x11rec: a very ad hoc X11 recorder

What's x11rec?

x11rec is a very ad hoc X11 recorder which creates a movie. x11rec sequentially runs xwd to capture a sequence of window images and finally creates a movie file in an MNG or animated GIF format with ImageMagick and Gifsicle

Sample movie which records gnomine (22 sec., 14.5 fps): MNG (66 KB), GIF (38 KB)

News!

2001-06-05: x11rec 0.2 released!
Use Gifsicle for optimizing movie files.
2001-06-04: x11rec 0.1 released!
The first release.

Usage

  % x11rec foo.mng # creates an MNG movie file.
  % x11rec foo.gif # creates an GIF movie file.

Example:

  % x11rec foo.mng
  ** Select an X window with a mouse. **
  id: 537803852
  ** Hit Ctrl+Z to finish the recording. **
  frames: 24
  time: 1 sec.
  fps: 24.00
  converting each xwd file into a gif file: 24/24
  creating the resulting movie file...
  removing temporary files...
  size: 14461 bytes
  done.

Requirements

Ruby
ImageMagick
Gifsicle
xwd, xwininfo

Download

x11rec is a free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2.

x11rec-0.3.tar.gz (About 3 KB)

Tips

To create compressed GIF files, build ImageMagick with ./configure --enable-lzw

Known problems

Can't capture a pointer.
Can't control fps.
Can't record in accurate timing.
Can't work well with low-performance machines.
Can't capture a large window smoothly.