SmoothDemo Product Guide & User Guide

Welcome to the official guide for SmoothDemo — the ultimate interactive presentation utility.

Whether you are pitching a new product feature, delivering a weekly update to your team, or teaching an online workshop, traditional screen sharing often results in a cluttered, rigid, and unengaging experience. SmoothDemo elevates live screen shares into studio-quality presentations in real time.

Built with native performance in mind, SmoothDemo transforms a selected window into a polished, cinematic broadcast featuring smooth camera zooms, drop shadows, pristine gradient backdrops, and interactive presenter tools — all without any post-production editing required.

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started & Overview
2. Core Presentation Engine & Outputs
3. Camera Tracking & AI Intent Engine (Deep Dive)
4. Drawing, Annotations & Presenter Notes
5. Detailed Settings Reference
6. Keyboard Shortcuts & Key Modifiers Cheat Sheet

1. Getting Started & Overview

SmoothDemo is designed to be frictionless. Within seconds, you can go from a standard desktop window to a captivating live presentation.

Key Benefits

• No Post-Production Required: Deliver a highly polished, professional aesthetic (with drop shadows and elegant backdrops) live, exactly as your audience sees it.
• Intelligent Camera: The app anticipates your actions and smoothly zooms into the relevant parts of your screen to ensure your audience never squints at tiny text.
• Instant Video Output: Record your sessions directly to disk or broadcast them virtually to any video conferencing platform.

Step-by-Step Onboarding

1. Launch the App: Open SmoothDemo from your Applications folder.
2. Select Your Target: You will be greeted with a visual list of your currently open windows. Click the specific window you wish to capture and present.
3. Customize Your Session: In the setup modal, configure your preferred output mode, toggle session recording, and pick a beautiful gradient backdrop to surround your window.
4. Go Live: Click START PRESENTING. The SmoothDemo engine will immediately engage, ready to track your movements.

2. Core Presentation Engine & Outputs (Preview vs. Broadcast)

Depending on your workflow, SmoothDemo offers flexible ways to deliver your presentation to your audience.

Preview Mode

• Creates a dedicated, high-performance presentation window on your desktop.
• Best for: Dual-monitor setups, sharing a specific window via standard screen share (e.g., sharing the "Preview" window over Zoom), or projecting to a large screen during in-person conference talks.

Broadcast Mode

• Generates a software-driven virtual webcam and display at the system level.
• Best for: Seamless integration with standard video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex.
• Simply open your meeting app and share the Virtual Screen (Screen 2) to feed your polished broadcast directly into the stream.

Output Recording

• Need to record your presentation? You can toggle Output Recording directly in the setup modal before you start.
• Your session will be captured and saved as an optimized MP4 file directly to your Documents/SmoothDemo directory, ready for immediate publishing or internal team sharing.

3. Camera Tracking & AI Intent Engine (Deep Dive)

The secret to SmoothDemo's cinematic feel is its intelligent tracking engine. The camera does not simply jump or track linearly; it utilizes a Damped Harmonic Oscillator based on Hooke's Law (F = -kx - cv). This spring physics engine guarantees that every pan and zoom feels organic, natural, and exceptionally smooth.

Tracking Types

• Standard Cursor-Follow: The camera tracks your mouse pointer organically, centering the view on where your cursor is currently active.
• Intelligent Block-Lock (AI Tracking - PRO / Experimental): Instead of merely following a tiny cursor point, SmoothDemo runs local computer-vision analysis to detect logical layout groups, containers, input fields, and buttons. The camera seamlessly locks focus onto these UI blocks, providing a highly professional, structured viewing experience.

Tracking Settings & Customizations

Customize how the Intent Engine interprets your movements:

• Maximum Zoom: Set the absolute limit on how close the camera can crop into the presentation target (adjustable from 1.0x to 3.0x).
• Safe Zone Margin: Define an inner boundary (from 0% to 50% of the screen borders). The camera remains centered and perfectly still as long as your cursor is within this zone, eliminating unnecessary micro-movements.
• Pan Threshold: The maximum distance the camera is allowed to pan away from the center before it decides to reset and zoom back out to provide wider context.
• Bypass Pan Threshold: A toggle that overrides the standard pan limits, preventing the camera from zooming out even if you pan significantly across the screen.

Intent Sensitivity (Dwell Times)

• Zoom-In Dwell Time: The exact duration (e.g., 0.0s to 3.0s) your mouse must rest at a specific location before the camera interprets it as an intentional focal point and zooms in.
• Zoom-Out Dwell Time: The duration the cursor must remain inactive or outside an active region before the camera pulls back.
• Zoom-Out Cooldown: A lockout timer that prevents the camera from immediately snapping back into a zoom right after a zoom-out completes.
• Dwell Velocity Threshold: The precise velocity limit below which the engine considers your cursor to be "resting."
• Zoom-In Intent Distance: The minimum distance you must move your cursor after a zoom-out before the engine is permitted to trigger the next zoom-in.

Click Behavior

• Zoomout on Click: When enabled, clicking the mouse will instantly trigger an intelligent zoom-out to give the audience a broader context of the action just taken.
• Click Zoom-Out Delay: This setting dictates how long the camera remains zoomed in after a click event before returning to the default view.

Camera Physics

• Camera Stiffness (k): Controls how quickly and aggressively the camera attempts to catch up to the target. Higher values result in tighter, faster tracking, while lower values yield a more relaxed, fluid motion.
• Camera Damping (c): The friction parameter. This prevents the camera from bouncing or oscillating excessively when it finally reaches the target coordinates.

4. Drawing, Annotations & Presenter Notes (Teleprompter)

SmoothDemo provides a suite of overlay tools to help you effectively communicate complex ideas on the fly.

Drawing & Annotation Layer

A floating toolbar appears next to your main control bar, giving you access to real-time markup capabilities over your live capture.

• Tools Available:
  • Select: Move or adjust existing drawings.
  • Pen: Freehand drawing for quick highlights.
  • Text Tool: Type clear, legible annotations directly on-screen.
  • Rectangle & Ellipse: Instantly frame or highlight containers, buttons, and zones.
  • Eraser: Delete specific strokes with precision.
  • Undo & Trash: Revert your last action or clear the entire canvas instantly.
• Style Customizers: Fine-tune your markup with a Color Grid Selector, Stroke Thickness slider, and Opacity slider.

Notes Widget

Keep your talking points accessible without ever breaking eye contact with your audience.

• Rich-Text Notepad: A floating editor with full formatting options.
• Reposition & Resize: Drag and resize the notes widget anywhere on your screen. (It is invisible to the audience on the output).
• Cursorphobia Mode: A unique evasion feature. When active, the notes window actively detects if your presenter mouse cursor is getting too close. To prevent blocking your presentation area, it automatically jumps to the opposite corner of the screen.
• Override Modifier: Need to edit your notes? Hold the Option key (macOS) to temporarily pause Cursorphobia, allowing you to click into the widget without it jumping away.

5. Detailed Settings Reference

Access the Settings Panel to configure SmoothDemo to your exact preferences.

Account Tab

• Plan Management: Upgrade and manage your billing (Free vs. Pro).
• Usage Limits: Track your monthly session limits and recording quotas.

Personalize Tab

• Show Zoom Target Box: Toggles a visual dashed bounding box on your screen (invisible to the audience) that displays exactly where the Intent Engine is currently focusing.
• Window Margins: A slider to adjust the padding size (0% to 25%) left around your captured application window in the final render.

Backdrop Tab

• Apply beautiful, macOS-style gradient backgrounds. These gradients gracefully fill the margins around your presentation window, elevating the aesthetic of the final output.

Cursor Tab

• Scale: Adjust the size of the rendered mouse cursor from 1x up to 6x to ensure it is highly visible to your audience.
• Style: Swap out the cursor asset style to match your brand or presentation tone.

Camera Tab

• Houses the complete suite of customizers for the Intent Engine and Spring Physics (as detailed extensively in Section 3).

6. Keyboard Shortcuts & Key Modifiers Cheat Sheet

Master these keyboard shortcuts to navigate SmoothDemo like a power user without interrupting your flow.

Notes Editor Shortcuts

Drawing Tool Shortcuts

SmoothDemo — End boring screen shares. Build your audience. Present like a pro.