Request: make freehand annotations

[dmtoddma]

I'd like to revive this request, to be able to draw freehand on an image within ScreenshotCaptor.  I often want to do make minor edits to text or web pages. The windows snipping tool does this nicely but doesn't have nearly the number of other features of SC. If this isn't going to be added, can you suggest a simple, quick to load external editor that would offer this function?

Thanks.

David

[mouser]

Hi David.

I agree it would be useful to build it in.
I actually implemented a minimal freehand tool, but disabled it because it was a bit clunky and hard to fit in with the other object tools in terms of letting user be able to edit what they add.  I may try to add it back and we can see if it can be made to work well.

Having said that, SC was designed to work very well with external image editors, and your question about recommending a simple quick load external editor with this feature is a great one.

There are some good big free editing tools like the Gimp and Paint.net.. but i think you are probably wise to want a small fast one -- does anyone know a good fast free image editor that is particularly good at freehand markup?

[mouser]

Just a quick update -- after spending a few hours on this today I feel comfortable saying that simple freehand drawing will be added to Screenshot Captor soon.

It will be just simple drawing with a round pen of user-chosen size, color, and transparency, and an eraser.  Nothing more.

The only thing I need to work on before releasing a version with this is I want to make it like the rest of the objects, where the paint layer is something you can come back to and edit/clear later, which is going to take a bit more work. I may release the non-undoable version before then if people would like to experiment.

[tomos]

... simple freehand drawing will be added to Screenshot Captor soon.

-mouser (February 11, 2013, 04:04 PM)

that'll be fun

(would be happy to test if you want early testing)

[mouser]

Looks like i've almost got it working how i want.. should be an update in next day or two.

[mouser]

If anyone wants to try an early alpha, here's a new exe (not setup file); unzip and replace old exe:
https://www.donation...ScreenshotCaptor.zip

Let me know how it works for you.

One quick note: Painting speed is much reduced when not at exactly 100% zoom.
fixed (as long as fast object moving is checked in Interface Options tab, which it is by default).

[mouser]

ps.
For an interesting effect, draw some freehand text and then hit the Shadow button before you leave freehand mode.

[Ath]

Hm, drawing is fine, but I'm a bit unsure about the Undo feature. ctrl-z doesn't seem to remove the free-hand drawing, though it does remove the shadow applied (as per your suggestion )

[mouser]

Proper ctrl+z undo doesn't work yet.
But, you can save and come back to a file and clear or erase any freehand painting.

[mouser]

New alpha version up (same url), with better undo support, not just for freehand painting but for all object editing.

[tomos]

New alpha version up (same url), with better undo support, not just for freehand painting but for all object editing.

-mouser (February 12, 2013, 08:33 AM)

first go here:
works very well

couple minor things:

if I go to another image, the drawing work is not saved (I have that setting activated where it saves automatically when you click on another shot).
-
Hmmm after messing around and at least 8 trys it now saved when I clicked other file. It doesnt show changes on the thumbnail though [edit] does now after a bit more clicking over and back [/edit]. Also, I am unable to remove the writing. You say "you can save and come back to a file and clear or erase any freehand painting" - I dont see how (?)

not sure how many undo's it has - looks like 10.
If press Ctrl+Z more than 10 times, each extra click reduces the number of redos (even though the extra Ctrl+Z's are having no effect).
Example:
I make 20 marks
I press Ctrl+Z 15 times - 10 marks are removed
I press Ctrl+Y 15 times - only 5 marks are shown again - the first 5 press seem to get swallowed by the superfluous Ctrl+Z presses

(hope that makes sense)

[mouser]

I'm troubled by your experience of it not saving or not showing in thumbnail.. it should.

As far "you can save and come back":
The freehand painting is saved on a separate layer.  If you do some freehand painting, save the file, then come back to it later, when you click on freehand paint tool again, you can click the button to erase all freehand painting from before, or use the Eraser mode to erase some and re-show the original.

[tomos]

I had made a new portable install for this testing.
I restarted it and it saves the drawing every time now
- but I cant get it to show in thumbnail at all - well I just tried restarting it again and that worked.

FWIW win7 64bit


> As far "you can save and come back":
ahh, that was obvious for me - I was trying with the object remove

[tomos]

Okay, it's working now:
as said in previous post - the drawing showed in thumbnails after restarting.
I then used the eraser and the thumbnail updated as expected.

I then worked on another screenshot and thumbnail showed correctly when saved.

I'm not sure if that's simply from the restart or from the editing (prob the restart but what would I know).

[mouser]

Thanks for all the testing and reporting tomos!  

New version up (same url); added a flood fill mode to freehand painting -- note that it floods within freehand paint lines only -- it doesn't pay any attention to contents of screenshot image.

The flood fill mode can be useful for two purposes:

• First, it can be useful to draw a freehand box or circle around some area and then fill it with an interior color (like Yellow); especially useful when using transparency or PaintMode Multiply which lets black text shine through.
• Second, it can be a quick way to change the color or existing freehand painting.

Example:

[mouser]

New version uploaded to try to address issues with freehand paint layer when resizing canvas.

[mouser]

btw tomos i did find a couple places where it was going to save the file temporarily without the paint in the thumbnail -- mostly when launching external tools on the file.  that should be fixed now.

[tomos]

thumbnails working fine today

Fill works a treat & looks great

Request: make freehand annotations