How Do I Make the Program accept a key combo I have assigned to...

[philipwells]

..."adjustable rectangle" then leave the shot in the Clipboard, without having to do anything else or see any dialog boxes?.  All I want is to grab a rectangular area and then paste it. I would like it to be as free of options and windows as possible.

There is a nice free screenshot tool (and I am not paying $40 for SnagIt) called MWSnap. It sits there, minimized. When I use the key combo I have assigned for "rectangular area" it puts up the  +  curtsor, I drag it around the desired area, release the mouse, and the picture is in my clipboard with no extra windows to see or choices to click.  The only problem is that it's like 15 years old and cant handle a 1920 x 1080 screen so the screen res changes for the capture then returns to normal.

thanks for any dorection or suggestions

Phil in San Diego



Thankd

[mouser]

You can do what you want with Screenshot Captor.

I'll give quick vague instructions and then if those are sufficient I can try to be more specific.

Step 1:
Set option to tell SC to capture and STAY MINIMIZED -- this will satisfy your desire to never be bothered with any extra choices to click, etc.
Set option to tell SC to automatically copy captures to the clipboard -- you will have a couple of choices here, whether to copy bitmap of image or file; experiment to see which works best depending on where you like to paste.
Use the shift+PrtScr hotkey to capture a REGION with crosshairs (or set a custom hotkey).

[IainB]

@philipwells: What you want to do - I do this all the time with SC (ScreenshotCaptor).
To do the same, follow these steps:

• In SC, go to menu Edit | Preferences - brings up Screenshot Captor Options panel.
• Go to The Basics | Interface Options.
• Select dot for Stay Minimized (under "After capture Show").
• Click on "Apply" at bottom of panel.
• Go to Basic Capturing | Post Capture Options.
• Tick "Play Capture Sound" (if you want that).
• Where it says "Copy to clipboard", select Image bitmap.
• Click on "Apply" at bottom of panel.
• Click on "Accept" at bottom of panel.
• Then Alt-Tab to the Window you want to take a clip from.
• Thereafter, whenever you want to use SC to Grab selected region (using crosshairs) press hotkey (Ctrl+Shift+C) or (Shift+PrtScr)
• Then the image clip bitmap will be sent to the Clipboard, and, if you enabled it, the Shutter sound will give feedback that capture is complete.
• If a little pane pops up asking what you want to do with the capture, then you forgot to set Stay Minimized above, so in the pop-up, where it says "After next capture", select "Stay minimized in tray".

Consider using @mouser's excellent CHS (Clipboard Help & Spell) - a clipboard manager with some extra-special functionality.

• I use CHS to save a copy of each image or text clip (just plain text) clipped to the Clipbard.
• Whereas the text clips are saved in the CHS database, images are saved by CHS as discrete files in a folder, in .PNG format. This is a really handy feature, as one can search for them using a file explorer also, so one is not constrained by having to use only the CHS user interface. Text notes can be added alongside any CHS image clip, and these are linked in the database to that specific image file.
• I save myself a lot of time by saving several successive image and text clips to CHS, one after another, and then scroll through them using CHS, and select the ones I wish to edit or paste.
• If I want to just view an image clip saved by CHS, I can either view it directly in the CHS image pane viewer (it has a handy mousewheel zoom function), or set an additional default viewer to view images with - e.g., I use irfanview here, as it also has a thumbnails panel with a navigation tree for managing all the images in the CHS folder where the selected clip image resides. This can sometimes be a really handy timesaver.
• If I want to edit an image that is saved by CHS, I can do so by setting a default image editor, and here I use SC (Screenshot Captor)! Edits made to the image clip using SC can be saved over the original image clip file, thus updating it for CHS. Ergonomically this is great, and it can be an incredibly useful timesaver. (Try it and see. YMMV.)

Hope this all helps or is of use.