DonationCoder.com Forum
DonationCoder.com Software => Mouser's Zone => Screenshot Captor => Topic started by: mouser on May 13, 2005, 06:00 AM
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This is a VERY early beta, no help file to speak of. But it does have and installer/uninstaller:
[link out of date]
its a screenshot taking app made to be used with minimal intervention from user.
(ie it auto saves files, etc.)
it's also designed to let you add comments into the screenshots, to be useful for taking visual notes.
it doesnt write to registry or make any system changes, so it's completely safe to test.
i wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't crash sometimes.
ideas, suggestions, bug reprts, all welcomed.
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[ removed screenshot since it was out of date ]
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looks great mouser, i don't seem to be able to get it to capture though - my system causing problems maybe.
can you resize the text and will it be positional - for adding comments to the capture?
if you could get it to capture and scroll down windows at the same time - like hypersnap - then i would use it all the time.
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new version is up with some fixed (1.00.04).
i'm not sure what i should do about things like annotations on images and stuff..
there are a lot of good image editors and screenshot tools that do this.
i think what i would rather do is make it easy to launch a 3rd party tool to edit the images and annotate them.
and leave my tool really just for quickly capturing/saving/viewing.
ive gotten another report that capture not working..
its something to do with the prtscr hotkeys.. ill add custom hotkeys soon until i can figure out how to get prtscr keys working.
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launching a 3rd party editor sounds like a good idea - probably more useful than anything else. could you perhaps allow the choice of more than one outside editor just in case.
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external editor will be configurable
(or do you mean you want to add 2 choices for yourself?)
question regarding hotkeys- are you running windows as admin or non-admin?
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running as admin - but have a clipboard capture thing program running which probably get in the way (i did turn it off but haven't rebooted yet so it's probably the problem).
regards external editor - it's not that important really but what i meant was to have more than one editor defined so you click one button for one editor and another button for another editor. but thinking about it it's maybe going too far - i don't know.
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ill start with one, and can add more later.
keep in mind the thumbnail/file list is a regular shell browser
so you can right click for shell context menu, or doubleclick, or drag files from there into other editors.
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ah right, that's a good feature.
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v1.00.05 is now up, with support for custom hotkeys, and external image editor support (with auto change detection and exif comment protection).
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printscreen key still doesn't want to play but otherwise everything else okay. :up:
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Wow, I really like the simple layout. Looks like I will be dumping the very simplistic Screengrab soon. Good work Mouser.
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1.00.08 is up, includes delay timer option (can be toggled via tray icon), and custom date field.
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Very nice work .. I love the simplicity :Thmbsup:.
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Latest options dialog:
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new version 1.00.10 is up,
with default comment, auto launch editor option, save as..
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It would have been great to have this for the review last week (if it would have had PNG support, that is). At this point, I only have two suggestions. 1) Make the camera exposure sound optional and 2) stop teasing me with the option to save different formats and implement it. =p
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sound optional, ok i will add that tonight.
other formats, yes, i just have to figure out how to save the comments inside them.
ps. i already added a "Save As.." to file menu where you can save at any format and compression quality.
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Yes, but saving to JPG and then converting it to PNG is kind of pointless. It would be like compressing a WAV into an MP3 and then decompressing the MP3 and compressing it to FLAC--the damage is already done.
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true.
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Converting to PNG is a good idea if you'll be making a lot of changes that you may want to save intermittently, without the quality getting worse each time. (Not being a smart-ass, just adding a thought.)
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i will be adding a lossless file capture mode, i just have to figure out how to save comments inside it.
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mouser, I get the following message when I start up Screenshot Captor.
Access violation at address 00404C46 in module 'ScreenshotCaptor.exe'. Read of address 00000330.
After acknowledging the message it starts normally and appears to work OK.
Jeff
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i got another report of that, it seems to be related to the file browser component not being happy about something.
do you get the error each time you start the program, or is it all fixed now that it has created its ini file.
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No, it occurs each time I start up.
Jeff
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thanks jef, i'll get it fixed, i just have to try to figure out a way to reproduce the bug here - you're not the only one getting this behavior.
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new version up (won't help jeff's problem).
changes:
you can now set default image format to jpg,gif,png,tif (comments are saved in all now)
compression slider
sound is optional
statusbar now lists resolution and filesize of images as you view
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new screens:
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v 1.00.15 is up, better menu organization, cute new dropshadow shadow feature.
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Slick shadow feature. You may want to consider breaking up the preferences panel--it has a ton of options. Maybe you could group them into two sections of related options?
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yeah i should probably use tabs, as i have before.
who knew it was going to grow into so many options....
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ok the prtsrc hook problem should be fixed now.
i just have to fix the problem causing crash on some machines..
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yep, printscreen key functions now work fine on mine.
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1.00.18 now up.
known problem: png files do not store comments :(
all other file formats do.
not too much changed on outside of this version, but the internal mechanisms for detecting file changes outside of app are completely redone, hopefully will work better with external graphics editors now.
can those who were experiencing that access fault error on startup tell me if it still happens or if its fixed now?
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Still happening, mouser - this is the message on my machine.
Access violation at address 004056BE in module 'ScreenshotCaptor.exe'. Read of address 00000330
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thanks jeff..
damn i thought for sure that would fix it..
ok, i will keep looking for the problem. probably something super simple.
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version 1.00.19 now up - jeffk can you test and see if it cures the problem?
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I'm not getting any error messages, but it would appear that it's having trouble reading the .ini file on my machine. When I run it while the .ini file is present, it hangs and the tray icon never appears. However, when I delete the .ini file and run it, it works fine. This is 1.00.19, by the way.
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can you check to see if its not just a really slow startup with the ini file?
give it 5 or 10 seconds - just so i know if its really a hang or a dif issue.
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version 1.00.19 now up - jeffk can you test and see if it cures the problem?
-mouser
I hereby declare it fixed. Stand up and take a bow, mouser! :up:
Thank you,
Jeff
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great to hear that that is fixed, though it created this startup delay.
im going to try one more fix compromise and see if that solves it..
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On my setup it only takes 2-3 seconds to startup. In fact, if I close it down and restart it, it takes less than 1 sec.
Jeff
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yeah works for me too without startup issues, but with one experimental version i did notice a strange bug with like a 10 second startup.. and im wondering if that wasnt the problem tenseiken was experiencing.. i have something i can try to fix it..
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It's not just a slow startup... I just gave it a couple minutes to run. No luck.
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how strange...
so if you delete the ini then it runs, but after you exit and restart, it hangs (without even showing icon), is that right?
but the other versions did work..
really strange. i will try to fix.
if you have some time it might be nice for you to play with the .ini file a bit and see if changing anything or deleting an entry fixes it.
in particular, try changing the FolderPathEdit.Text entry or deleting it.
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Now that you mention it, it may not just be this version. I think I remember having to delete the .ini file while installing a new version a time or two. At the time, I assumed it was the new version not reading the old .ini file properly--I don't think I ever actually closed and re-ran the program without installing a new version until now.
I went through all the preference changes I made one by one to see which one broke it, and after doing so, it's still running. I wonder if it's the combination of changes I was making all at once. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but if you have any other ideas, I'll be happy to test them. I've taken a few screenshots, and I've noticed that for some reason, it started placing them in the folder above the one I specified, and after that, it broke down and stopped running. Removing the entry you mentioned did not help at this point.
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i think these bugs are all related to the same problem,
they sound like a problem i thought i had fixed, with the program getting confused about the directory it is in,
i just wish i knew a way to reproduce it. any think strange about your directory structure that might cause the problem?
question, if you try browsing arround using the .. entry
ie just navigate around directories and dont try capturing antyhing
and see if the program confuses itself and gets lost, etc.
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I've been able to reproduce the error without changing any settings. There seems to be a difference between exiting with the system tray and exiting with File->Exit. Still, it almost seems random. Sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't--I haven't been able to distinguish a pattern As for it getting confused about the directories, I haven't the slightest clue. I don't install 3rd party programs onto my system drive and my screenshots aren't on the 3rd party or the system drive. I doubt that is what's causing it though. They're all NTFS, if that makes any difference.
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well i don't hold much help of this latest version fixing it but it's worth a try.
jeffk, this version may bring back your crashing bug so please try as well if you dont mind.
would it be easier for you guys if i just uploaded the main app exe? or do you prefer the setup program?
[link out of date]
once i get this bug fixes i can start polishing the program.
btw - i did use this program for the email review, and it did help me :)
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No, it didn't bring back the crashing behaviour. Appears to start quickly and work normally.
Thanks,
jeff
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Now it works sometimes and sometimes it doesn't... I wonder if this is just a problem on my end. It seems like it's more likely to work properly after killing the process with taskmgr than if I exit it from the program.
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you know, the program does have code to prevent it from opening multiple copies - perhaps that is getting confused;
let me upload a version with that turned off, and see if that doesn't fix the problem.
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ok, new version up without the code to check for another running copy -
tenseiken would you mind testing this version and see if it helps?
(no need for jeffk test on this one).
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I'll test it as soon as I get home from work.
Edit: It works about 95% of the time now. About the only time it screws up is when I exit and then quickly run it again. If I give it a couple seconds, it consistently works fine.
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thanks tenseiken, that's good news.
i'll work now on some new features.
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Cool. Do you have anything in mind at the moment?
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yes, ive added a ton of features already; will be uploading a new version shortly.
reorganized options.
some cool effects which can be used to highlight the active window in a screenshot (my fav new feature).
cursor capture options; better support for multimon capturing
better save and autoname options.
other things planned:
ability to specify more external tools to invoke.
save comments in png images.
auto detection of active window/exe name for use in file naming.
other ideas are welcome - keep in mind the approach ive taken is to be very minimal on image editing, with the expectation that you will do this in an external editor (which the program should make as easy as possible to invoke), and focused more on facilitating fast and easy capture of lots of images one after the other.
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version 1.01.02 is now up (same url):
[link out of date]
tons of new stuff.
hopefully no more crashing :)
Make sure you check out the new organized options page.
suggestions wanted, i'll probably make a page for this in my downloads section this week.
If you're upgrading, you'll probably want to clear your filename prefix field on the main window, since there is now a separate field in the options dialog that servers the purpose that this field used to serve.
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Still works fine for me. The new options panel is great, and I like the dimming and greying options.
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minor update with better undo support (ctrl+z).
i think the feature set has stabilized enough now for me to update the help file and start tracking version changes.
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v1.01.05 - you can now add as many custom external tools as you want to the Tools menu.