Showreel Studio Help
Help · Connecting your app

Hide names, emails and figures

Mask real personal data as the page draws, so it never reaches the recording, and let verify catch anything that slips through.

Films of a real app can show real names, email addresses and figures. Masking keeps them out. The page is changed in the browser as it draws, before anything is captured, so nothing unmasked is ever recorded. If something gets through, the film's checks fail and tell you where.

Three ways to mask

  • Replace: text rewritten wherever the page shows it. Built in: emails, phone numbers, card numbers (the last four digits are kept) and IBANs. Each email becomes the same made-up address every time, such as jordan.lee@example.com. Addresses already on example.com, .example or .test are left alone.
  • Blur: chosen elements drawn blurred, such as an avatar or an amount.
  • Hide: chosen elements kept in the layout but not drawn.

For every film of an app

In the app

  1. Open Apps.
  2. Under The profile, tick what to replace under Mask. Connect your app ticks what it saw on screen.
  3. Click Save and use it.

For one film

In the app

  1. Open the film and choose the Film panel.
  2. In the Masking card, tick Emails, Phone numbers, Card numbers or IBANs.
  3. Under Blur, add one selector per line (the address of an element on the page, such as .customer-name).
  4. Press ⌘S to save.

A film's mask adds to the app's. It never removes anything the app profile masks.

In the storyboard file

The same settings sit under mask, in the app profile or a film's storyboard. You can also add your own patterns and hide elements:

"mask": {
  "replace": ["email", "phone", { "pattern": "ACME-\\d+", "with": "ACME-0000" }],
  "blur": [".customer-name", "td.amount"],
  "hide": ["[data-private]"]
}

Where masking applies

Recording on your Mac and in the cloud, snapshots, demonstrations (the stills and the labels in the trace), exploring the app and prototype captures. What you or the film types into the app is the film's own words and is left as it is.

When something gets through

At every point the film marks and at the end of the take, the page is searched for text a replace pattern still matches. What it finds is printed while recording, and the film's checks report it, for example:

masking: 1 unmasked on screen (email in page input at d2); blur the element or add a pattern

Blur that element or add a pattern that matches, then record again. Blurred and hidden elements are not searched. Text inside pictures, canvases or videos cannot be read, so look for it when you review the frames.

What next