path: root/doc/ksnapshot/index.docbook

<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.2-Based Variant V1.1//EN" "dtd/kdex.dtd" [
  <!ENTITY kappname "&ksnapshot;">
  <!ENTITY package "kdegraphics">
  <!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE">
  <!ENTITY % English "INCLUDE" > <!-- change language only here -->
]>

<book lang="&language;">

<bookinfo>
<title>The &ksnapshot; Handbook</title>

<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Richard</firstname>
<othername>J.</othername>
<surname>Moore</surname>
<affiliation>
<address>&Richard.J.Moore.mail;</address>
</affiliation>
</author>

<author>
<firstname>Robert</firstname>
<othername>L.</othername>
<surname>McCormick</surname>
<affiliation>
<address>&Robert.L.McCormick.mail;</address>
</affiliation>
</author>

<author>
<firstname>Brad</firstname>
<surname>Hards</surname>
<affiliation>
<address>&Brad.Hards.mail;</address>
</affiliation>
</author>

<othercredit role="reviewer">
<firstname>Lauri</firstname>
<surname>Watts</surname>
<affiliation>
<address>&Lauri.Watts.mail;</address>
</affiliation>
<contrib>Reviewer</contrib>
</othercredit>

<othercredit role="developer">
<firstname>Richard</firstname>
<othername>J</othername>
<surname>Moore</surname>
<affiliation>
<address>&Richard.J.Moore.mail;</address>
</affiliation>
<contrib>Developer</contrib>
</othercredit>

<othercredit role="developer">
<firstname>Matthias</firstname>
<surname>Ettrich</surname>
<affiliation>
<address>&Matthias.Ettrich.mail;</address>
</affiliation>
<contrib>Developer</contrib>
</othercredit>

<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
</authorgroup>

<copyright>
<year>1997-2000</year>
<holder>&Richard.J.Moore;</holder>
</copyright>

<copyright>
<year>2000</year>
<holder>&Matthias.Ettrich;</holder>
</copyright>

<legalnotice>&FDLNotice;</legalnotice>

<date>2006-07-05</date>
<releaseinfo>0.7</releaseinfo>

<abstract>
<para>&ksnapshot; is a simple applet for taking screenshots. It is capable
of capturing images of the whole desktop, a single window, a section of a window or a selected
region.  The images can then be saved in a variety of formats.</para>
</abstract>

<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>KSnapshot</keyword>
<keyword>kdegraphics</keyword>
<keyword>screen capture</keyword>
<keyword>screen grab</keyword>
</keywordset>

</bookinfo>

<chapter id="introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>

<para>&ksnapshot; is a simple applet for taking screenshots. It is capable
of capturing images of the whole desktop, a single window a section of a window or a selected
region.  The images can then be saved in a variety of formats.</para>

<para>Please report any problems or feature requests to the <ulink
url="http://bugs.kde.org/wizard.cgi">&kde; Bug Tracking System</ulink></para>

</chapter>

<chapter id="using-ksapshot">
<title>Using &ksnapshot;</title>

<para>This chapter describes the use of &ksnapshot; for capturing screen
images.</para>

<sect1 id="starting">
<title>Starting &ksnapshot;</title>

<para>&ksnapshot; may be started by one of several ways as described
below.</para>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>You may start &ksnapshot; by selecting it from the <menuchoice>
<guimenu>K-Menu</guimenu><guisubmenu>Graphics</guisubmenu>
<guimenuitem>&ksnapshot; (Screen Capture Program)</guimenuitem></menuchoice>.
</para></listitem>
<listitem>
<para>You may start &ksnapshot; by entering the following at the command
prompt:</para>
<screen width="40">
<prompt>%</prompt> <command>ksnapshot &amp;</command>
</screen>
</listitem>
<listitem><para>The mini command line (invoked with
<keycombo action="simul">&Alt;<keycap>F2</keycap></keycombo>) may
also be used to start &ksnapshot;</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>Once &ksnapshot; starts, you will see a window like the following:
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="window.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>&ksnapshot; Preview Window</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="taking-snapshot">
<title>Taking A Snapshot</title>

<para> &ksnapshot; grabs an image of your entire desktop immediately after it is
started, but before it displays itself on screen. This allows you to quickly
create full-desktop screenshot images.</para>

<para>The snapshot taken by &ksnapshot; is displayed in the preview window,
which is located in the upper left of the &ksnapshot; application window.
Below is an example of the preview window from &ksnapshot;. Your preview
will differ depending on what you have displayed on the desktop.</para>

<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="preview.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject>
<textobject><phrase>&ksnapshot; Preview Window</phrase>
</textobject>
</mediaobject>

<para>The snapshot can be saved by clicking on
the <guibutton>Save As...</guibutton> button. This opens the standard &kde; save dialog,
where you can choose the filename, the folder location, and the format that your snapshot
will be saved in. If multiple snapshots are taken, the
filename is automatically incremented to prevent you from overwriting previous
snapshots. You may however edit the filename to anything you wish, including the name
of a previously saved snapshot. </para>

<para>To take a snapshot of a single window, select the <guilabel>Window
Under Cursor</guilabel> combo box entry (next to the <guilabel>Capture mode:</guilabel>
label), and then click on the <guibutton>New Snapshot</guibutton> button.</para>

<para>Depending on your <guilabel>Snapshot delay:</guilabel> settings you
get either a cross as the mouse pointer (for <guilabel>No delay</guilabel>),
or a standard mouse cursor which you can use to work with a program until
the delay is over and a snapshot is taken.</para>

<para>With <guilabel>No delay</guilabel>, the snapshot is taken immediately when you
click into a window.</para>

<para>&ksnapshot; will display the new snapshot in the preview
area, at which time you can choose to save the new image (by pressing
<guibutton>Save As...</guibutton>)
or to grab a new one, by pressing the
<guibutton>New Snapshot</guibutton> button.</para>

<para>To take a new snapshot of the entire desktop, select the
<guilabel>Full Screen</guilabel> combo box entry and then click on the 
<guibutton>New Snapshot</guibutton> button.
&ksnapshot; will now capture the entire desktop if you press
<guibutton>New Snapshot</guibutton>.</para>

<para>Similarly, to take a snapshot of a region, select the 
<guilabel>Region</guilabel> combo box entry and set the 
<guilabel>Snapshot delay</guilabel> to <guilabel>No delay</guilabel>,
and then click on the <guibutton>New Snapshot</guibutton> button. The
mouse cursor will then change into a cross, and you can then use the 
mouse to select the region you want to capture. </para>

<para>To take a new snapshot of a section of a window, select the
<guilabel>Section of Window</guilabel> combo box entry and then click on the 
<guibutton>New Snapshot</guibutton> button. With <guilabel>No delay</guilabel>
you get a cross as the mouse pointer and you have to click once with the &LMB; into 
the window. The section of the window under the mouse cursor is now highlighted 
with a red border. Move the mouse to the wanted section and click the &LMB; 
to capture the screenshot.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="additional-features">
<title>Additional Features</title>

<sect2 id="delay">
<title>Snapshot Delay</title>

<para>The <guilabel>Snapshot Delay:</guilabel> box allows you to enter an
arbitrary time delay, in seconds, between the time that you press the
<guibutton>New Snapshot</guibutton> button and the time that the snapshot is
taken.</para>

<para>When a delay time has been set, you do not have to click the mouse
button to capture a screenshot.  This enables you to open a drop down menu,
and take a picture of it.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="window-decoration">
<title>Exclude Window decorations</title>

<para><guilabel>Include window decorations</guilabel> is enabled by default.</para>

<para>When you only want to capture the application itself without the surrounding
window decoration, disable this option and take a new snapshot.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="print-snapshot">
<title>Print</title>

<para>When you want to print your snapshot from the preview, just click
<guibutton>Print...</guibutton> and you get the standard &kde; Print dialog, from
where you can directly print your snapshot.</para>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="copy-snapshot">
<title>Copy to Clipboard</title>

<para>When you want to edit your snapshot in a graphics application without saving 
the snapshot, just click <guibutton>Copy to Clipboard</guibutton> and insert the image 
into a viewer or graphics application.</para>
</sect2>


<sect2 id="bottom-buttons">
<title>Buttons</title>

<para>There are two further buttons located at the bottom of the
&ksnapshot; window. There function is described below.</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><guibutton>Help</guibutton></term>
<listitem><para>Gives you a menu where you can open the
<guimenuitem>&ksnapshot; Handbook</guimenuitem>, report a bug or
get some more information <guimenuitem>About &ksnapshot;</guimenuitem>
and <guimenuitem>About &kde;</guimenuitem>.
</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>

<varlistentry>
<term><guibutton>Quit</guibutton></term>
<listitem><para>Quits the &ksnapshot; application.</para></listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

</sect2>
</sect1>
</chapter>

<chapter id="dcop">

<title>&DCOP; Interface</title>

<para>&ksnapshot; can be scripted using its &DCOP; interface. This
chapter explains the various &DCOP; calls that you can use, and 
provides some examples of how you can use them.</para>

<para>As with all &DCOP; calls, you need to specify the application
you want to interface with, and the particular interface. With &ksnapshot;
you need to identify which particular application, which is
<literal>ksnapshot-</literal> followed by the process number.</para>

<para>To start &ksnapshot; and obtain the right argument, use
<command>dcopstart ksnapshot</command>, which returns the 
argument (such as <computeroutput>ksnapshot-20594</computeroutput>) on
standard output.</para>

<para>You can get a list of the available &DCOP; interfaces, use
the right arguments, as shown in this example:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop `dcopstart ksnapshot` interface</command><computeroutput>
QCStringList interfaces()
QCStringList functions()
QString url()
void slotGrab()
void slotPrint()
void slotSave()
bool save(QString filename)
void slotSaveAs()
void slotCopy()
void setTime(int newTime)
int timeout()
void setURL(QString newURL)
void setGrabMode(int grab)
int grabMode()
void slotMovePointer(int x,int y)
void exit()
</computeroutput>
</screen>
</para>

<para>
In the examples following, the process is always
<computeroutput>ksnapshot-23151</computeroutput>.
</para>

<sect1 id="dcop-settings">

<title>&DCOP; Access to Settings</title>

<para>For each of the settings that you can control with the
&GUI;, you can both obtain the current status of that setting,
and modify the setting, using &DCOP;.
</para>

<para>You can obtain the current capture mode using 
<literal>grabMode</literal>, as shown below:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface grabMode</command>
</screen>
This will return <computeroutput>0</computeroutput> for full-screen capture,
<computeroutput>1</computeroutput> for window capture, and <computeroutput>2</computeroutput>
for region capture.
</para>

<para>You can set the capture mode using <literal>setGrabMode</literal>,
which requires an argument to identify the mode required (as for <literal>grabMode</literal>).
So you can set window capture mode (<command>1</command>), using:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface setGrabMode 1</command>
</screen>
</para>

<para>You can obtain the current timeout setting (the <guilabel>Snapshot delay:</guilabel>
GUI item) using <literal>timeout</literal>, as shown below:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface timeout</command>
</screen>
This will return the timeout setting in seconds, or zero if there is no delay
(capture on click).
</para>

<para>You can set the timeout using <literal>setTime</literal>,
which requires an argument to identify the timeout duration. So you can
set a delay of 4 seconds using:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface setTime 4</command>
</screen>
</para>

<para>You can obtain the path that the snapshot will be saved to using 
<literal>url</literal>, as shown below:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt><command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface url</command>
</screen>
This will return the filename, as a &URL; (eg as 
<computeroutput>file:///home/bradh/test2.png</computeroutput>).
</para>

<para>You can set the path using <literal>setURL</literal>,
which requires a string argument to identify the new path. So you can
set the path to <literal>file:///home/bradh/snapshot.jpg</literal>
using:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface setURL file:///home/bradh/snapshot.jpg</command>
</screen>
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="dcop-snapshot">
<title>Taking Screenshots with &DCOP;</title>

<para>
The key to taking screenshots with &DCOP; is use of <literal>slotGrab</literal>,
as shown below:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface slotGrab</command>
</screen>
</para>

<para>
This will take a snapshot using the current snapshot mode and timeout settings
(as described above). If you want to save the snapshot image, there are a
number of calls you can use. If you just want to save the image to the current
path (as returned by <literal>url</literal> or changed by
<literal>setURL</literal>), you can use <literal>slotSave</literal>, as shown
below:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface slotSave</command>
</screen>
</para>

<para>
If you want the user to be able to specify a filename (and path), you can use
<literal>slotSaveAs</literal>, which will bring up a standard &kde; file
save dialog.</para>

<para>
If you want to save the image to a different name (or path) without
changing the path with <literal>setURL</literal>, you can use
<literal>save</literal>, providing the &URL; to save to as an argument. So if you
want to save the snapshot to <filename>file:///tmp/tempshot.png</filename>, you
can do the following:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface save file:///tmp/tempshot.png</command>
</screen>
Note that this will return true if the snapshot was successfully saved, and false
otherwise. Also, you should be aware that if the file already exists, the user
will get a standard &kde; dialog that requires the user to decide whether to overwrite
or not.
</para>

<para>
In addition to saving the snapshot, you can also copy it to the clipboard, using 
<literal>slotCopy</literal>, as shown below:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface slotCopy</command>
</screen>
</para>

<para>
If you need to select a window that may not be under the mouse cursor, you
can use <literal>slotMovePointer</literal>, passing the x position
(in screen pixels) and the y position (also in screen pixels) as arguments.
So to move the mouse to the top left hand corner of the screen (0,0), you
can do the following:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface slotMoveMouse 0 0</command>
</screen>
</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="dcop-print">
<title>Printing Screenshots with &DCOP;</title>

<para>
You can print the current screenshot (which may or may not have been saved)
using <literal>printSlot</literal>, as shown below:
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface slotPrint</command>
</screen>
</para>

<para>
Note that this will bring up the normal &kde; print dialog, which may require
user interaction.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="dcop-exit">
<title>&DCOP; Application control</title>

<para>
You can cause &ksnapshot; to exit by using <literal>exit</literal>,
as shown below.
<screen width="60">
<prompt>$</prompt> <command>dcop ksnapshot-23151 interface exit</command>
</screen>
</para>

</sect1>

</chapter>

<chapter id="credits">

<title>Credits and License</title>

<para>Program copyright</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>1997-2000 &Richard.J.Moore; &Richard.J.Moore.mail;</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>2000 &Matthias.Ettrich; &Matthias.Ettrich.mail;</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>

<para>Documentation based on the original, copyright 1997-2000 &Richard.J.Moore;
&Richard.J.Moore.mail;</para>
<!-- TRANS:CREDIT_FOR_TRANSLATORS -->

&underFDL;
&underGPL;

</chapter>

&documentation.index;
</book>

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