MiniCap, Please Help

[bgaraventa]

Hello, I've been trying to capture the web page at
http://gallery.gutterstar.net
but cannot capture the entire scrolling image of the page using the command line feature. I have had no problem getting it to capture and save an image to file. However, when I don't use the ScrollCap option, only the visible part of the image is captured, and when I use the ScrollCap option, the image of the page keeps looping over and over again, causing the image to be about 4mb as a jpg, and containing the same thing over and over within the image. If you could help me find a way of reliably capturing pages with large numbers of frames (which I think is causing the problem), I would really appreciate it.

Thank you, and best wishes,

Bryan Garaventa

[mouser]

1) there are some nice web page specific capture tools nowadays which may be better suited for what you want.  I know there are some firefox and ie plugins that might be good.
2) i think there is also a web service that will create a screenshot of a long web page also.
3) minicap hasn't been rebuilt for a while -- if you really need minicap, could you first try my screenshot captor program and see if that works on it -- if so then at least i know that my existing code can do it.

[laughinglizard]

There is an extension for Firefox called Pearl Crescent Page Saver.
It will take a screen shot of a whole page, part of a page, etc.

http://pearlcrescent.com/products/pagesaver/

There is a Free and Pro version, I use the free version and it works fine for what I use it for.
Its creates a .png image of the web page.

Otherwise, I use Mouser's excellent Screenshot Captor.

[bgaraventa]

Thank you for the suggestion. I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out ScreenshotCaptor though.

Does ScreenshotCaptor have commandline capability? Such as MiniCap does?

My problem is that I'm totally blind, and am unable to use the mouse to navigate a visually oriented application such as this very successfully.

This is why the MiniCap application is so useful. The commandline capability, combined with the ability to pass a window handle to capture the current browser window, is easily integratable with any accessible scripting language.

I'm currently working on a project for SSBBartgroup.com, which is an in-house application that will automate our module creation process. Modules consisting of the saved out source code for a given page at runtime, the JAWS For Windows virtual buffer content (which is a screen reader for the blind), and the active screenshot for the page (which MiniCap would be perfect for implementing).

MiniCap really is a great application.

Is there a way for me to simply give ScreenshotCaptor a url to http://gallery.gutterstar.net in order to test the output? I could have one of my sighted coworkers verify the result if so. I chose gallery.gutterstar.net because I know how complecated it can be to capture, having put the sight together years ago.

Thank you again, and have a great day.

Bryan Garaventa

[mouser]

I tried scrolling capture via screenshot captor on the gallery site and it failed -- i think the applet with the animated picture is mostly responsible.  So if Screenshot Captor is failing so will MiniCap i'm sorry to say.

Let us know if/when you find a program that will capture it successfully.  Definitely try the browser plugins, i think they have the best chance of working.

[bgaraventa]

Thanks for checking it out. It's good to know that the Java may be the sticking point.

Do you think Flash content would be handled better by MiniCap?

I'll keep looking. In the meantime, I'll keep using MiniCap.

Best wishes,

Bryan Garaventa

[laughinglizard]

I've been trying to catch the screen on your website Bryan, and the two extensions for Firefox that I used (ScreenGrab! and Pearl Crescent Page Saver) will capture all but the image at the top and the disable background music.

I tried the screen capture function in XnView with about the same results.

I was successful getting the whole thing captured with Fast Stone Capture, using the Capture Scrolling Window function.
Fast Stone is shareware, 30 Day Free Trial and 19.95 for a lifetime license - though if I remember correctly there is an earlier, freeware version floating around out there.

Here's the link to Fast Stone:
http://www.faststone.org/index.htm

The other products they have are very good too.

There's a program called SnagIt that might work, but I don't have it and its a bit pricey - I didn't download the free trial and see if it would grab your screen.
http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp

I hope that helps some.

[laughinglizard]

I was mucking about just now with one or two of the inexpensive graphics programs I have, and Ashampoo Photo Commander v.5 caught the whole screen in a heartbeat. I was using the capture mode.

Here's the link, but if you want to buy it, don't pay full price - sign up for the newsletter and they will send you emails with specials. I got Photo Commander 5 for $9.99 US that way.
http://www2.ashampoo.com/webcache/html/1/product_2_0718__.htm

[mouser]

webshot, commercial version has commandline support:
http://www.websitescreenshots.com/

[hamradio]

webshot, commercial version has commandline support:
http://www.websitescreenshots.com/

Dont know if the since commercial version does it or not but my earlier version did not appear to work.

[bgaraventa]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I'll give them a go and report back if I'm able to make it mesh together.

Even though MiniCap trips up on the java a bit, it's truly an awesome program. I've already recommended it to my coworkers as an example to live up to for ease of use.

Have a great day,

Bryan Garaventa

[nosh]

SnagIt's autoscroll didn't get it at first but setting a scroll delay (1 sec) did the job. Perhaps that'll do the trick with other programs too.