Troubleshooting

reel doctor

It says whether Screen Recording and Accessibility are granted, and to which terminal they need to be granted: the one reel runs in. After granting one, quit and reopen that terminal.

reel checks the app is in front before every input step, and stops rather than type into another app. Something took focus: a notification, a dialog, another app opening. Leave the Mac alone while an app reel plays.

warning: the window is 1000x900, not 1440x900: the app limits its size, or a window manager (yabai, Rectangle) tiles it

Let the app's windows float while the reel plays. With yabai:

yabai -m rule --add label=demo app='^Musicbox$' manage=off
reel demo.reel
yabai -m rule --remove demo

If the app itself limits its window, ask for a size it allows.

Click and Wait look for WaitTimeout (10 s). A label must match exactly: a title, a description or a value. Give the view an accessibility identifier and use #identifier; it survives copy changes and translations. An element must be on a screen.

The reel's clicks, typing or keys no longer match the take. Record again with reel demo.reel. Captions, zooms on a point, speed-ups, cuts and every output setting change without one: see Making a demo.

Set MaxSize fits a movie by lowering its bitrate, then its frame rate, then its width, in at most four encodes. When even that is too big, the render fails and says the size it reached. Lower VideoWidth or VideoFrameRate, or Hide the parts that don't need showing. For a GIF, lower GifWidth or GifColors. See Quality and size.

A marker's time is when the voice reaches it, measured when the line was voiced. Changing a line's text or voice needs a new recording, so the reel is timed by the new line.

WebKit, the default, gets no mouse moves or wheel events from a tool started in a terminal. Use Set Browser chromium, which takes both.