provided and guide your team members through setting up their account.

Add your help center URL

Select Import Help Center from the home screen in your LaunchBrightly dashboard and enter your help center URL to import all the existing images from your help center.

This allows you to take an inventory of the existing images in your help center and can be used as a quick start guide for setting up the Product Elements you want the automated screenshot platform to automatically capture screenshots of.

Update your Product Name

Select the auto-generated name at the top of your help center import to open the Product sidebar and enter the name of your Product which, oftentimes, is the name of your company itself.

Add your Web App URL

Add the Web App URL for each of your products. (Each of your products is likely to live on its own individual URL e.g. app.companyname.com).

Provide access to login credentials for your Demo Account

Most products live behind a login and password gate. Add the login and password details, or an authentication token, for your demo account to allow the screenshot automation platform to access your demo account to take automated screenshots.

Select what types of automated screenshots you want to capture

We initially provide 4 types of screenshots, with "Desktop - Light mode" being a mandatory screenshot type. The screenshot process is fully automated so no need to worry, you can edit these settings at any time to re-run the process and capture your screenshots in a new mode.

Name your product screenshot folder

We save all captured screenshots in a customizable and easy-to-understand folder structure which will include separate folders for each of your products. By default, the system will use the name you entered for the product as the “product name” in your folder structure.

/ team name / product name / screenshot mode / filename .PNG

Update the Edition names for your Product

We use the Editions associated with your Product primarily as a filtering mechanism, allowing you to create multiple Editions to filter and group the different Product Elements you want to take automated screenshots of.

The help center import will automatically create an Imported Help Center Edition which contains all the images from your help center import, and an auto-generated empty Edition to help you get started. You can click on any of these auto-generated Editions to rename and update the details as you see fit.

Add a Product Element name

Enter the name, and a brief description, of each of the Product Elements you want to run automated screenshots for.

Use the Screenshot Setup Wizard to add a screenshot sequence

Selecting to add a screenshot sequence will open a replica browser of your Web App within the LaunchBrightly dashboard.

Within the replica browser you will be able to navigate to the page on your Web App where the Product Element lives, use the point-and-click Screenshot Setup Wizard to hover your mouse over the page and highlight the Product Element you want to capture screenshots of.

Once you have selected the Product Element you want to capture, you will be able to trigger a set of Enhancements to be applied to the screenshot (e.g. to add annotations such as a red rectangle, remove unwanted chat bubbles, and prime the image so the dropdown is showing or the input box has the right text).

When your Enhancements are complete you will be able to generate a preview of the enhanced screenshot to review before saving.

Adjust the margin and the background color

The primary purpose of your margin settings is to create a space around the outside of your screenshots, allowing your screenshots some room to breathe and ensuring they do not suffocate (or cram-together) the text or other images where your screenshots will be used. Apply your margin settings, and background color, so they will be consistently applied across all of your screenshots.

Set your cornering

For a lot of designs rounded corners help draw attention and focus to the center of an image while sharp corners, in contrast, draw the eye away from the center. Set your cornering preferences to ensure they applied consistently across all of your screenshots.

Apply your shadow settings

Shadows, when done well, provide depth, contrast and clarity to the image and the page where the image is used. You can adjust the blur, color, and offsets to apply your preferred shadow settings. It is an art rather than a science, but we get you started with parameters similar to how MacOS does shadows on manual screenshots.

Tip: Preview images

You can flip through styling preview images using the small icon in the Style toolbox header. If you are yet to run the automated screenshot process, we'll show a sample product image.

Run the screenshot process

Use the camera icon in the top right-hand corner to start generating your screenshots, and see the status of each screenshot being fetched. Each of your Product Elements will likely have multiple screenshots modes (e.g. desktop and mobile). Additionally, we will also show you the RAW image so you have access to the RAW screenshot along with your styled versions.

Run the screenshot process for ALL your screenshots at any time

Once you have set up your Product Elements and run the screenshot process, all of your automated, beautifully styled screenshots are stored in the cloud. However, there may be occasions where you need to re-run the screenshot process for all of your automated screenshots. Imagine a change to your navigation, a change to your app font, or some cross-app branding changes. A color change or a new type of button. All items that require new screenshots of all your Product Elements. This is where we shine. By clicking the “Reprocess All” button in the upper right-hand corner, we automatically re-run the screenshot process and capture your updated product changes with a new set of screenshots saved to the cloud.

Reprocess screenshots for individual Product Elements

When product updates are made that affect individual Product Elements, you can hover over any individual screenshot and click the bottom info box. A camera icon will become available which allows you to reprocess this single screenshot and save it to the cloud.

Reminder:

These screenshots are saved to our CDN (a globally-distributed network of servers that cache your content close to the user). On the first run, you see them almost immediately, however, on re-runs, you might still see the old ones as it can take time to push this to the edge. If you go to the Elements page from your LaunchBrightly dashboard and click on the relevant Product Element, we will show you what we have in our DB and what is in the midst of being pushed to all corners of the world.

Copy your screenshot URL

Each of the individual screenshots of your Product Elements has a unique URL associated with the screenshot. From the Screenshots page in your LaunchBrightly dashboard you can click on any of your screenshots to open the relevant image in a new window on the proper live cloud URL, and you can simply copy the screenshot URL directly from the URL line in your browser.

Additionally, you can also go to the table view in the Screenshots page, add a filter or sort to make it easier to find your image, and copy the screenshots URL from the "Public URLs" column using the copy icon. The full link will be formatted as follows:

https://screenshot.launchbrightly.com/teamname/productname/screenshotmode/filename.PNG

This will provide you with a URL you can paste directly into a browser to see your screenshot.

Live Linking using a Screenshot URL or populated IMG tag

Rather than using the screenshot URL above and writing the HTML yourself, the Sync page in your LaunchBrightly dashboard provides you with a fully populated IMG tag for each of your screenshots that you can embed directly into your help center.

1. Select the screenshot you want to embed in your help center from the dropdown
2. Copy the Embed Code provided
3. Paste the Embed Code directly into your help center article where you want the screenshot to be placed

Tip: Linking to a screenshot versus uploading a screenshot

We’ve been trained over the years to upload static product images to our Knowledge base and Support systems using things like drag-and-drop or file explorer. This may serve an immediate need, but it means we are now stuck with a static product image that will slowly grow outdated as inevitable product updates occur. Embedding a link to your screenshots allows you to move beyond static images, and creates a live link back to our automated screenshot platform. Your product images can now be updated automatically and without the need to manually drag-and-drop new screenshots into a help center article every time a product update is made.