PictView: ScreenShot tool issues - suggestions
Posted: 09 Oct 2006, 20:57
Moved from http://forum.altap.cz/viewtopic.php?p=6253#6253
"Screen capture" of PictView is currently not providing the tools that make the workflow really smooth. At the moment, I need 4 additional tools just to do ScreenShots. If PictView was able to do all 3 things mentioned below, I could work within one single tool and stay where I will manage the saved file...so I'm happy to hear from you what you think
1) WinSnap (http://www.ntwind.com/software/winsnap/) might serve as an inspiration with it's great feature "save as thumbnail" and "copy thumbnail to clipboard". Would be a tiny but nice addition smoothing the workflow of screenshots and maybe others as well (web page editing etc).
2) Moreover, I like the mode "Capture Windows/Object" of FastStone Capture http://faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm as it allows to capture single GUI widgets (buttons, lables, panes,...) without any need to crop manually. Great when talking about errors in translation, layout etc. of software.
3) Both tools allow to capture a rectange and provide a magnifier area, so selecting the correct are is easy. This is way more efficient and intuitive than frist capturing, then zoom in, select -- which is quite hard when you have to scroll at the same time (image is heavily zoomed) -- and crop.
4) Very simple highlighting tools (rectangle, arrow, free hand) are usually needed to point to the issues one's writing about. IMHO they can be _really_ simple, some of FastStone Capture's tools are already too sophisticated, e.g. the "free hand drawing" tries to produce a polygone making it impossible to write with the Tablet PC pen whereas the highlighting tool is really nice (UI and workflow). Could be used as inspiration. For really nice annoations, the Microsoft Snipping Tool might serve as inspiration, see description at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... mspx#EQCAC but from my point of view, this is out of Salamander's scope -- only mentioned due to the UI and possibilities.
/Georg
"Screen capture" of PictView is currently not providing the tools that make the workflow really smooth. At the moment, I need 4 additional tools just to do ScreenShots. If PictView was able to do all 3 things mentioned below, I could work within one single tool and stay where I will manage the saved file...so I'm happy to hear from you what you think
1) WinSnap (http://www.ntwind.com/software/winsnap/) might serve as an inspiration with it's great feature "save as thumbnail" and "copy thumbnail to clipboard". Would be a tiny but nice addition smoothing the workflow of screenshots and maybe others as well (web page editing etc).
2) Moreover, I like the mode "Capture Windows/Object" of FastStone Capture http://faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm as it allows to capture single GUI widgets (buttons, lables, panes,...) without any need to crop manually. Great when talking about errors in translation, layout etc. of software.
3) Both tools allow to capture a rectange and provide a magnifier area, so selecting the correct are is easy. This is way more efficient and intuitive than frist capturing, then zoom in, select -- which is quite hard when you have to scroll at the same time (image is heavily zoomed) -- and crop.
4) Very simple highlighting tools (rectangle, arrow, free hand) are usually needed to point to the issues one's writing about. IMHO they can be _really_ simple, some of FastStone Capture's tools are already too sophisticated, e.g. the "free hand drawing" tries to produce a polygone making it impossible to write with the Tablet PC pen whereas the highlighting tool is really nice (UI and workflow). Could be used as inspiration. For really nice annoations, the Microsoft Snipping Tool might serve as inspiration, see description at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... mspx#EQCAC but from my point of view, this is out of Salamander's scope -- only mentioned due to the UI and possibilities.
/Georg