DonationCoder.com Forum
DonationCoder.com Software => Mouser's Zone => Screenshot Captor => Topic started by: Fizzgigg on January 03, 2009, 12:32 PM
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I've been looking all over but can't find a solution. Now I have to swallow my pride and ask. How do I capture windows with rounded corners in Vista? And is it possible to capture with rounded corners and also get the windows shadow without getting anything of the background?
Thank you for your time.
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this should work if you do an active window capture.. it was working last time i tested it but because i dont use vista i may have to try it again to make sure i didnt mess it up.
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I've tried that along with a bunch of different setting in the preferences, and I've tried saving as png and tif without success.
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let me check again -- the code is in the program but it may not be kicking in anymore.
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Am I going mad or is this still broken ? I've never been able to capture Vista rounded corners and drop shadow with Screenshot Captor - it's the single reason I still keep WindowClippings around.
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I distinctly remember checking this recently and it worked.. do you have a non-standard theme or "shell" in your vista setup?
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Nope, nothing unusual at all. Bog standard Vista Aero.
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anyone else care to report on whether SC does rounded capture on vista?
tanis, can you attach a sample pic?
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Here is an image created using Screenshot Captor using the Grab Active Window function.
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For comparison purposes, here's the same window, captured with WindowClippings. The white background was added by Screenshot Captor when I imported the image to use the blur function. WindowClippings itself uses transparency instead of a white background.
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Any thoughts ?
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i'm going to take another look at it.. i'd love to hear if other vista users are experiencing same thing.
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Using Windows 7, and experiencing the same issue. I heard somewhere that the PrintWindow function can't capture Aero, so that may be the problem?
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I'm using Windows 7 64-bit and experiencing the same issue and more.
When I do a screen capture (Prnt Scrn) the SCC window will pop up with a rectangle selection that is smaller than the active window, which then disappears before I can do anything with it. But other than that, everything looks fine.
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And when I do an active window capture (Alt-Prnt Scrn) it will properly grab just the active window, but the corners outside the active window are not made transparent like they are when doing the same thing in XP.
When capturing the active window of games I make in TGB, the contents are blank/black:
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Don't forget to look at the non-transparent colors above.
And when capturing Google Chrome it does really weird stuff.
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EDIT: Is it just me or are those screenshots not displaying?
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More weird stuff:
When trying to capture an image of the SCC window, the image is just a white screen (but my mouse cursor is captured properly).
When making a full screen capture and then cropping the image and renaming it, the thumbnail image in the sidebar doesn't update. The name updates, but the actual thumbnail itself shows the full desktop capture. Even going into the menu File -> Save Changes Now sometimes doesn't get that thumbnail image to update.
I've uploaded a few of these to the forum in the past, thinking that the thumbnail hadn't refreshed but that the cropped image had indeed been saved, only to be surprised to see my entire desktop in the thread after uploading the image. I've had to hurry and take the image back down (for instance when an image of my online banking I had tried to crop out was in the background) fix the image for good, then reupload to my posts.
I'm sorry to say it mouser, but ScreenShot Captor is practically useless in Win7 with all these problems. :( It would be easier to press Print Screen and paste the image into Paint than to use SCC in its current state. Please fix it!
EDIT: I think I found out a case where it won't save/update the thumbnail: If there is a period in the filename. Like "ScreenShotCaptor 3.12.5.png" It gets hung up on "ScreenShotCaptor 3" and doesn't save.
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Ok let me do a round of work on Screenshot Captor in the next few days and see if i can't address some of these issues.
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With regard to the latest beta version (2.79.01):
When I do a screen capture (Prnt Scrn) the SCC window will pop up with a rectangle selection that is smaller than the active window, which then disappears before I can do anything with it. But other than that, everything looks fine.
Fixed! :Thmbsup: In fact, when doing a full screen capture, the active window is properly pre-selected, and clicking the crop button properly makes the corners transparent. It also properly captures the transparency (Aero effects) in all my windows.
And when I do an active window capture (Alt-Prnt Scrn) it will properly grab just the active window, but the corners outside the active window are not made transparent like they are when doing the same thing in XP.
Still broken. :( And also SC does not like the Aero transparency stuff. Anything that is transparent due to the Aero theme either is captured as pure blackness or when I'm lucky it just isn't transparent (non-Aero), but the proper colors otherwise.
When capturing the active window of games I make in TGB, the contents are blank/black
Still broken. :(
And when capturing Google Chrome it does really weird stuff.
Still broken. :( I think this is mostly due to Chrome's unique lack of a title bar.
When trying to capture an image of the SCC window, the image is just a white screen (but my mouse cursor is captured properly).
Still broken. :(
When making a full screen capture and then cropping the image and renaming it, the thumbnail image in the sidebar doesn't update. The name updates, but the actual thumbnail itself shows the full desktop capture. Even going into the menu File -> Save Changes Now sometimes doesn't get that thumbnail image to update.
EDIT: This appears to be fixed! :Thmbsup: This is still broken. :( This works when "Auto-save new captures" is enabled, but doesn't update the thumbnails when it is disabled. :-\
I also found a new weird thingy: If you change the settings so that it doesn't automatically save new captures, there is no default text used in the Name field to save it. You have to manually type in a name first to save it.
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im going to try to fix the active window capture right away.. that seems like a deal breaker.
however i'm having a hard time reproducing your report.. can you be more specific about what actions you take and what options you have that cause this behavior of active window capture not trimming rounded corners/transparency, so i can try to reproduce?
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ok i've got self capture on win7 fixed, and it may be related to the TGB problem.. we shall see.
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anyone else with win7 trying the beta and not seeing it properly capture the rounded corner transparency? or having it work properly?
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Doesn't seem right to me...
Win7x64 and SC v2.79.01
(http://i43.tinypic.com/vg26hs.jpg)
Using WinSnap, it looks like this:
(http://i40.tinypic.com/2r2ta50.jpg)
Any specific settings I might have overlooked?
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joby and deo,
can you try the new beta i just uploaded:
https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/screenshotcaptor/downloads/beta/ScreenshotCaptorSetup.exe
youll also find a new tab controlling capturing transparent windows on vista/7 that you can tweak.
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while i'm still curious how the latest version looks,
i think i have a better capture method to employ to get transparency more accurately.. stay tuned.
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I've just tried today's beta and the results are somewhat mixed. It seems to now recognise the curved borders but the active window (using Alt-PrtScr) is captured in Aero Basic mode rather than Aero - is there a setting I've missed which controls this ?
Also, for the life of me I cannot work out why there's a black border around the image. No doubt I've missed something though I have turned off: Preferences/Post-Capture Options/Add Border to Image
One small thing I'd love to have changed is the "ding" sound played whenever I select a thumbnail in the Screenshot Panel. I cannot find an option for this, it appears to be using the Windows Default Beep sound. A small thing, sure, but an annoying one. :)
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Also, for the life of me I cannot work out why there's a black border around the image.
see the new transparent window capture options tab, it has an option that adds a border by default.
the active window (using Alt-PrtScr) is captured in Aero Basic mode
yes, i will be addressing this next.
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Ok, with the black border option removed I get the following (note the small black dots on the corners). I've played briefly with the transparency options but nothing seems to remove this artifact.
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try increasing the 2 numbers a bit (try like 80,20).
but really you can just wait for my next major transparency mechanism.
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but really you can just wait for my next major transparency mechanism.
-mouser
Ok, will do. I only posted and experimented because I thought you wanted feedback on the newest beta. Perhaps I misread. :)
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no i did! i just realized that there is a fundamentally less-kludgeish way to do this.
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Using SC's latest version:
(http://i39.tinypic.com/syw4mr.jpg)
Still no good...
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i will have new transparency capture method soon, but why do you say "still no good"? looks pretty good to my eyes.
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i will have new transparency capture method soon, but why do you say "still no good"? looks pretty good to my eyes.-mouser
Transparency does seem to work in his latest shot, but compare the images from his previous post (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=16434.msg203239#msg203239) - seems to be a thing wrt. theming now (you're probably capturing non-Aero, or sth)
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but why do you say "still no good"? looks pretty good to my eyes.
-mouser
The rounded corners are still missing...check out my previous screenshot taken with winsnap.
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the upper corners are rounded in the new SC one, just not the lower ones.. but that's because of the theme change issue tht f0dder points out.
anyway, the new method should solve it stay tuned.
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perfect aero/vista transparency capture coming very soon.. :)
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all finished and tested in minicap; just have to built it into SC and upload; expect a new version this weekend.
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MiniCap will be updated too?
Would be great! :up:
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anyone care to try the latest beta ? 8)
https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/screenshotcaptor/downloads/beta/ScreenshotCaptorSetup.exe
couple of things to mention:
- SC will actually now recover and preserve the alpha transparency from the window, and leave your file semi-transparent (unless you have SC set to flatten screenshots); this means you can now composite them or show on a non-solid background properly.
- Don't miss the new "Window Capture" options tab which lets you control some advanced features, including whether you want SC to try to strip the semi-transparent border outside the window area.
Example of preserved transparency in a window capture, note the semi-transparent checkering on the titlebar:
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a word of warning.. one of the really stupid things i did was make the default hotkey for capturing the active window "Alt+PrtScr"; the problem is that if you let go of the alt key in mid capture, you can trigger the active window to change to display the alt key accelerators and other things.
my advice: go to your hotkey options and swap the hotkeys for active window and complete desktop, so that active window capture is Ctrl+PrtScr.
otherwise just make sure you keep alt key pressed for the duration of the capture (right now i have quite a bit of delay during the aero capture process; i should be able to get that much shorter before final release).
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Well...what can I say...just take a look:
(http://i41.tinypic.com/vqsc9s.jpg)
Thank you! :Thmbsup:
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it took 2 or 3 solid days of working to get it all working.. half a day to most of it, and then another 2.5 days of trying to get it working as well as i could and tweaking. i'm sure we will still find some minor issues but i'm glad it's basically working! thanks to everyone for being patient and reminding me this feature was needed.
note to coders 1: one lesson learned is that Win7/Aero glass on vmware operates in non-accelerated non-3dgraphics-card-simulation basic-theme mode, which CANNOT reproduce the semi-transparency (at least my vmware 6 can't, maybe newer ones can), and so is not useful for testing such stuff -- that's why i thought for the longest time that this corner transparency issue was already solved.
note to coders 2: i give credit in the help file but i should say so here as well, that Ian Griffiths's write-up of capturing transparency provided the eureka moment for me on how to get transparency information (and convinced me that trying to find a set of windows api functions to do it was hopeless): http://www.interact-sw.co.uk/iangblog/2007/01/30/recoveralpha ; a word of wisdom to those coders trying to use this method -- it won't work perfectly as described on that page, because Aero glass effects don't do a pure linear alpha blending.. unless you can figure out the exact blending algorithm MS used (i couldn't) you are going to have to come up with some heuristics for recovering the underlying transparency and source colors (one thing i did was solve for the white-background pixels instead of the black ones since those seemed less muted).
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i'd be interested in hearing if anyone finds the options i added useful, or what Windows Capture settings you prefer.
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I'm not sure what those options do exactly (I'll play with them), but I like the outcome very much!
As for what Windows Capture settings I prefer, they have to be those settings that allow me to capture exactly what I see (WYSIWYG kinda' setup).
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i put some hints on mouseover for some of them.
as a quick guide -- if you set the "auto-remove" from 200 to 0 you'll see the difference. a value of 0 will result in capturing a larger area outside of the window that includes the existing Aero shadow effect -- i think this is what winsnap does for example.
if you set it to a high value like 200, SC actually detects the shadow and trims it away. this is useful if you don't want a shadow in your image.
the flatten settings i'm going to add a few more options for, but basically they remove the transparency inside the window that SC by default now preserves. this could be important for compositing when you dont wan't the background to show through it. one example you can see is if you keep the transparency, and change the background color to red, you will see through your capture; or if you add a shadow you'll see the semi-transparent regions get darker. flattening will avoid that. i'm going to add another option to only flatten within detected borders.
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Here's a sample comparison:
First we have an image with full transparency and shadow preserved (auto-remove border setting of 0). Note that the capture is bigger than the normal window bounds in order to preserve the gradual shadow effect seen in Aero Glass, and note that the actual window pane titlebar area is semi-transparent which makes it take on the background darkness:
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Now we have the same window captured with the options to crop/trim the mostly transparent shadow area outside the dominant border, so the image is smaller. And note also that this image uses a new option to flatten any semi-transparent areas inside the border, which makes this image only have 2 values of transparency -- purely transparent outside the border, and purely opaque inside the border (note that the black corners you see are the pure transparent areas, and so you wouldnt see them if you put this on a white background) :
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Nice work!
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New version does not capture Chrome at all (Active Window Capture). The icon in the tray turns red and stays that way.
EDIT: I'm also getting strange behavior when I capture SC window fullscreen. It captures the title bar properly but then makes half of it disappear due to transparency issues.
(Image is 1280x1024, so beware!)
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i can confirm that.. let me try to figure out why chrome fails.
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Deo,
try the new version, should capture Chrome now, and not have that problem with maximized windows.
download url is unchanged ( https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/screenshotcaptor/downloads/beta/ScreenshotCaptorSetup.exe ).
remember to try changing the options as i showed above if you want to keep the original shadow effect.
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Both issues are fixed. :Thmbsup:
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glad to hear it -- thanks for the reports and testing.
ps. i've uploaded a new version that let's you configure the delay used when trying to do window captures, since i don't know how big the delay has to be to be reliable -- it would be nice to hear if people find that they can reliably capture windows with transparency with a very low value < 100. for this i highly recommend changing the hotkey to not use alt+prtscr to capture active window.
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just realized i should be able to automatically handle the delay by checking the screenshot, so that should do away with that option and make it a little more reliable.
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New beta version uploaded -- should be faster and more reliable at capturing.
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Working beautifully now thanks Mouser.
One comment though, the settings you've added are not immediately obvious to someone unfamiliar with the terminology. To me it would be sensible to have options like "Include Windows dropshadow" rather than "auto-remove area outside border with alpha less than (default 200). Nothing in that points the lay person (ie, me) as to why the shadows weren't being captured. No doubt there are plenty of people who understand exactly what you're talking about so perhaps I'm in the minority here. Anyway, food for thought.
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glad to hear it's working -- i should disable that option by default i think, it's confusing. and you are right about the wording, i will improve it.
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Screencast demonstrating the new Windows 7 / Aero semi-transparent window grabbing in Screenshot Captor:
https://www.donationcoder.com/screencasts/dc/3ds/sc17/sc17.html
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ] (https://www.donationcoder.com/screencasts/dc/3ds/sc17/sc17.html)
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Many thanks for this awesome tools.
In fact I am new user and I cannot find a way to capture rounded windows using Win7 aero transparency.
just have a look the corners with the setting I choose are not so clean as when capture and cropping a full screen (below image)
Some help thank you
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PS I hope my first img attach will be ok
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I found that if I perform a screen capture of the active window with Ctrl + PrtScr, then 'Keep image and show', then save the file as a .PNG, there are little white corners outside the rounded corners.
If I capture the window but select 'Save image as' and save the file as a .PNG. There are little black corners outside the rounded corners.
Can you shed any light on why these two paths return different results?
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It surely has to do with transparency (those corners have some transparency) but what i can't remember is if the Save As function is removing the transparency..
I suspect that is in fact what's happening -- question, in SC options, under "Image File Format" tab, do you have the box checked that says "Flatten background transparency on Save As" ?
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I do not have the button checked to flatten transparency.
I found that if I have the capture margin set to default (20) and 'Capture/Keep Image and Show/File/Save Copy As' I get a white background. Not sure if it's transparent.
With the same settings, if I 'Capture/File/Save Copy As' I get a black capture margin.
Here are the results. I've captured the current settings for you.
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The white background works for me since I'm currently using a white page but I would like to get transparency working. I tried a different color for the 'background color when flattening transparency' but couldn't see any change in the resulting image.
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jmoslander,
there is no reason it shouldn't be preserving transparency with PNG captures.
can you email me ([email protected]) a sample screenshot or two and maybe you and i can figure out what's happening in your case? i've gotten a little lost in this thread with what's working and not working, but i would like to get this solved.
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I'm visiting again this topic, again with a problem. :-[
I'm using SC v3.03.01 on Windows7x64sp1.
I'm trying to capture a program's window, together with its pop-up window.
I'm using "Grab windows Object or Scrolling window" option, because "Grab Active window" option only captures the pop-up window.
This is the result (check the corners of the background/main window):
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joby, can you confirm for me that it works properly if there is no child pop-up?
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Oops, didn't think to check that!
Main window captured using "Grab windows Object or Scrolling window" option:
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And using "Grab Active window" option:
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I guess it must be a known issue...
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Yeah, grab active window is the only one that does the transparency fixing and the child windows confuse it a bit.
BUT, I should be able to fix that.
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Sorry to be late on this topic,
I have just installed the latest version of SC on Win7 Prof 64bit, and can't seem to get transparent window backgrounds.
Instead, captures look like this:
(http://i.imm.io/1jh1P.png)
(http://i.imm.io/1jh20.png)
The captures are made using the "Grab active window" button of the Quick Capure Bar.
SC settings are all default (I chose "reset settings" on installation).
Any idea what could be wrong?
Regards David.P
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Is the window you are trying to capture a child window, sitting in front of the main application?
If so, try moving it off of the parent background window (may require resizing main background window).
Because of the way the transparency capture works, SC has to do some unusual coloring behind the active window, which seems to fail if the window is a child window in front of a parent window from the same application.
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Ah ok mouser, that was it! Thank you.
Btw, is it possible to capture multiple (overlapping, or adjacent) windows, for example by shift-clicking on several windows that are currently visible?
Regards David.P
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Btw, is it possible to capture multiple (overlapping, or adjacent) windows, for example by shift-clicking on several windows that are currently visible?
Can you elaborate how you would want to use this?
The easiest way now would be to just make sure they are on a plain background and then capture the entire screen.
Once you've captured the entire screen you can use SC to remove the background area (as long as it's a relatively solid color).
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I meant something like this:
(http://666kb.com/i/cinrug1cou1mmxe87.png)
Faststone Capture (sort of) does that by Ctrl-Clicking several windows (or window elements) one after the other.
(However not with shadows, rounded corners, transparency etc.)
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Let me think about it a little bit.
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:)