Feature Request: Selective action label display in GIF recordings
Feature Request
Add the ability to selectively show/hide action labels for specific action types in GIF recordings.
Current Behavior
The showActionLabels option in gif_creator export is all-or-nothing. When enabled, ALL actions are labeled in the GIF (clicks, scrolls, hovers, waits, drags, etc.).
Desired Behavior
Allow users to specify which action types should display labels. For example:
{
actionLabels: {
click: true, // Show labels for clicks
scroll: true, // Show labels for scrolls
type: true, // Show labels for typing
wait: false, // Hide labels for wait actions
hover: false, // Hide labels for hover actions (used for workarounds)
drag: true // Show labels for drags
}
}
Or alternatively, a simpler exclusion list:
{
showActionLabels: true,
hideLabelsFor: ['wait', 'hover']
}
Use Case
When creating polished GIF demos:
- Wait actions often don't add meaningful information for viewers - they just show "waiting" which can be distracting
- Hover actions are sometimes used as workarounds (e.g., to prevent frame deduplication) and shouldn't be displayed as they're implementation details, not meaningful user actions
- Users want to show the purposeful actions (clicks, typing, scrolling) while hiding technical actions
Example Scenario
Recording a Jupyter notebook demo requires hover actions between screenshots to prevent frame deduplication (see issue #18903). These hovers are purely technical and shouldn't appear as action labels in the final GIF, as they confuse viewers about what the demo is actually showing.
Proposed Solution
Either:
- A granular
actionLabelsobject with per-action-type boolean flags - A
hideLabelsForarray to exclude specific action types - A callback/filter function for maximum flexibility
Any of these would significantly improve GIF quality for polished demos.
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