The making of MeCorder.

A language for how videos behave

Programs grew into a small visual language: several WHENs sharing variables, PARALLEL branches, scenes with shots and transitions, an Ask box that turns a sentence into checked blocks, and every effect available as a block. Export became safe and verified.

Improvements

• The Program view, with an Apple × Scratch design language shared by the Timeline
• Ask: describe what should happen; the proposal is validated against the recording before you apply it
• Scenes, shots and Cut or Fade transitions, run by the same executor as Programs
• Every effect in the library can be played from a Program block
• An inspector that follows the selection instead of a twelve-tab toolbox
• Import an ordinary video and edit it like a recording
• A split tool that cuts where you click, scrubbing in Programs, and hold Previous to rewind
• Calmer automatic zooms that ignore mouse noise, with a project-wide zoom switch

Fixes

• Exports are checked after rendering and replace the destination atomically; a failure leaves the old file untouched
• Recording stops safely if a writer fails, and two recordings can never start at once
• Closed editors and AI proposals can no longer overwrite a project
• 4K exports keep 60 fps

Programmable video

The idea at the heart of MeCorder landed: clicks recorded as named elements, Programs that say what should happen when they occur, and a compiler that turns Programs into ordinary camera keyframes and effects.

Improvements

• Programs: WHEN an event happens, run blocks; compiled to keyframes and effects in one undo step
• Hover, Hover Exit, Scroll, Key Press and Text Input events, normalised from the recording
• A block editor with drag-to-insert, several Programs per project and an Events list
• IF / ELSE, typed variables with SET, CHANGE and comparisons
• Reusable Behaviours with parameters
• Export asks where the video is going, and offers YouTube chapters afterwards

Fixes

• Preview drags follow the pointer at full frame rate

Ready for real recordings

Recordings became crash-safe, clicks got names through Accessibility, and the editor gained captions, narration clean-up, looks, iPhone recording and export size targets.

Improvements

• Record a connected iPhone or iPad
• On-device captions and SRT or WebVTT subtitle files
• Narration clean-up: background noise removal and levelling; idle cuts never cut through speech
• Export quality, file size limits (10 MB to 250 MB) and GIF settings
• Looks: save a video’s styling and reuse it
• An adaptive cursor that changes on click and drag, and imported fonts for text
• Share or copy a finished export straight from the toolbar

Fixes

• Interrupted recordings are recovered up to the last couple of seconds
• Runaway memory use while the camera zooms
• The automatic camera eases back to the full view between distant focuses

An editor you work in, not around

The preview became the place to edit: tools to focus, spotlight and highlight by clicking, a contextual bar for the selection, a ⌘K command palette, fifteen new effects and Effect Studio for building your own.

Improvements

• Preview tools: Focus, Spotlight, Highlight, Callout and Zoom
• 15 new effects, organised by what you want to do
• Effect Studio: build effects from layers of shapes, motion, glow and fade
• Light and dark appearance that follows macOS
• A user guide covering every feature

First light

The first build: ScreenCaptureKit recording with the cursor and keys kept separately, an automatic camera, a GPU compositor and exporter, a Timeline editor, effects and the AI Director.

Improvements

• Record a display or a window, with microphone, system audio and webcam as separate tracks
• Cursor and keyboard recorded beside the video, so the cursor can be restyled later
• Automatic zooms with easing, follow and framing
• Timeline editing with undo for every change
• AI Director: edit with a plain-language instruction, applied as one undo step