i think the idea of saving a pdf to a different directory would make even more sense since that would remove the confusion of why the file couldnt be re-opened and edited by SC.

let me start by adding a button for it, and then we can talk about tweaking the feature.

-mouser (July 27, 2009, 08:00 PM)

Great!

i was going to do that but ran into a small problem.
SC relies on the windows shell to show thumbnails of screenshots in the left side panel.

for many (most?all?) people (does it require a special extension?), the windows shell will not show a thumbnail image of a pdf file.  that means that if SC saved your scan as a pdf, you wouldn't actually see a preview of it in the left sidebar, just a generic adobe icon.

worse, once saved as PDF, SC cannot re-open a previously saved PDF and edit it (such a thing might be possible to add eventually but not without much work).

so in short, using PDF as the default image file format for scans is not something SC can do currently.

the best i can do in the sort term is making it really easy to save a copy of an image in PDF form, or to save a collection of images as a pdf multi-page document.

-mouser (July 27, 2009, 06:47 PM)

I would be happy to have an Adobe icon and non-openable screenshot if PDF could be a default scan format. Or when you select PDF as the file type could SC say "Note: No screenshot will appear in the panel"?

I would find it tremendously useful in relying on SC as an all-purpose program if PDF could be a default scan type and scans could be saved to a different folder. My screenshots and PDF scans have entirely different purposes. I often scan to PDF for permanent storage and don't even look at the scan. I don't want to have a PDF folder that's also littered with temporary screenshots that I forgot to delete.

Not to beat a dead horse, but returning to the two scan buttons: I understand your reasoning. How about two buttons, the first saying Scan and the second one of those buttons that toggles between being highlighted and not, with the choices of TWAIN/WIA on or off? This would be much less confusing and would still accomplish your objective of having the scan button and scan hotkey do the same thing.