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Linux: Time Delayed Screenshots

A little while back I ran into a problem in Linux and wanted to take a screenshot of it. In most cases you can simply press the “Print Screen” key on your keyboard and move on.

In other cases its not so simple. Often times, when you want to take a screenshot of a menu, you’ll find that the screenshot tool cannot be called while the menu is open. You can get around this problem in most cases by installing Shutter.

While Shutter is a great tool with some very handy features for screenshots, it also doesn’t always work or is unable to capture some things (as far as I’ve found).

One solution that is very simple to use is a simple command line (link sent to me from a friend). If you hate command line tricks then you can easily make a Gnome button for this as well. 😉

The menu that I was trying to grab a screenshot of was an Opera sub-menu from the O-menu icon (can’t remember which one for sure, but probably the Bookmarks sub-menu). Print Screen wouldn’t work, Shutter complained that it couldn’t detect any open or focused menus, so I resorted to the following:

$ gnome-screenshot --delay=10

Basically, this command calls the same program that is called when you press Print Screen, but since you’re adding a delay (10 seconds in this case) it has already been called before you open the menu..which rules out the problem of your keyboard Print Screen key not working.

While this seems to be a very simple command, which it is, I’ve benefited from it several times already. So if you ever find yourself having trouble capturing a particular screenshot, just pop open a terminal and use this delayed command!

If you’re looking for for an easier method and don’t mind a permanent button in your Gnome panel, just do the following:

Right click your panel and select “Add to Panel…”
“Custom Application Launcher” should be the first option in the list that comes up. Select it and click the “Add” button at the bottom.
Leave the “Type” as Application.
You can name this launcher anything you wish, maybe something like “10s Delayed Print Screen”.
Copy the command that I mentioned above into the field labeled “Command”. You can change the value from 10 to anything you want or need.
You can copy the name text into the “Comment” field as well since this is what you will see when you hover the button.
You could optionally edit the icon if you wanted, but its not necessary. Click close and you’re done.

Enjoy!

Screen Capture Tip: Use Jing!

I’ve been using this little screen capture tool for several weeks now with very positive results! Jing is available to Mac and Windows in both a Free form as well as a Pro (pay for) form.

Using Jing, you are able to quickly capture a screenshot of a specific window or a pesky little software bug in action, upload it to an online source and paste the link all within a matter of seconds!

If you can’t capture what you’re looking for in a simple image, you might like the option to capture a video of what you are doing on your desktop and share a link to that instead!

To use Jing, you simply select it from the top of your screen (where it waits by default) and click capture. You’re then given a selection tool that allows you to pick to screen space that you want to capture….nothing more, nothing less. After selection the area that you want to capture, you simply specify if it’s for an image or for a video.

If you click image, you will have your capture almost immediately and can pick where to store it! If you select video, you will have 3 seconds to prepare your cursor or anything else you need to do. After the count down, video recording begins. Simply click the stop button when you’re finished and pick a source to upload to!

One feature that I’ve only just started using is the FTP option to upload my captures to kyleabaker.com! Thus far, I’ve used Jing to capture tons of bugs that would have otherwise been nearly impossible to capture.

Aside from the slightly noticeable resource usage and slight hang when it’s first activated, Jing is an excellent tool that I would suggest to anyone who needs to capture a visual from your computer screen!

Under construction..stay tuned ;)

Well..the site is under-going some major cosmetic changes. You might notice that some (most at the current moment) links are not working, but this should be fixed in time as I complete the site. There will be more links added to the menu on the left as well and the site progresses.

uture plans for the site include ‘comments’ so that users can comment on these entries that I make. I think you all will enjoy it, haha. You can praise or criticize. A forum is in plan for general chat and tech support for various things. I’m also planning on having a vault of sweet screenshots so save up your good ones..upload them to imageshack.us or something similar and hold on to the link until the posting begins, haha. 😛

On top of all of these changes..the website will be 100% valid code..just as all of my websites are, haha. I believe in webstandards. (webstandards.org and w3c.org)