Tux

...making Linux just a little more fun!

2-cent Tip: Screen Shots

Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]


Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:56:07 -0400

----- Forwarded message from Henry Grebler <henrygrebler at optusnet.com.au> -----

I was writing an article. I needed more than words; I needed screen shots. Over the years, I've done this in different ways. Of late, I've used ImageMagick(1) for this sort of work, in particular,

import - saves any visible window on an X server and outputs it as an image file. You can capture a single window, the entire screen, or any rectangular portion of the screen.

I was capturing parts of web pages. Then I came to a roadblock. I clicked on a button and it produced a drop-down list. I wanted to capture the contents of the drop-down list. But, some drop-down lists are unfriendly. For example, in Firefox, if I click on File, the usual drop-down list appears, but now my keyboard is deactivated. I also lose most mouse functions, except for moving the cursor. And, if I click anywhere, the drop-down list disappears.

So how to take the screen shot?

I started up a vncserver and a vncviewer (client); and then invoked Firefox inside the VNC client.

Click on File, move the cursor out of the VNC client, and, voila - I can now use import to take a screen shot of the menu of the Firefox running in vncviewer.

----- End forwarded message -----


Top    Back


Danila Bespalov [danila.bespalov at gmail.com]


Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:47:24 +1100

> ----- Forwarded message from Henry Grebler<henrygrebler at optusnet.com.au>  -----
>
> I was writing an article. I needed more than words; I needed screen
> shots. Over the years, I've done this in different ways. Of late, I've
> used ImageMagick(1) for this sort of work, in particular,
>
> 	import  -  saves any visible window on an X server and outputs
> 	it as an image file. You can capture a single window, the
> 	entire screen, or any rectangular portion of the screen.
>
> I was capturing parts of web pages. Then I came to a roadblock. I
> clicked on a button and it produced a drop-down list. I wanted to
> capture the contents of the drop-down list. But, some drop-down lists
> are unfriendly. For example, in Firefox, if I click on File, the usual
> drop-down list appears, but now my keyboard is deactivated. I also
> lose most mouse functions, except for moving the cursor. And, if I
> click anywhere, the drop-down list disappears.
>
> So how to take the screen shot?
>
> I started up a vncserver and a vncviewer (client); and then invoked
> Firefox inside the VNC client.
>
> Click on File, move the cursor out of the VNC client, and, voila - I
> can now use import to take a screen shot of the menu of the Firefox
> running in vncviewer.
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>                                              
> TAG mailing list
> TAG at lists.linuxgazette.net
> http://lists.linuxgazette.net/listinfo.cgi/tag-linuxgazette.net
>    
I usually use ksnapshot for this task. You just set the timer, open the list, and when the time expires you can choose a region on the screen, including the list. Actually, Firefox lists are really unfriendly - you can't press Enter to capture the selected region as usually, but you can still use double-click.

import would do that well too, but it tries to grab mouse that, apparently, already was grabbed by Firefox, which results in error.


Top    Back


Anderson Silva [afsilva at gmail.com]


Wed, 14 Apr 2010 12:15:13 -0400

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 3:56 PM, Ben Okopnik <ben at linuxgazette.net> wrote:

> ----- Forwarded message from Henry Grebler <henrygrebler at optusnet.com.au> -----
>
> I was writing an article. I needed more than words; I needed screen
> shots. Over the years, I've done this in different ways. Of late, I've
> used ImageMagick(1) for this sort of work, in particular,
>
> ? ? ? ?import ?- ?saves any visible window on an X server and outputs
> ? ? ? ?it as an image file. You can capture a single window, the
> ? ? ? ?entire screen, or any rectangular portion of the screen.
>
> I was capturing parts of web pages. Then I came to a roadblock. I
> clicked on a button and it produced a drop-down list. I wanted to
> capture the contents of the drop-down list. But, some drop-down lists
> are unfriendly. For example, in Firefox, if I click on File, the usual
> drop-down list appears, but now my keyboard is deactivated. I also
> lose most mouse functions, except for moving the cursor. And, if I
> click anywhere, the drop-down list disappears.
>
> So how to take the screen shot?
>
> I started up a vncserver and a vncviewer (client); and then invoked
> Firefox inside the VNC client.
>
> Click on File, move the cursor out of the VNC client, and, voila - I
> can now use import to take a screen shot of the menu of the Firefox
> running in vncviewer.
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>                                              
> TAG mailing list
> TAG at lists.linuxgazette.net
> http://lists.linuxgazette.net/listinfo.cgi/tag-linuxgazette.net
>

The latest versions of gnome (at least), just click the PrintScreen button on your keyboard, and a screenshot is saved to your desktop.

-- http://www.the-silvas.com


Top    Back