Feature Request: SC to freeze the on-screen display prior to clipping an image.

[IainB]

Feature Request: SC freezes the on-screen display as soon as it is invoked, allowing the user to take their time to frame the section clip.

I am putting this in as a feature request as I can't see how to get SC to do this using the existing settings.
(See the emboldened/italicised bits in the cross-post, below.)
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Re: NoteFrog Pro (clipboard information manager) - Mini-Review

I have already sent Berry 2 test reports and have just now sent him a third - the latter about what I have termed "the Systray problem".
The symptoms are that sometimes, after being minimised/closed to the Systray, NF disappears from the Systray, though the process appears to continue.
The collage of screenshots below is intended to explain it, and what I could find out about it.



I am providing the screenshot not so much as to describe an apparent error/bug, but rather to demonstrate how useful Screenshot Captor can be in problem analysis cases like this - where "a picture is worth a thousand words".
The picture is comprised of a sort of collage of different screenshot bits, starting with the first - which was of the Task Bar and Process Hacker window (which were side-by-side) - and then overlaying other screenshot clips and adding a text box and arrows, and expanding the canvas in SC (Objects-->Expand canvas to fit objects).
I'm sure I could have made it look nicer, if I took the time, but the thing is it would have been difficult for me to do this without using SC. SC really is a superbly crafted and useful tool for such purposes.  

The only constraint in using SC in this case seems to be in taking any screenshot of an area of the screen which contains a system pop-out window - and there were 2 such instances in this case. SC couldn't take such a clip without closing the pop-out window first, every time I tried it. The Windows Snipping Tool and the ABBYY Screenshot Reader weren't any better, but the OneNote Screen Clipping tool did the job just right as it freezes the on-screen display as soon as it is invoked, allowing the user to take their time to frame the section clip.

I shall cross-post this in the SC discussion forum, as a request to add similar functionality to SC.
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[mouser]

The only constraint in using SC in this case seems to be in taking any screenshot of an area of the screen which contains a system pop-out window - and there were 2 such instances in this case. SC couldn't take such a clip without closing the pop-out window first, every time I tried it.

How are you triggering the capture?  Are you using Shift+PrtScr to do a selected-region capture, or just plain PrtScr to capture entire screen?  If Shift+PrtScr, are you using the normal way to select a region which shows crosshairs that go from top to bottom and left to right of screen? Or are you using RedBox mode?

The motivation for these questions:  Unless you have changed the region-capture mode to RedBox mode, SC should freeze the screen before engaging region capture mode.  One possibility for what you are seeing is that the keystrokes to engage the capture are closing the pop-up message before SC engages.

Can you do a few more experiments and see if you can figure out a few more clues?

[IainB]

I was using the region-capture mode Shift+PrtScr, but the pop-up window(s) in all cases closed before SC froze the screen. The cross-hairs then capture the screen after the pop-ups have closed. This is repeatable.

This is in Win8.1-64 PRO, using Classic Start Menu's Taskbar to pop up the little Systray "Show hidden icons". In Customise, there was another information pop-up - all as captured by OneNote, in the image above.

It seemed to me that the keystrokes to engage the capture were closing the pop-up message before SC engaged.

I observed this difficulty in SC some time ago, but it was only today when it got in my way that I thought to mention it.

[mouser]

Can you see if the shift key alone causes the popup message to disappear instantly, or what about prtscr key alone?

[IainB]

...This is repeatable. ...

-IainB (May 11, 2015, 06:15 AM)

Erm, well that's no longer true...   
Having rebooted the laptop, I am pleased, but embarrassed to report that the apparent "constraint" I was moaning about no longer applies. In both cases, SC captures the stuff after nicely freezing the screen.

I'm now wondering if it ever was a constraint in SC, or just in fact a problem in my own laptop's system.
The only thing I can think might have caused it was my TouchPad mouse, which had been behaving very strangely, so I uninstalled it and restarted the laptop, whereupon the TouchPad was auto-reinstalled. The TouchPad is now working fine, and so is SC.

My apologies for a false alarm and wasting your time.

[mouser]

Nothing to be embarrassed about.  Another possibility is that if you haven't used SC in a long time, but you've been doing other things, windows may unload it from memory even if it's running in the system tray.  So in some cases this could mean that there is a slight delay between hitting the PrtScr button and having SC actually trigger the capture.  Maybe that's what happened before.

[IainB]

Nothing to be embarrassed about.  Another possibility is that if you haven't used SC in a long time, but you've been doing other things, windows may unload it from memory even if it's running in the system tray.  So in some cases this could mean that there is a slight delay between hitting the PrtScr button and having SC actually trigger the capture.  Maybe that's what happened before.

-mouser (May 11, 2015, 10:51 AM)

That's possible. SC is a really useful tool, and I sometimes leave it running in the background, ready for when I might need it. It's still there when my laptop goes to sleep/hibernate, and when it awakes from those states. I shall be more aware of this possibility now, and monitor things more closely.