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+title: Documentation video creation
+date: 2019-02-11 15:40
+author: Laura Lazzati
+tags: Guix Days, Outreachy
+---
+My goal in this round as an [Outreachy](https://www.outreachy.org/)
+intern for the December/18 to March/19 period consists of creating introductory documentation videos
+about different topics for people who would like to use GNU Guix,
+admins and/or those who would like to join Guix community and don’t
+know where to start. Even interested or having a clear documentation, they
+might feel overwhelmed by it. I experienced this issue in the past with people in another context.
+
+My main tasks consist of creating a workflow for
+automating as much as possible the process of creating the videos, as well as,
+of course, creating the videos themselves. Creating the videos is not that easy
+as it might seem, I have to design them (I cannot automate that part), let
+the audio match the video, and matching the exact timing is quite difficult.
+Something very important that I should mention is that the workflow currently
+allows translations to other languages.
+
+It is a work in progress for too many reasons, specially because it keeps
+being improved all the time.
+
+Also, I had to study tools deeply both for the creation of the workflow and the videos
+because I did not know them beforehand or I knew just the basics.
+
+After trying several approaches for the workflow, the current one consists of
+creating "pieces of videos" and gluing them together in the end.
+
+These "pieces of videos" may consist of:
+- Slide videos: they contain only a sequence of one or more slides.
+- Command line session videos: they contain only Guix or shell commands and
+their output, without showing any slide at all.
+
+##### Workflow for creating each slide video.
+
+![slide](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/guix-artwork.git/tree/website/static/blog/img/outreachy-2019-outreachy-2019-slide-video.png)
+
+The inputs are .svg files and audio files.
+First, .svgs are converted to .pngs ("the slides").
+Then, a text file having the order in which each slide will
+appear and the duration of the audio that matches it is created.
+An audio text file containing all the audio files sorted to
+have a complete audio file is created too.
+Lastly, with the slides' text file that has the reference to the slide files
+and the glued audio file the final slide video is made.
+
+##### Workflow for creating each command line session video.
+
+![cli](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/guix-artwork.git/tree/website/static/blog/img/outreachy-2019-outreachy-2019-cli-video.png)
+
+The input is a session text file that has commands or meta-commands that
+are used to simulate, for example, the typing of a command, or the printing of
+it’s output.
+This file is passed to a Guile script that is in charge of executing the
+commands defined in the input text file and take text snapshots at a fixed time
+ interval. Then, all these files are converted to postscript format. After
+that, they are transformed to .svg format. Finally, the process is repeated and
+the audio and the slides are glued to have final command line session video.
+
+##### Workflow for creating the final video.
+
+![gluing](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix/guix-artwork.git/tree/website/static/blog/img/outreachy-2019-outreachy-2019-gluing-video.png)
+
+Slide videos and command line videos are a "bunch of videos"
+that need to be glued into the final one. They are sorted, and using the
+same tool for video creation our final introductory video is created.
+
+#### About GNU Guix
+
+[GNU Guix](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix) is a transactional package
+manager for the GNU system. The Guix System Distribution or GuixSD is
+an advanced distribution of the GNU system that relies on GNU Guix and
+[respects the user's
+freedom](https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html).
+
+In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports
+transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management,
+per-user profiles, and garbage collection.  Guix uses low-level
+mechanisms from the Nix package manager, except that packages are
+defined as native [Guile](https://www.gnu.org/software/guile) modules,
+using extensions to the [Scheme](http://schemers.org) language.  GuixSD
+offers a declarative approach to operating system configuration
+management, and is highly customizable and hackable.
+
+GuixSD can be used on an i686 or x86_64 machine.  It is also possible to
+use Guix on top of an already installed GNU/Linux system, including on
+mips64el, armv7, and aarch64.