Ask HN: Do you taking screenshots frequently while using your computer?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36740862

by amichail • 3 years ago

5 21 3 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Maybe there's something on the screen that you might want to look at later?

uberman• 3 years ago

I would guess I do once or twice a week. Why do you ask?

amichail4• 3 years ago

Don’t you think it is strange that operating systems don’t let you rewind what you see on the screen as a built-in feature?

warrenm5• 3 years ago

whahuh?

you want your OS to video everything you do all day?

Daeraxa• 3 years ago

Only when my cat puts her head on print screen

dave4420• 3 years ago

I take screenshots of errors and bugs to share on slack or in Jira, but I wouldn’t say I do it daily (unless GitHub is having a bad week).

warrenm5• 3 years ago

I take screenshots to send information to other people that need to know what something looks like

NoZebra120vClip• 3 years ago

Same here; that's my chief use case.

My chief method for saving stuff I want to keep is to use "Save/Print as PDF" to cloud storage. This works for most any web page, and it's good to put in a standard, single-file format.

One time, I went through my medical portal and took screenshots of all the test results, so I'd have my own history, and it'd be on my phone's local storage, where I could call it up during an office visit.

k310• 3 years ago

1. Some sites won't let you paste images, so an image URL is needed, and some URL's won't preview (none do at HN). So I take a screenshot and upload to imgbb, or other, and get a clean URL.

2. Faster than shrinking a photo I took, a screenshot is almost always smaller.

3. I clean out captions with no meaning for my post, without opening an image editor.

4. I save tweets and excerpts of README files that say all that I need.

5. I put windows (typically images) side by side for a quick montage or comparison without opening GIMP. (snap)

6. I save screens with account balances for reference, and pretty much anything from Apple's App Store that doesn't allow copying, or listing. Some JavaScript (sc**d?) disables copying, so I screenshot or turn off JS (YMMV with that)

7. I snap images for my recipe manager that are hard to save, ( in some JavaScript flip book), webp (growl) format, or are movies.

Almost never full-screen, nor web page > 1 screen.

I use an app that lets me select an area, and saves snaps, and also lets me copy/drag the snap.

muzani• 3 years ago

About 5 times a day. App developer. We screenshot bugs and bug fixes. Sometimes it's easier than describing by words. We screenshot the IDE because of syntax highlight.

zzo38computer• 3 years ago

Not frequently, but sometimes I do. And, sometimes I just write it down on a paper.

mhdhn• 3 years ago

A ton. My most common workflow is command+4 on Mac, then select rectangle to capture, then reveal in finder, then rename the image file name to something meaningful. Wish I had a faster workflow for this.

turtleyacht• 3 years ago

Paste into Powerpoint instead, and (sometimes) use Text Box to caption images. I almost never go back to them, but it feels handy to have.

This approach might be slightly faster, with an emphasis on context--without a caption, sometimes just the screenshot makes sense.

You can annotate the pasted image too, with colored rectangles and arrows.

If the first slide is blank, New Slide automatically makes the same type.

quickthrower2• 3 years ago

A lot!

Usually for pasting into Slack to discuss. Sometimes to paste into Onenote for docs. Occasionally for blog posts.

Ask HN: Do you taking screenshots frequently while using your computer?

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