CapTrace Capture

Capture engine for CapTrace — session recording for issue reports and how-to guides

CapTrace Capture is the recording engine for CapTrace, a tool that turns a browser session into a report someone else can act on: either an issue report for a developer, or a step by step how-to guide for a colleague. PLEASE READ FIRST This extension is a companion to the CapTrace web app at https://captrace.dev. It does nothing on its own, and it needs a CapTrace account to work. Accounts are granted by approval rather than by open sign-up, so if you do not already have one, you can request access from the sign-in page and an administrator will review it. Installing the extension without an account will not give you anything useful yet. THE PROBLEM IT SOLVES Reporting a bug properly is tedious, so most people do it badly. You reproduce the problem, then you go back and try to remember which pages you visited, in what order, what you typed, and what the error actually said. You take a few screenshots, you paste them into a ticket, and the developer still comes back asking which browser you were on and whether the network call failed. Writing documentation has the same shape. You know how to do the task. Capturing it as something another person can follow means stopping after every click to take a screenshot and describe what you just did. CapTrace records the session while you simply do the thing, then writes it up. HOW IT WORKS 1. Open CapTrace and start a capture, or click the CapTrace icon in your toolbar and start one from there. The popup names the tab you are on and suggests a capture name, so most sessions start without typing anything. 2. Go and reproduce the problem, or work through the task, exactly as you normally would. CapTrace follows along in the background across all your tabs. 3. Press Stop. You land on a review screen with every step laid out in order, each with its screenshot. Rename steps, add notes, delete anything that does not belong, then export. A red REC badge sits on the toolbar icon for the entire time a capture is running, so it is always obvious when recording is active. WHAT IT RECORDS While a capture is running, and depending on the options you chose for it: • Screenshots of the visible area of the active tab, with a strip drawn above each one showing the page address • The address and title of the pages you visit • What you clicked, described using the button or link's own label rather than raw HTML • Text you typed, collapsed into one step per field so a typed word does not become twelve steps • Selections you made in dropdowns, checkboxes and radio buttons • Switches between tabs • Network requests, if you turn on API monitoring: the method, address, status code and duration. Request and response bodies are not read or recorded. • Your browser, operating system and screen resolution, so the report states where it was taken Consecutive typing in the same field becomes a single step, which is what makes the timeline read like instructions rather than a keylog. TWO KINDS OF OUTPUT, FROM THE SAME SESSION You choose on the way out, not before you start: • Issue report. Evidence a developer can act on, including the environment header, network calls and timings. • How-to guide. A walkthrough a colleague can follow, which drops the diagnostics and leads with your own wording for each step. Export either as a PDF, which is a single readable document, or as a ZIP containing the raw material. CAPTURE MODES • Screenshots. Stills taken on every click, every 2 seconds, every 5 seconds, or only when you press a Capture Now button that sits in the corner of the page you are capturing. The button never appears in the shot it takes. • Screen recording. A video of your screen, window or tab, recorded through Chrome's own screen sharing and started from the CapTrace tab. Steps are still captured alongside it, so the timeline and the footage stay in step with each other. CONTROLS WHILE RECORDING • Pause and resume, from the toolbar popup or from the recording screen. Nothing that happens during a pause is recorded, and paused time is excluded from the session clock, so a lunch break does not end up in the report. • Click highlighting draws a marker at each click so the report shows where you pressed. • Sensitive field masking blurs password fields, tokens, card numbers and similar inputs in the page before the screenshot is taken, and keeps the typed value out of the step description. Web addresses containing credentials in their query string are redacted too. This is a best effort based on how a page names its fields, so review a capture before sharing it. WHERE YOUR CAPTURES GO Captures are written to your browser's own storage on your device. The extension has no server of its own and does not upload what it records. A capture leaves your machine only when you export a report and share that file yourself. Two things worth knowing, because they are easy to be surprised by: • Browser storage is not encrypted. Anyone who can use your unlocked computer and browser profile can read what is stored there. • The 20 most recent captures per account are kept. Older ones are removed automatically as you make new ones, so export anything you want to keep. While a capture is running, recording applies to any tab you visit, not only the site you set out to test. If your browsing would take in something unrelated and private, pause the capture or stop it. WHY THE EXTENSION NEEDS THE PERMISSIONS IT ASKS FOR • Access to all sites: A capture can be made of any site you choose, and which site that will be cannot be known in advance. It is used only while a capture is running. • Tabs: To record which page each step happened on, and to photograph the active tab. • Scripting: To wait for a page to finish rendering before photographing it, so screenshots are not half loaded, and to find your CapTrace tab. • webRequest: To observe API calls when you turn that option on. It watches requests and never blocks or alters them. • Storage: To remember the capture in progress so a session survives Chrome suspending the extension in the background, and to hold your display name for the toolbar popup. The extension accepts commands only from the CapTrace app's own address, so an ordinary website cannot start a capture or read one. WHO IT IS FOR • QA and testers who write up defects and would rather spend the time on testing • Support teams reproducing a customer problem and handing it to engineering • Developers who want the network call, the environment and the exact steps in one place • Anyone writing internal documentation for a process they already know how to do REQUIREMENTS • Google Chrome • A CapTrace account at https://captrace.dev. Access is granted by approval, and you can request it from the sign-in page. PRIVACY AND SUPPORT Privacy policy: https://captrace.dev/privacy Questions, problems or a request about your information: support@captrace.dev