Filer Usecase
Turn Screenshots Into a Video Without a Timeline Editor
In Filer, select the screenshots for a short intro or demo clip, right-click, and the Video Composer plugin composes them into one captioned, animated .mp4 — no video editor to open.
- Right-click
- Chat
- Schedule
- File event
What you get
Putting together a short intro or demo clip usually means opening a separate video editor, importing images one at a time, adding captions by hand, and figuring out transitions — for images that were already sitting in the folder.
The Video Composer plugin skips the editor. Select the images in Filer, right-click, and either write a caption per image or let your configured model draft them — the plugin composes them into one slow-pan-and-zoom video, with a matching subtitle file sitting right next to it.
How to do it
The screen below is from an actual run of the plugin — the same one used to compose the intro video on this site's own home page.
Needs: the Video Composer plugin installed (everything it needs comes with it — no separate install). AI-drafted captions additionally need a configured Chat AI, local or remote.
What it needs
- The Video Composer plugin installed — everything it needs comes with it, no separate service or install
- 2 or more images (.png, .jpg, .jpeg, .webp, .bmp) selected in the order they should play
- An inference endpoint — only if using Draft Captions (AI) instead of writing captions by hand
Try it yourself
Download sample files for this walkthrough and follow the steps below on your own computer.
- your-folder — three small same-size images to turn into a captioned video
- README.txt — which files to select, in which order, the menu item to pick and the one line this page wrote in its dialog
Select the images, right-click
Multi-select the images in the order you want them to play, right-click, and open Actions → Create Video...
Write the captions, or have AI draft them
The dialog asks for a caption per image, how many seconds each scene stays on screen, and where to save the result. Filling every caption by hand is one option — the Draft Captions (AI) button is the other: give it a one-line description of what the video is for, and your configured model writes a caption per image from that description (it works from the description, not by looking at each image's content — write one that gives it enough to go on).
Prompt
Video intro/purpose: "A 60-second tour of Filer's Explorer, AI Actions, and folder agents"
Send it, get back a video and its subtitles
Each image becomes an animated scene with its caption burned in, back to back into one video, with a subtitle file for anyone who wants to read along instead.
One frame from the actual finished video this workflow produced — not a mockup.
The screenshots and outputs on this page come from a real run of Filer, not a mockup.
Where else this applies
Any folder that piles up images faster than anyone turns them into something presentable fits the same shape:
- Product or feature walkthroughs — the screenshots for a release note or a support answer, turned into a short clip instead of a wall of images.
- Before/after documentation — a handful of progress screenshots from a project folder, composed into a short recap without opening an editor.
- A lighter-weight alternative — when a full captioned video is more than the moment needs, a plain looping GIF from the same kind of image selection is the smaller, no-caption option.
Other ways in
- Right-click
- Multi-select the images in the order you want them to play, right-click, and open Actions → Create Video...
- Chat
- From chat — Draft Captions and Create Video are ordinary tools the plugin exposes, not a UI-only feature, so asking a folder's agent in chat to "combine these three screenshots into a video" is a real path in when the model decides to call the tool — this walkthrough shows the right-click path.
- Other automation triggers
- On a schedule or a file event — the same tool call works from a scheduled or file-triggered agent, not only a one-time right-click: a folder that watches for new screenshots could compose an updated highlight reel on its own each time one lands.
- Other integrations
- Not shown in this walkthrough.
