Copyright © 2008, 2009 Jérôme Guelfucci
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. The complete license text is available from the Free Software Foundation.
February 2009
Table of Contents
This application allows you to capture the entire screen, the active window or a selected region. You can set the delay that elapses before the screenshot is taken and the action that will be done with the screenshot: save it to a PNG file, copy it to the clipboard, or open it using another application.
If activated on build, you can also host your screenshots on ZimageZ, a free online image hosting service. The CURL and XMLRPC-C libraries are required.
A plugin for the Xfce panel is also available.
To launch the application, use the "Screenshot" item in the "Accessories" category of Xfce's main menu.
This window will be displayed:
The "Region to capture" section allows you to set from what the screenshot will be taken:
- "Entire screen" takes a screenshot of the whole screen as you see it.
- "Active window" takes a screenshot of the active window, the one which was active before this dialog appeared, or if you set a delay, the one that is active after the delay.
- "Select a region" allows you to select a region to be captured by clicking a point of the screen without releasing the mouse button, dragging your mouse to the other corner of the region, and releasing the mouse button.
The "Delay before capturing" section allows you to set the delay that will elapse between pressing the "OK" button and taking the screenshot. This delay will allow you to open menus or to do whatever action you want to see displayed on the screenshot.
The "Show the save dialog" option is described below, in the "Action" section.
The "Close the application" option allows you, if unchecked, to take several screenshots in a row. If checked, the application will be closed once the screenshot has been taken and the action you selected executed.
The "Action" section allows you to choose what should be done with the screenshot.
The "Save in" option will save the screenshot to a PNG file. If you don't check the "Show the save dialog" checkbox in the "After capturing" section, the screenshot will be saved to the folder on the right after you press the "OK" button, without showing any save dialog. Otherwise, a save dialog will be displayed, which also shows a preview of the screenshot. You will then be able to set the save location, and the name of the file.
Xfce4 Screenshooter is also able to save the screenshot to any remote file system supported by GVfs, such as FTP, SAMBA, SFTP, remote computers accessible via SSH... You just need to connect this remote file system using gvfs-connect or Gigolo and it will be available in the left column of the save dialog.
The "Copy to the clipboard" option allows you to paste the screenshot in another application, such as a word processor. Exiting the application before the screenshot is pasted often removes the image from the clipboard. Some clipboard managers allow you to prevent this.
The "Open with" option saves the screenshot to the system's temporary directory and opens it with the application set using the dropdown list on the right. Applications which support images are automatically detected and added to the dropdown list.
The "Host on ZimageZ" option allow you to host your screenshot on this free online hosting service, so that you can share it easily with other people. ZimageZ automatically generates a large and a small thumbnail of your screenshot, which can be used to create thumbnails pointing to the full size screenshot.
After pressing the "OK" button, you will be shown this dialog:
If you do not have a ZimageZ user name, you will need to create one on the ZimageZ website. Several languages are available on this website, you can switch between using the menu up right. You must fill all fields of this dialog. Once you click the "OK" button, the upload will start.
The dialog below will give you the links to the full size screenshot, the large thumbnail, the small thumbnails, as well examples of HTML and BBcode to create a thumbnail pointing to the full size screenshot:
Command line options allow you to take screenshots quickly. They also allow you to configure the Print Screen key on the upper right of most keyboards so that it takes screenshots. To do so, configure the keybindings of your desktop environnement so that it launches xfce4-screenshooter with one or several of the following options when the Prt Scrn key is pressed.
The -r option allows you to select a region to be captured by clicking a point of the screen without releasing the mouse button, dragging your mouse to the other corner of the region, and releasing the mouse button.
The -d option followed by a positive integer allows you to set the delay before taking the screenshot when the -f, the -w or the -r option is given.
The -s option followed by the path to an existing folder allows you to set where the screenshots are saved. This option only has an effect if the -f, the -w or the -r option is given. Combined with the -h option (see below), it can be used to save a file to a given path, without showing any save dialog.
If you give the -h option, the screenshot will be saved without showing any save dialog. This option only has an effect if the -f, the -w or the -r option is given. The -s option allows you to set the save location if needed.
If the -o option is given, followed by an application name, the screenshot will be saved to the system's temporary directory and opened with the application whose name is to be given after -o. This option only has an effect if the -f, the -w or the -r option is given.
To add the plugin to the panel, right click on the panel and select "Add New Item". Select the plugin named "Screenshot", and add it.
You can configure how screenshots are taken by right clicking on the plugin and selecting "Configure". A preferences dialog similar to the dialog of the main application will appear. Please have a look above for the different preferences.