Keystroke Pro 2
Make your on–screen demonstrations and tutorials easier to follow with this clever key press visualizer
$13.99 From ixeau.com
Needs macOS 11 or later
One of the new features in macOS Big Sur is the ability to share your screen when you make FaceTime calls. It’s a great way to show colleagues how work is progressing, or help friends or family fix problems with their Mac. Keystroke Pro 2 takes this help one step further by displaying the keys you press as you press them, freeing you up to to talk about other things happening on the screen.
You can choose how long each key press remains on screen, whether every key is displayed or only modifier keys, and if you have a multi–display setup, you can specify which screen you want the keystrokes to appear on. However, Keystroke Pro won’t display keys pressed when you are entering characters in a secure password field.
Version 2 adds more options for keycap customization, with new sizes, colors, and styles to choose from. There are also new keypress animations to choose from. The multi–display support, length of display choices, and option to display only modifiers are also new in version 2.
It’s not just in live demonstrations, where it can be used with the likes of Zoom and Microsoft Teams, that Keycaps Pro is useful. It makes an excellent partner for screen recording applications like Screenflow 10 (reviewed last issue) and Camtasia.
Getting started with Keystroke Pro is simple. Once installed, all you have to do is grant it permission to access keyboard input in the Security & Privacy pane in System Preferences. When you launch it, it appears as a menu bar item and is activated by default — meaning it displays every key you press. You can deactivate it from the menu bar until you need it. Its settings also allow you to create a hot key to activate and deactivate it.
Using Keystroke Pro couldn’t be simpler. Enable it from its menu bar item or hotkey then start using your Mac as normal. You’ll see the keycaps appear on screen. We tested it using Screenflow and found that it worked well and made instruction videos easier to follow. Our only concern was that occasionally when enabling it or changing settings, our M1 MacBook Air would beachball for a second or two, even though the app is optimized for Apple Silicon.
THE BOTTOM LINE. Keystroke Pro is a great tool for making demonstrations easier to follow, whether live or when using screen recording software. KENNY HEMPHILL