The Visual Lounge lets you find out about TechSmith behind-the-scenes. Watch screencasts and videos from other customers, meet up with your fellow TechSmith users and staff, and get more tips and tricks!

This week's Screencast of the Week comes from CisionPoint. This screencast uses a few of Camtasia Studio's features like SmartFocus, transitions, and callouts. But... what I really like about this screencast is the ending. They use a little known feature of Camtasia Studio as their call to action...

In Camtasia Studio, you can turn your callouts into a Flash Hotspot. These are nice because you can add interactivity to your screencast such as:

• Direct customers to a link to download your software.
• Show viewers Web sites in a new browser window.
• Demonstrate examples through hyperlinks in the callout.
• Take viewers to specific markers within the video.
• Allow viewers to replay a section in the video.

Click the screenshot below to see the CisionPoint screencast.

Here's how you can add a Hotspot to a Callout (note: you must produce to the Flash output (MPEG-4 or SWF):

To add a hotspot to an existing callout, double-click the callout on the timeline. The Callouts tab opens.

1. In the Callouts tab, enable the Make Flash Hotspot option.
2. Click the Flash Hotspot Properties button.
3. The Flash Hotspot Properties dialog box appears.



4. Select the Hotspot actions.
5. Click OK.

Flash Hotspot Actions

Will you make your screencasts more interactive?