Question - How do you take a screenshot?

[jduped]

simple question hoping for a simple answer.  In windows you press print screen and bam you got a screen cap...how do you accomplish this same function in linux?

in KDE and GNOME there was a tool for this, I can't seem to find this in XFCE...

[Triarius Fidelis]

Hm, if you have ImageMagick installed, you can type 'import -window root screenshot.png', but I don't know what other GUI tools exist for that purpose. 

[jduped]

in my hunting around

I've found a few suggestions

zenshot
ksnapshot
gnome-screenshot

of these I haven't found any stand alone installable packages...

I tried that import-window command and I got a fail to excute error, I'm re-installing imagemagick

$ import-window root myscreenshot.jpg
bash: import-window: command not found

[rbistolfi]

I remember Shutterbug or something like that from VL5.1. The Gimp has a tool too, File > Aquire > Screenshot.

[uelsk8s]

its import <space> -window root screenshot.png
xfce has a plugin for the panel right click the panel and add new

[jduped]

Gimp worked   Thanks

I'm going to see if I can get it working with imagemagick

Thanks for the help.

[GrannyGeek]

I found the man file for import exceptionally hard to understand. After fiddling for a while, I found that this worked well:
me:$ import -quality 50 -pause 5 screenshot.jpg

-quality determines the compression level from 1 (lowest quality) to 100 (highest quality). I used 50 for tolerable quality and small file size. Adjust according to your needs.

-pause is a delay in seconds before the screenshot will be taken. I used 5 because that gave me enough time to bring to the front the window I wanted. When import is about to take the shot, you'll see a cross cursor on screen. If you select a screen area by enclosing it in a rectangle, that's what you'll get for your shot. If you simply click on the screen, you'll get a shot of the whole window you click on. If you want parts of several windows and maybe the desktop background, you have to wait for the cross cursor to appear and then make your selection rectangle. Once you release the mouse, the picture will go into your home directory unless you include a path in the file name.

There are tons more options for import, but I didn't understand them despite reading the online manual at the ImageMagick Web site. But the command line above, modified to your needs, will give you a basic screen shot. You can also choose the png format or other image formats by using the extension with the file name. Jpg and png are probably best for Internet posting.

This is a pretty neat program because it's very easy to use and can easily select the whole screen, just the window, or parts of the window or screen.
--GrannyGeek

[Triarius Fidelis]

There are tons more options for import, but I didn't understand them despite reading the online manual at the ImageMagick Web site. But the command line above, modified to your needs, will give you a basic screen shot. You can also choose the png format or other image formats by using the extension with the file name. Jpg and png are probably best for Internet posting.

The PNG format is ideal for screenshots.

[jduped]

This community never ceases to amaze me.

Granny that's a good tip I didn't really get the imagemagick tool either, the gimp does an ok job, the quality seems to be lacking...imagemagick does do a better job.

As usual, thank you for the useful advice.  I'm just going to make a launcher, for the imagemagick and just rename the file before I throw it on my data server to prevent naming redundancy.

I how ever found a good site for building tgz files for useful apps, some of which are not in gslapt... I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with slackbuilds.org  I built a bunch of apps last night, in prepretation for future installs and/or installs I do for other people.  I found wesnoth on there, had a few games of that

[exeterdad]

GrannyGeek-  Thanks!  I new about ImageMagick screen capture, but I thought it was just a primitive tool.  Didn't even know you could select a area.  I've only tried it by clicking the area and you get what you get.  Then I'd have to take it into Gimp to crop.  If that was the case, I'd be better off capturing with Gimp anyway.

Looks like I should hit the man page and see what else it can do.

[Triarius Fidelis]

GrannyGeek-  Thanks!  I new about ImageMagick screen capture, but I thought it was just a primitive tool.  Didn't even know you could select a area.  I've only tried it by clicking the area and you get what you get.  Then I'd have to take it into Gimp to crop.  If that was the case, I'd be better off capturing with Gimp anyway.

In its own right, ImageMagick is incredibly powerful. Problem is that it affects changes throughout an image, rather than in one part, so it's no good for things like taking away red eye in images.

[DrGrov]

I am using shutterbug to take screenshots. It's useful utility and very easy to work with.

[exeterdad]

In its own right, ImageMagick is incredibly powerful.

No argument there my friend.  I was only referring to the screen capture capabilities.  I have not even come close to fully understanding everything ImageMagik, but it's very useful to me, especially paired up with bash.

[GrannyGeek]

I've made a launcher in my XFce panel for import. The command I'm using is
import -quality 40 -pause 5 screenshot.jpg

These are good default settings for my typical screenshot needs for posting on some other forums. I can change the options pretty easily if I want to.
--GrannyGeek

[exeterdad]

Pretty clever GrannyGeek.  One could write a very small bash script and use zenity dialogs to collect settings info from the user too.  Would be simple to do and take very few resources.  Maybe I'll make one when I feel inspired so we can have our own VL screenshot app.