View image without objects

[OLLI_S]

Hello,

I work as an Ergonomic Engineer / Usability Engineer.
I use Screenshot Captor to mark issues in screenshots of applications.
Here I use objects like rectangles, arrows and text boxes but I also insert small screen shots (zoomed view of a small part of the window).

It would be very useful to keep all those changes but to have a way to see the original screen shot without all object.
This is just a temporal view that is needed to check something (I do not need the original image without the objects as a separate image file).

I just found the way to save a copy of the image and then remove all object.
Afterwards I have to delete the new image.

Is there an easier way to perform this?
I miss a menu entry "View -> Original image wothout objects".

Greetings

OLLI

[mouser]

Neat idea.  I could add a feature for this quite easily -- perhaps I will.

However, you can achieve what you want in the current version of Screenshot Captor quite easily by creating a tool in a certain way.
Just create a tool (see bottom of Tools menu) that launches an image viewer (like IrfanView) and use the parameter "%tmpfileplain%" instead of the normal "%file%":


This tells Screenshot Captor to send a copy of the current image without objects to the specified program.

ps.
Screenshot Captor also does this when you configure an external Graphic Editor, in the options and hit the Graphic Editor toolbar button.  It does this so that you can make changes to the background image while preserving your objects.

[OLLI_S]

Hello mouser,

Neat idea.  I could add a feature for this quite easily -- perhaps I will.

-mouser (November 05, 2014, 07:06 AM)

Why just perhaps?

Screenshot Captor also does this when you configure an external Graphic Editor, in the options and hit the Graphic Editor toolbar button.  It does this so that you can make changes to the background image while preserving your objects.

-mouser (November 05, 2014, 07:06 AM)

Perfect, just what I needed!
I defined MS Paint as external tool and now I can see the original image (without the objects) with one mouse click.
And I can edit it (like remove some parts).
Perfect!

Greetings

OLLI

[OLLI_S]

Hallo mouser,

I found a bug here:
When I click the button "Launch Graphic Editor" then Paint opens the image without objects.
When I close Paint without changing anything then I see the image in Screenshot Captor the image with objects, but when I open the PNG on my HDD then this has NO Objects (just the plain image.
I have to save the image manually in Screenshot Captor (although I did not change anything in Paint).

When I made my screen shots for an application this caused severe problems, because I did not recognized that the objects are gone and I delivered she screen shots to the project team.

So when I don't change anything in the PNG file in Paint then Screenshot Captor should automatically save the image (so it is like before: a screen shot with objects).
When the PNG was modified in Paint (different file date and time) then Screenshot Captor should should ask me what I want to do (should the changes be adapted or not).

Greetings

OLLI

[mouser]

Ouch, I apologize for that.
Let me think for a second about how to handle that.
So what SC is doing is saving the file without objects so that you can edit it, but marking it as needing resaving in ScreenshotCaptor itself.
If you edit the now-objectless file in another program, SC will reload and reupdate it.
And if all goes expected, when you navigate away from the image in SC, it will prompt you to resave (or auto resave based on your options).

But if, as happened to you, you dont navigate away from the image in SC (or minimize SC window) and it hasnt had a chance to resave it, your image file will still be in a limbo state without objects drawn on it.

The dilemma is that Screenshot Captor doesn't *know* that you have stopped editing the program in a different program so it doesn't know how to ask you what you want to do after you've stopped.  Possible solutions would be for SC to use a temporary file to send to your graphic editor and reload from THAT file after you finish editing it.  That would make a bit more sense but has its own difficulties.  It's such a rare function that I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

Another option would be to put up some bit reminder text on the bottom area or something, with a button to dismiss/save.

[OLLI_S]

Hello Mouser,

SC did not ask, if I want to save when I clicked on an other image.
I hope I remember correctly (I am at home, so I can not re-test this).

If I open the image in an external editor you should show a modal dialog that asks me to click "OK" when I am finished editing the image with the external editor.
Would this be an option?

Greetings

OLLI