How to take a screenshot

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by anderzole • 16 years ago

161 79 16 years ago

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dlsspy• 16 years ago

This really annoyed me. I took screenshots on my iPhone regularly to share things with people.

I can't do that on my Android phone without rooting it (at least, according to the screenshot apps in the market).

russell_h• 16 years ago

I've had the exact same experience. Admittedly, I was usually taking screenshots of the iPhone to share amusing UI bugs... but still.

chops• 16 years ago

Non-savvy users really get lost at how screenshots work.

I have a buddy who's a programmer at publishing house, specializing in niche magazines, and they deal regularly with non-savvy older users. He's got this story about one such customer who was complaining that something wasn't working on the website and when asked to send a screenshot he proceeded to:

1) Press PrintScreen 2) Paste it into Word 3) Print it out, and finally, 4) Fax it to the company.

I thought that was kind of related, and rather humorous.

thinkbohemian2• 16 years ago

I REGULARLY receive photos from cameras of someones computer screen when asked to supply a "screen shot". It was kinda funny the first few times...now its just sad.

fforw• 16 years ago

One time, my kernel was crapping out and endlessly printing stuff I couldn't read because it was scrolling WAY to fast and ctrl+s did not work either, so I photographed my screen to be able to read what the kernel was trying to tell me (hardware defect).

ams61102• 16 years ago

The best one I saw, though not really a screenshot, was a photo on Craigslist... someone had used his cell phone to take a photo of a car he was selling, then used a web cam to take a photo of the cell phone screen, and then uploaded that.

slapshot• 16 years ago

The sad thing is that it's not intuitive to non-geeks -- not that they are creative and find ways to make it happen.

"Cntl-PrintScr" is not an intuitive command to most people. Pressing the shutter button on a digital camera is.

Maybe this is a larger UI point than the author intended -- I'm not sure that the PC, Mac, or iPhone commands are the best way to solve the problem.

timcederman• 16 years ago

I am surprised at how useful what a seemingly superfluous feature is on the iPhone. I often find myself grabbing screenshots of things and sending it to friends, Twitter and Facebook. My location on a map. An amusing article I just saw. An SMS conversation. It's not obvious, but once you know how to do it, it's very handy and I'm surprised it's so difficult with Android.

awolf• 16 years ago

I love screenshots from the iPad maps application imported into SketchBook or some other drawing app. Very useful for whipping up driving directions to forward to a friend.

thwarted• 16 years ago

Why wouldn't you just forward them a link to the driving directions page? You lose all the functionality of the awesome Internet we have in 2010 by sending someone a static map. Anyone who can receive that would be in front of a computer connected to the internet, or if they are on the go, would be on a smart phone with internet access so they could look it up themselves. Might as well just carry around a paper map.

Unless you want to be a doormat like that guy in the commercials whose friends call him to ask him for driving directions and movie show times because your phone lets you browse the web while you're in a call at the same time. Let your friends look up their own directions.

ryanjmo• 16 years ago

When I give driving directions to a friend, I send them the address and let them figure the rest out on their own.

eam• 16 years ago

This is what I call a handy-dandy screenshot.

Often I find myself using it as a "cropping tool." For example, if I save some image from the web and I want to only save a certain part of the entire image, I just zoom into whatever area I want and take a screen shot and voila I have a cropped image. ;)

drivebyacct4• 16 years ago

Except that there are hooks in the OS to share all of those things natively in a data format that is useful to other people with phones... I'd be annoyed as shit if someone with an iphone texted a god damn picture of where they were instead of a mobile link that would open my maps application to your location allowing me to navigate there, etc.

araneae• 16 years ago

It has never occurred to me to take a screenshot of anything on my Android phone...

aptimpropriety• 16 years ago

Windows 7 actually comes installed with a Microsoft-developed 'Snipping Tool', which allows the user to drag a semi-transparent box (or free form, or windows size, or full screen) over whatever part of the screen the user so desires. You can annotate, paste, or save the image wherever you like!

/end campus rep plug

andrewtj2• 16 years ago

Similarly OS X 10.4 Tiger and later bundle a utility called Grab which does selection, window, screen and timed captures.

rimantas• 16 years ago

Or you can use cmd+shift+4 instead of cmd+shift+3. This allows you to select a region on the screen or you can press spacebar, mouse over the window you want to copy and press enter.

ams61102• 16 years ago

Grab has been around since NEXTSTEP. Was it really not in pre-10.4 OSX?

idoh• 16 years ago

Snipping Tool is great - I use it every day for mockups. Find a web page, change it around with firebug, take a snip and send it along ...

patio11• 16 years ago

Thanks for telling me about this. It is modestly faster than my usual "take a screenshot and then crop in Paint.NET" workflow.

jules• 16 years ago

You may want to know that Alt + Print Screen copies the currently focused window to the clipboard.

harisenbon• 16 years ago

The snipping tool is actually one of the major reasons I upgraded to windows7.

I used to use an old japanese program called screencut that while useful was an abomination man. Snipping tool is so much nicer.

thinkbohemian2• 16 years ago

Sadly though it still pails in comparison with fastStone capture. It is impossible to take a screenshot of a menu such as file >> Save As with the windows 7 too because focus goes to the tool when you select it, where as in fastStone it does not...plus you can annotate, add drawings, and when you save it automatically timestamps the filename for you so you don't have to rename all your freaking files...

In the interest of fairness i take a HUGE number of screenshots (tech support) so the win 7 tool may be adequate for most, i still find it sub par ( also for a mac shift+ctrl+cmd+4 saves a snippet to your clipboard...better than the windows 7 equivalent IMHO shift+cmd+4 to save as a file to your desktop)

nlawalker• 16 years ago

If you have OneNote Win+S instantly transitions to a rectangular-select screen capture mode without stealing focus.

three14• 16 years ago

From the help for the Vista version of the Snipping Tool:

Can I capture a snip of a menu, such as a shortcut menu or the Start menu?

Yes. Here's how to do it: Click to open Snipping Tool. On the Snipping Tool toolbar, click the Minimize button, and then open the menu that you want to capture. Press CTRL+PRINT SCREEN. Select the type of snip you want, and then capture the menu.

mikeknoop• 16 years ago

Now, to map the PrtSc button to launch the snipping tool...

est• 16 years ago

http://www.bcheck.net/apps/hoe.htm

papachito2• 16 years ago

KDE had that for at least 5 years (ksnapshot).

deltaqueue• 16 years ago

AutoHotKey + snipping tool has served me well.

Link to script: http://thirderror.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/snipping-to... (if you're running Vista or 7 x64: Run, C:\Windows\Sysnative\SnippingTool.exe)

Gyazo (gyazo.com) is also very quick (automatically uploads the images for you).

sandGorgon• 16 years ago

Question - is there a bug for this on Android ?

if not, I suggest someone file it (I dont have Android.. yet).

veeti• 16 years ago

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6547&q...

papachito2• 16 years ago

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=152

Tichy• 16 years ago

I hate the way it is done on OS X, too. I can't remember keyboard shortcuts I only use every couple of months.

Usually I use The Gimp for screenshots.

Anyway, this thing should be easy to fix for Android.

sjs3• 16 years ago

You can always change the keyboard shortcuts to something else if you don't like Cmd-Shift-3 and Cmd-Shift-4.

nailer3• 16 years ago

My prob with using a Mac for he last two years is instructions that use the alt and cmd keys (which are labelled on my MacBook keyboard as alt and cmd) as something else - one is called 'option', the other 'apple' but there is no key labelled either 'option' or 'apple' on the MacBook.

tomstuart• 16 years ago

If you don't like remembering shortcuts, use the built-in Grab utility instead.

hrabago2• 16 years ago

The way I solved this was to save a screenshot on my desktop of a web page with instructions on how to take screenshots.

sramov2• 16 years ago

    grep ss[fw] .bashrc
    alias ssf="import -frame -depth 8 -border ~/pic/ss/`date +%Y%m%d-%H%M`.png"
    alias ssw="import -window root -depth 8 ~/pic/ss/`date +%Y%m%d-%H%M`.png"

Results run through OptiPNG.

Other than capturing windows and full screen shots, it would also be nice to have some KISS solution for doing selections, like in Mac OS X.

petdog• 16 years ago

import does just that, if you drop the "-window root" argument

sramov2• 16 years ago

Huh, thanks! Will sure add 'sss' (selection) alias :)

hiroprot• 16 years ago

I find it interesting that this is so easy on iPhone and so hard on Android.

For some reason, I think of taking screenshots as a poweruser feature (which might or might not be the case), and that Android would make it easy, while Apple wouldn't make it available to regular users.

I wonder what the thinking behind those decisions were. Did his Steveness demand the easy screenshot functionality to capture UI feedback on the go?

jsz0• 16 years ago

It is interesting considering the limited number of physical button combinations on the iPhone. It was definitely more than an after-thought. They introduced the feature in iPhone OS 2.0 at the same the SDK was released so I'm guessing they intended it mostly for developers then realized it was pretty handy for all sorts of things.

jrockway• 16 years ago

Apple wouldn't make it available to regular users.

It lets you market Apple's product for free. Of course they are going to allow that.

mbrubeck• 16 years ago

It is a bit of a power user feature, but it's important to two groups of power users in particular: reviewers and developers. These are two groups that it pays to help.

Apple certainly doesn't make third-party developers its first priority, but they are decent at helping developers when it doesn't get in the way of Apple's desired user experience. One way they do this is by providing good developer tools and workflows.

bradleyland• 16 years ago

"that Android would make it easy, while Apple wouldn't make it available to regular users"

What would ever give you that impression? Before I went full-geek (I wasn't always this way), I considered myself a Windows power user. The first thing I ever published online (back in the nineties) was a short article titled "How To Be a Power User". It included what I thought was an exhaustive list of shortcuts that I used in my everyday computing life. I couldn't understand how other people got by using their mouse for everything. I once used my Windows PC for three weeks without a mouse, just so I could force myself to learn more keyboard shortcuts. I was in to it.

Fast forward 15 years and I'm a Mac convert. OS X contains a lot more "power user" features than most people would think. Your perception of a platform has a lot to do with familiarity, and I'd argue that the view summarized as "Apple doesn't make tools for power users" is wholly based in a lack of familiarity of their products.

davidw• 16 years ago

Being a site for hackers, and given that Android's source code is available, this is actually a challenge rather than just another internet dick-waving contest, right?

Edit. Like this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1406553

JMiao• 16 years ago

i don't know many "normals" that take desktop screenshots...but i get your point.

ntoshev• 16 years ago

I did't know how to take a screenshot on the iPhone but this would be useful. So I searched for other iPhone tips I'm missing, and here is a pretty nice collection:

http://iphonetoolbox.com/news/ultimate-list-of-iphone-tips-a...

yembi• 16 years ago

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12985/

Screenshot pimp: I use the non toolbar buttons in the options. It lets you select the area in the browser you want to capture.

Works in mac, too (but not sure about other linux distros)

Keyframe2• 16 years ago

Droid Does? What is this, copywriter was a fan of "sega does what nintendon't"?

jokermatt999• 16 years ago

That was the Droid's major marketing campaign, actually. Blame the writers of the ad campaign, not the image maker.

Keyframe2• 16 years ago

Sorry. I wasn't clear enough, I actually meant that as a blame towards ad copy, not the image itself.

rodh257• 16 years ago

Am I the only one that thinks this really isn't a big deal, some apple fan (judging by the guys twitter) making a big deal over nothing

[Edit: renamed to fan.]

ellyagg• 16 years ago

You're right that it's not that big of a deal, but downvoted for using "apple fanboy".

orangecat• 16 years ago

It isn't a big deal, but it's a fair shot at a silly limitation of Android. Of course it's noteworthy exactly because it's an exception to the usual pattern; compare using USB storage or Pandora on Android vs iPhone.

volomike• 16 years ago

Oh wow. That sucks. Here I am pumped about the future of Android and I didn't realize this. Google, please fix -- I know you read Hacker News.

crocowhile3• 16 years ago

I find lack of universal copy (as in copy and paste) more disturbing. I wish I was able to select and copy text in just any application, or at least in browser and mail!

drivebyacct4• 16 years ago

You can select text in Email, Corp Email and the Browser. Gmail has copy/paste in Froyo.

crocowhile3• 16 years ago

How? I have a nexus one running Froyo, I cannot select any text in browser/email. The only text I can select and copy is the one in text fields.

ecaron• 16 years ago

You could also reduce the list to:

1) Root* your phone or install Froyo

2) Install ShootMe (http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-bw-picme-loc...)

*: If you're reading this thread, and you have an Android but it isn't rooted, you're doing it wrong...

steveklabnik• 16 years ago

Some of us just like to use mobile phones, and don't enjoy fiddling with them.

khangtoh• 16 years ago

You have to realize that the android platform is years behind the iPhone. Developing for the iPhone was a nightmare when the SDK was first released to developers. APIs that did not work as described. Talk to iPhone developers that went through that stage of the evolution and you'll know.

studer• 16 years ago

No idea what the Android team's rationale is, but from a security perspective, I'm pretty happy that random applications don't have access to things written to the screen by other applications.

Not sure why it's not an OS level built-in, though.

How to take a screenshot

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