Highlight

Show and Tell!

About

Have you ever been in front of an audience who wants a live demo instead of the screenshot/slides?
Have you ever felt the dread of having someone pointing at the screen with a finger, knowing it would leave traces on the surface?
Or maybe you like to draw graffitis on your own screen?

Based on a professional experience as a teacher, here comes Highlight, a small and simple piece of software that allows you to put an invisible drawing sheet on top of whatever is on your screen, and offers basic drawing capabilities : the missing link between you and your audience is here!

Features

  • Basic drawing tools : free-form, line, oval, and rectangle
  • Basic drawing options : color, and size of the pen
  • History : possibility to delete the shapes
  • On-screen information
  • System-wide shortcut to bring Highlight forward, or send it backwards

Manual

You can find a tutorial video online if you want to see Highlight in action!

UPDATE: it looks like the multi-definition video sometimes doesn't load. Here is the big version in standalone

Modifiers

  • Free-form : no key down
  • Line : ctrl key
  • Oval : alt key
  • Rectangle : shift key
  • Grid line (horizontal or vertical) : ctrl + shift keys
  • Arrow : ctrl + alt keys

Shortcuts

  • Open/Save As, Quit : same as usual
  • Delete last shape : delete (backspace)
  • Clear everything : cmd + K
  • Styles (preference panel) : cmd + alt + S

FAQ

  • Version 1.5 was free. Now it's a paid app on the Mac App Store. What gives?
    Highlight has a long history, most of it void of any movement. It was released in 2005, when I was a teacher and actually used it. I put it up there, thinking it would be a nice tool for others to use. Apart from a couple of bugfixes, I stopped working on it in 2007.
    Fast forward to 2012, I'm still getting a fair amount of downloads of that application, and the number one request for improvement is putting it on the AppStore. Since I have to pay $99 for a mac developer account just to publish that application, I put the lowest possible price tag on it, in order to pay for the yearly subscription.
    And if by some miracle, I actually make a profit on it, it will fund the work on new features and bugfixes I will put on it.
    It's a candid response, but it's the best I can offer!
  • There are a lot of other similar tools out there. What's the spin on this one?
    Simplicity. By not having any complex mechanisms, or effects, or anything else, it works seamlessly on top of most applications out there with little overhead. And it's cheap.
  • I'd like feature XYZ. Can we talk about it?
    Sure! I'm always open to suggestions, especially to evolve that thing past the 2006 design!
  • How do I contact you?
    See the Contact section below
  • And about privacy... ?
    I do not collect any analytics, except in case of a crash. And even then, only the system versions, app versions, and reason for the crash are transmitted.

Contact