Limelight
What is On-Screen Keystrokes?
On-screen keystrokes are visual badges or labels that display the keys you press, layered over your screen so an audience can see your keyboard input.
On-screen keystrokes are a way of surfacing your keyboard input visually, drawing the keys or key combinations you press onto the screen itself. They are widely used in screen recordings, video tutorials, conference talks, and live streams, where the audience has no view of the physical keyboard.
On-screen keystrokes are different from on-screen keyboards, which are virtual keyboards you click to enter text. They are also distinct from captions or annotations, which describe actions in words rather than showing the actual keys. The point of on-screen keystrokes is to mirror the real keys involved in each step.
When you present or record on a screen, showing on-screen keystrokes makes your workflow easy to follow and reproduce. Limelight displays on-screen keystrokes as one of its three macOS menu-bar features: press ⌃⌥2 and your shortcut combinations and special keys appear as clean badges, while ordinary typing is left out to keep the view uncluttered.
Why Limelight
- ▸Shows the keys you press as labels layered over your screen
- ▸Useful any time the audience cannot see your physical keyboard
- ▸Different from a virtual on-screen keyboard you click to type
- ▸Limelight shows on-screen keystrokes via the global hotkey ⌃⌥2
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FAQ
- What's the difference between on-screen keystrokes and an on-screen keyboard?
- On-screen keystrokes display the keys you physically press; an on-screen keyboard is a clickable virtual keyboard for input. Limelight does the former.
- Will on-screen keystrokes show my passwords as I type?
- Limelight shows only shortcuts and special keys, not normal typing, so ordinary text and passwords are not displayed.