Layerpath reviews

Testing out new apps is always interesting to see if they meet your expectations. I have been searching for an app like this for quite some time and it has most of the features I need. Where I did run into issues was the inability to annotate a video portion/slide. After recording, you will often see something that could do with an arrow or further explanation in a text box. However, this isn't possible in the video slide, but it is in the other static slides.

I found the developer most responsive to my comments to the point we had a video call and shared our screens. He now has a very clear understanding, not only of what I am talking about, but also why it is a necessary feature for busy consultants.

All in all, I find the product is slightly lacking in maturity at present, but with a few more enhancements, it will be a fantastic way of sharing guides with clients and on social media.

This app is an awesome way to create product demonstrations and tutorials. Although, some quirks need to be ironed out the overall output of this app is on par with my expectations.

On the other hand, their Chrome extension is in desperate need of fixing. Overall, the extension works pretty well and is convenient for screen recordings using the Layerpath cloud application. However, there are a large number of scripting errors that show up in the browser inspector and as a web developer who uses this inspector religiously, all these errors are getting in the way of doing my work. It has come to the point where I need to disable this extension just so I can do my daily tasks and only enable it when I need it.

Also, when you invoke the extension it states you need to use Ctrl+E to start/stop the recording, but this hotkey combination is already used by Chrome itself, so using this hotkey combination is not an option. When you want to change this hotkey, selecting the menu Options only takes you to a blank page. To change the hotkey you need to access the Extensions Settings and select the Keyboard shortcuts menu. From there you can change this hotkey. However, after doing this the app still indicates you should use Ctrl+E to start/stop the recording.

The bottom line, my rating centers around their extension. Mainly because this will be the way most of these recordings will be created. When Layerpath has cleaned up all the issues with its extension I may consider updating my rating.

Its a feature packed solution, a bit of minor bugs but not a show stopper. It can do much more than some of the bigger players out there like Scribe, just to withstand time now.

I couldn't be more satisfied with my purchase. This software not only met but exceeded all my expectations, which were already quite high. It's incredibly easy to use, and everything runs smoothly. Thank you, and congratulations on a fantastic product!

I reasonably liked this product today in its current form. While there are still many points to be solved which seem to be simple fix and must be fixed asap. I liked the fact that many updates are done to plan in favor of customers which is big plus. The 4k export getting enabled which was not originally planned is good gesture. There are some nice video effects present which I found today itself during 4k export. I am going to keep it based on Vinay's past experience to have this product as can wait 2 quarters to use as mainline and till then use Layerpath its current capabilities..

While this product shows promise, it is nowhere near ready for prime time in my honest opinion. Progress on resolving ongoing issues has been painfully slow so I cannot reliably use it for any serious projects, especially with clients. For this reason, I requested a refund before my 60 days were up.

Most of my concerns are already mentioned in other reviews and comments, such as:

1) Unclear and utterly confusing deal terms (e.g, Tier 1 users don't have access to the video feature even though it clearly states they have credits to do so in their plan, Tier 3 users are being promised some extra upcoming tools and features even though the official deal terms don't guarantee any future updates for this tier)

2) Limited basic editing capabilities (can't even add your own audio in any of the three formats and unable to add any type of annotation over a video in the editor)

3) Adding steps to a Tour will not automatically add the same steps to a Guide or Video (and vice versa) so you'll need to redo all that work for consistency

However, my main concerns are with ongoing basic functionality problems that plague this product since Day 1. I purchased Tier 3 of this LTD almost two months ago and I assumed at least a few of the glaring issues would be addressed by now since they were pointed out by me and so many others during the initial launch. These include:

4) Pan and zoom transitions in a video demo that require manual tweaking to slow down their intense nauseating speed. These edits should not require this much manual effort for each layer given how poorly designed the video editor is. The fix for this would be to program all transitions so they are automatically set to their slowest setting with the "animation extended" option turned on by default so we don't have to do this manually for each transition. Many people have asked for a fix to this issue since day one!

5) Tooltips in a Tour that start with Step 2 instead of Step 1 and then skip numbers after a video section that won't allow tooltips (e.g., Step 2 > Video without tooltip > Step 4). This is because it counts the title slide as a step (even though it shouldn't). This issue is so glaring that I am shocked that it continues to go unresolved.

6) There are fewer steps in a PDF export compared to a Tour or Guide since video steps are not included in a PDF. This discrepancy (and issue #5 above) is confusing for end users who may be referencing the different formats and looking for consistency in the steps. This can be resolved by automatically adding a screenshot of the video in the PDF export so the relevant text for that step is included.

7) Anytime there is a step annotation in a Guide, the corresponding screenshot in the PDF export is replaced by a large blank rectangle which also hides any related text or annotations for it. This is an unresolved bug!

8) Cannot record iframes! This was a huge disappointment for me especially when they promised it would be resolved by now, but it's clearly still something that they have not been able to fix.

Unfortunately, after a couple months of communication with their team related to my concerns and seeing others reporting similar issues that continue to go unresolved, it has become evident that their very small team is overwhelmed and not able to keep up with user feedback, improvements, and QA testing. In fact, there is no ticketing system to report issues and their roadmap does not include bug fixes. For this reason, I fear that they are not tracking and prioritizing issues properly. However, they keep promising new features and enhancements when they haven't properly resolved current issues with their basic features yet.

If you go through most of the users' questions from when the product was launched, you will see how eager their team is to give the impression that they are "committed" to addressing the issues, that they "take feedback seriously," and that they are "actively working" on improvements. However, when the dates they offer for any resolution continuously change and get pushed back from a couple weeks to a couple months, you start to see a pattern that cannot be ignored.

The most embarrassing evidence of this is the founder's update from mid-July, 2024. In it, he states, "Personalize your product tours by recording your own voiceovers. This feature will be released in a week." However, over a month later, that basic feature is still nowhere to be seen and with no explanation (though they'll continue to say it's right around the corner). https://appsumo.com/products/layerpath/#from-the-founders:~:text=in%20a%20week.

For these reasons, I would caution you to take any promises and proposed timelines they provide for enhancements, bug fixes, and new features with a grain of salt. Use your 60-day refund period and purchase power wisely! There have been better alternatives on AppSumo and you can be certain you'll see them again.

I love this tool; it's simple, easy to use, and professional. I have only had it for a couple of months and have used it two dozen times for internal purposes. The only thing I would do to improve it would be to enable multiple use of the same script in the different versions of output. Thanks for this tool.

Sorry if some of these might come across a bit negative but I think there are still a lot of issues and I wanna know what I get before the deal runs out:

Major Issues:

Export Problems:
- Videos: Often times videos cannot be exported and you’ll receive an error
- Guides: Exporting as HTML or PDF or Word results in messed-up styles, making them unusable

Limited Usefulness of the App:
- Tour feature works really well
- Guides and Videos not really due to the export issues mentioned above.

Manual AI Adjustments Across Tour, Guides, Video:
- Currently, you have to apply AI adjustments separately for the Tour, Guide, and Video. This means crafting a good Tour requires redoing all the AI adjustments for the Guide and Video, resulting in unnecessary extra work.
- Considering the export issues with Guides and Videos, this might not be as critical for now.

Web Requests:
- The Layperath Tour Guide generates over 200 web requests per tour. This means having just two tours on one page can lead to around 400 requests, which seems excessive.
- I’m concerned about whether this level of web requests could impact my website’s performance or raise issues with GDPR (DSGVO) compliance.

Desktop Client Availability:
- It’s still unclear if we’ll receive the desktop client as part of our deal.
- Without the desktop client, the app’s usefulness is significantly reduced. Right now you can also record 1 Tab (not even multiple Tabs) and that for $149.
- For comparison, other apps like Komodo Decks included a desktop app for a lifetime price of just $19 on Appsumo. My main point here is not the price, but just that I am still hesitating whether I should stay with Layerpath and I wanna get confirmation in that buying Layerpath will not turn out to be a bad choice.

Confusing Information about Price Plan / Appsumo Tiers:
- There are multiple sources with conflicting information about what the AppSumo plan includes:
- The AppSumo pricing page
- The comment box on AppSumo
- A Google document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18W2lLc_f1FLojSJN0BFIj_L1YPBWshdbgSnIJQT1avM/edit

The constant switching of features and lack of clarity makes it really confusing to understand what we’re actually getting.

Final Thoughts:
A lot of bugs combined with confusing information on what’s part of the deal and what’s not, make it really hard to know if Layerpath is a good deal. I’m also a bit worried about getting updates in the future as an appsumoling because of the said confusing information.

I hope I can get a bit more of a clarification before the deal expires and get a better idea of what to expect and what not.

Thank you,
Ri

Hi, I used layerpath to set up a software tutorial; it was really fun. Easy to use with lots of helpful features. Nevertheless, to 5 tacos, the bugs must be fixed. An annoying one was that the tooltip position didn't work properly, for example, even if set as positioned on the right side it was shown on top. The Voice-Over is super helpful but has difficulties with other languages like English. Is there a way to use your own voice-over?

Layerpath is a robust tool that can significantly enhance the way you present and document your software.

You can see it in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD_Y6AlPsy0

The tool captures your screen interactions and translates them into a guided tour with animated dots and prompts. This feature is particularly useful for onboarding new users or demonstrating complex software functionalities. The ability to customize prompts and tooltips ensures that the tour is both informative and engaging.

For those who prefer a more static approach, Layerpath offers the ability to create detailed step-by-step guides. These guides come with animated boxes and text instructions, making it easy for users to follow along. The interface is intuitive, allowing for quick adjustments and edits to ensure the guide is accurate and clear.

Layerpath also provides a video creation feature that records your screen interactions. While the zooming in and out can be a bit aggressive, the tool offers options to adjust the speed and layout, giving you control over the final output.

It's a great time saver getting all three elements at the same time. Once captured you can fine tune them, edit the text and add an AI voiceover.

Tour and Guide editing is fine, I didn't enjoy the video editing, it felt sluggish when I was trying to split and delete unwanted elements (e.g. if you make a mistake).

I'd like to see options for the default video FX, e.g. being able to turn off zooms and rotates. Specifically rotates, I'm not a fan of the way they distort the screen.

Looking forward to seeing how the tool develops, it's very feature rich already and it didn't take me long to record, edit and deploy a tour on a website.

I love this software because I can see this saving so much time and effort. It is very easy to navigate around the app and also easy to learn. I love the AI feature for help in writing the tips and the ability to have AI narrate the video.
But...
1.Positioning the message box to where you want it on the screen requires a few clicks back and forth to essentially get it where you want it.

2.The AI is not always spot-on with the video and seems to skip a step here and there. This throws the narration off and makes the outcome less than desirable. In other words, the voiceover from the AI is narrating for a different slide than what the video is showing. Sometimes regenerating the voiceover with AI will correct the discrepancy and other times it will not. If you're a perfectionist, then this may bother you. Either way, if you want to fix it, you have to use more of your AI credits to try and hopefully correct it.

3.Also when using the AI, don't put in the description how you want the AI voiceover to sound. I put in for it to sound friendly and informative... This prompted the AI to announce that "this is a friendly and informative lesson on..." (Not exactly what I was shooting for).

4. When rendering MP4 videos, the rendering process seems to hang up at about 88 or 89 percent complete. This forces you to have to start the rendering process over and sometimes two or three times before the video completely renders.

I give this four tacos, because minus the flaws, the guides this software produces look and sound very professional and I believe this app has a bright future, I just hope they keep developing it to fix the flaws I have listed here.

Hello this is an honnest review :

Global overview I would say it's a good product with high potential but it has been developped to fast and the product features show lack of maturity and experience from the team.

The UI need a big revamp , it's super hard to navigate in the timeline of your video
You cant add audio !
The zoom and other effect generated by AI are always TOO MUCH so i have to do changes agains, it's adding more time in my process....

When you add a logo , you cant delete it !

you can contact me for a full review and some help to drive your product to a better success

Keep it up, you are doing a great job but you also miss the basics : UX & UI + Testing