ScreenCapture
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Beta Beat: Screenium
Screencasting is becoming a standard method of conveying software-related information. I'm fairly certain that even my mom knows the word, which is my typical buzz-guage. And here you were, thinking "I wish there was yet another contender in the screencast recording arena", right? Lucky you.Synium's Screenium, which is currently in beta preview, is a new arrival in an already teeming category of software. It has standard features like fullscreen, fixed area and mouse-follow capture, hotkey integration and adjustable quality/frame rate with capture presets. It also boasts a single window capture mode and frame rates up to 60fps. I don't know why you'd need to capture a screen at 60fps, but it can't hurt to know it's available. In my testing, Screenium performed exceptionally well in the area of small filesize, high quality captures and its default presets were simple and useful. It also gets high marks for ease of use. And it didn't max out my CPU and turn my fans into Harrier jets after 2 minutes, which is kind of nice when you're recording microphone audio. It's got some distance to cover before the official release in February, but Screenium is looking like a strong contender.
Grab Clean Leopard Window Shots with CleanGrab
Ryan Irelan doesn't like the way Leopard grabs window shots. When you press Command-Shift-4/Spacebar, Leopard includes about 50 extra pixels of transparent background around your Windows. This extra space grabs the window's drop shadow along with the window itself. Enter CleanGrab. CleanGrab is Ryan's script for grabbing just the window, without the background pixels. He describes the script and offers a download link on his personal weblog. You'll either need to run the script directly or trigger it via a macro program like Quicksilver. The script essentially runs the command-line screencapture software using the -io flags. -i tells screencapture to run interactively. -o tells it to omit the window shadow. If you'd rather just use the terminal command-line, issue a screencapture -io command. I've posted about this handy utility a few times at least.
Snapz Pro X 2.1.1 is available
Earlier today, Ambrosia released version 2.1.1 of their popular screen capture tool (we've written about Snapz Pro X several times). For the unfamiliar: Snapz Pro X lets you capture what you're doing on your Mac's screen - or just a portion thereof - as a Quicktime movie. It's a fantastic way to make screencasts, and also snags audio and still images.Version 2.1.1 brings a number of changes, including: Improved registration experience Several squashed bugs, including the blank frames at the end of some movies and garbled video capture on older, nVidia-equipped Macs Improved performance for audio captures We like Snapz Pro X quite a bit. Try it out. A single license will cost you $69US. It's universal and requires Mac OS 10.3.9 or later.
Mac 101: Capturing your screen
Everyone got a #2 pencil? Then we're ready for more Mac 101, tips and tricks for novices and "I forgot how to do that!" veterans alike. Today we're talking screenshots, an essential tool whenever you need to document or display something for posterity. While there are lots of third-party tools for screenshot capture, the basic functions included with Mac OS X are nothing to sneeze at.The original, held-over-from-Classic method for screen capture is the venerable keyboard shortcut (sometimes referred to as an 'F-key'), Command-Shift-3. Hitting this key combo creates a 'Picture 1.jpg' (or .png, .pdf or .tiff file, depending on your OS version and whether you've fiddled with your settings via Terminal or AppleScript utility) that includes your entire desktop, multiple displays and all. Too much of a good thing? Try Command-Shift-4, and drag the crosshairs over the target area (hit Spacebar to toggle a 'camera' icon that will capture a full window with a click; hit Esc to get out of capture mode). As you use these keys, and a collection of 'Picture N.jpg' files begins to accumulate on your desktop, try adding the Control key to the combo -- Ctrl-Cmd-Shift-3/4 sends the captured image to the Clipboard, rather than a file. Personally, I use the clipboard version of the 4 key all the time to copy snippets of my iPhoto images into outgoing mail. It's faster & easier than exporting the full-size image.Sometimes, unfortunately, a command key is not quite good enough; for example, it's tricky to capture a pull-down menu onscreen. For this, there is Apple's Grab application, hiding out in your Utilities folder (also available as a Service in many applications). In addition to basic capture acrobatics, Grab offers a Timed Capture tool that works exactly like the timer button on a camera: hit the Capture menu/Timed Screen (or Command-Shift-Z), start the timer, get your ducks in a row and wait ten seconds. You can even Cmd-Shift-4 the resulting full-screen image to snag a small section if that's what you need. Happy snapping!
Jing makes screen captures slick and easy
It's always something: just as I start to write up a Mac 101 on screen grabbing, along comes something cool, free and pretty: Jing for Mac. Built by the screen capture savants at TechSmith (developers of Windows tools Camtasia and SnagIt), Jing combines a lightweight, one-click image or motion capture tool with a free 200 MB hosting account at Screencast.com. The result is a fine way to quickly get 'casual' captures online and shared with a minimum of fuss. The motion captures are saved as .swf Flash video, which is either a bonus or a drawback depending on your perspective.The current-but-one version (labeled a 'project,' not a beta) gave me a smidge of trouble on a dual-monitor setup, but the current 1.2.4 version seems to be working better, and it also cleared up a conflict with Growl. I'll do a few captures here and get a gallery together to see how they look. Jing isn't going to replace power tools like Snapz Pro, ImageWell or Skitch, but it's pretty good at what it does. Also, as Laurie pointed out, the Jing installer comes with a handy 'autoinstall' AppleScript that copies the application and then unmounts the disk image -- particularly useful for those friends and family (you know who they are) that seem to get confused and end up running applications from a mounted .dmg instead of installing them properly.Thanks Laurie & Dave
Telekinesis enables remote Mac access through your iPhone
Those hankering for more streamlined file access on the iPhone will still have to test their patience a bit longer, but here's something to tide you over. The Telekinesis application enables users to "remotely access their Mac through a collection of mini web apps on their phone," essentially allowing any iPhone user to tunnel into their home Mac and take control. More specifically, it enables screen capturing, iTunes control, Home directory browsing, iSight image captures, and even the ability to run AppleScripts remotely. Just a heads-up, however, that this software is still listed as Alpha, which means that things are more likely to go wrong than right when trying it out. If you're courageous enough to give it a whirl, though, be sure to let the gunshy know how things went in comments.[Via TUAW]
TUAW Tip: Screen Capture to PDF
TUAW reader Jakob writes that he often uses OS X's "Print as PDF" feature. He asks if there's a way to print only part of a website by dragging out a selection rectangle? Yes, Jakob, there's a very simple way. Yesterday, I posted a Terminal Tip about using OS X's built in command-line screencapture utility. What I didn't mention in that post was that screencapture allows you to grab your shots in PDF format. To use the mouse to capture a rectangle from the screen and then save it to PDF, just issue a command along the following lines: % screencapture -i -s -tpdf ~/Desktop/foo.pdf And if you're not big on using Terminal and the Command line, here's another way to approach the problem with Grab. Launch Grab from Applications/Utilities and choose Capture -> Selection. Use the cross hairs to select part of the screen and then print the results to PDF (File -> Print, then PDF -> Save as PDF). If you need to capture more data than a single screen will allow, consider Paparazzi. It's a donate-ware utility that allows you to enter a URL and a screen size. It loads the web page from the URL you provide and produces an image from that data--regardless of whether you'd have to scroll the screen to see the entire page in a normal web browser. No, it won't save to PDF, but it's pretty easy to convert the images if you have to. Update: The latest version of Paparazzi will save to PDF including searchable text. In a follow-up message, Jakob mentioned that he's really interested in producing a searchable result. Sure you can save to a web archive but both web archives (use File -> Save as or File -> Save Page as or the equivalent in your favorite browser) and his current method of printing to PDF create pretty big files, even if they are searchable. So here's my final recommendation: invest in Acrobat, not just in Acrobat Reader. In Acrobat, use Document->Extract Pages to save only those portions of the web page you want to keep and delete the rest.
Terminal Tip: 6 easy ways to capture your screen
OS X's built in screencapture command provides a simple command-line utility to snap images of your desktop. It offers quite a few options and many of them do not quite work as advertised. Even the manual page admits that screencapture is "not very well documented to date". To make it easier for you to jump in and get started with screencapture, here are six convenient already-tested variations that you can copy, paste and use. Consider adding these capture methods to shell scripts, to system calls from AppleScript or just running them directly from the command line as needed. 1. Capture your primary screen as a (default) png file.% screencapture ~/Desktop/screencap.png 2. Capture your primary screen as a jpeg (-tjpeg), including the cursor (-C)% screencapture -C -tjpeg ~/Desktop/mycapture.jpg 3. Wait for five seconds before capturing the screen.% sleep 5; say "ready"; screencapture ~/Desktop/mycapture.png 4. Interactively (-i) select (-s) an area of your screen with the mouse.% screencapture -i -s -tjpeg ~/Desktop/mycapture.jpg 5. Interactively (-i) select a window with the mouse. When the crosshairs appear after issuing this command, press the space bar then select a window with the camera.% screencapture -i -tjpeg ~/Desktop/mywindow.jpg 6. Select an area of your screen and copy it to the clipboard (-c) rather than a file.% screencapture -i -s -c
Desktops of the week for 10/15/06
Here we go with another edition of TUAW Desktops ladies and gents. You readers are submitting some great stuff to our desktops Flickr group, and since our last edition was a nice overall roundup, I decided to pick a theme for this week: function. I'm a big fan of making the most out of my available desktop real estate, and the desktops I've chosen each exhibit an interesting perspective on this practice. In this edition we have desktops ranging from über-minimal yet uniquely-functional to a full-on Exposé overload, and even a pseudo-multi-dock environment. But without further adieu, let's get down to business:First up is shorts by pacificbro. By his own admission this isn't so much a clever, intricate desktop setup, though it's more of a functional use of the wallpaper space with many common (and some not-so) keyboard shortcuts he needs to get around his daily business. Too bad I didn't see this before the My Dream App stuff started - I just got inspired to submit an app idea that swaps out shortcuts like this on the desktop space depending on what app you're currently working in. A simple F11 Exposé keystroke would reveal all (or most) of the shortcuts you need to work. *Sigh* - maybe I can get in on round two. But speaking of Exposé, let's keep moving.
New video capture mode for DevHook
DevHook has just become even more amazing. ADePSP from PSP-Hacks has modified the GTA Cheat Device's ability to record in-game footage and has appended it to DevHook. With this new homebrew application, you'll be able to record footage from the games you play as animated GIFs. It'll even record footage from the XMB! This awesome application will require quite a hefty Memory Stick, as the files recorded are uncompressed.
Screenshot Settings 1.1 applescript
Just like its title implies, Screenshot Settings 1.1 is a simple little GUI applescript that allows you to change both the image format Mac OS X uses to capture screenshots, as well as the default location where these images are stored. While altering Mac OS X's screenshot format is pretty simple with this little utility (see: this post's screenshot), the trick to choosing a new default location for storing screenshots is a little less obvious: simply drag the new location from Finder onto the utility to set it as the screenshot hotspot for your Mac.
MacTV releases screen capture video tutorial
MacTV (no, not that Mac TV) is a videocast that features all sorts of interesting Mac videos. Previous editions have included the Hal 9000 ad (one of my favorites), the original iPod TV spot and a formerly press-only video of Steve introducing the white iBooks (including Reality Distortion Field). This week they offer their first tutorial in collaboration with ScreenCastsOnline. It's a very thorough look at several methods for creating screen captures and working with the results. I imagine that many seasoned Mac users are already aware of most of the presented information, but you may still find it interesting, as I did. All of the MacTV videos are presented in H.264, meaning QuickTime 7 is required. If you like what you see, you can subscribe to the videocast in iTunes 4.9.
