SNAPSHOT(6D)                                       SNAPSHOT(6D)





NAME
       snapshot - save a portion of the screen in an image file

SYNOPSIS
       /usr/sbin/snapshot [-b]

DESCRIPTION
       snapshot reads an area of the screen  specified  by  the
       user,  and  saves  it in an image file. To use snapshot,
       place the snapshot button window  someplace  other  than
       where  you  wish  to  grab.  Then,  with the input focus
       attached (i.e. the mouse is inside the snapshot window),
       hold  down  a modifier key (shift, ctrl) on the keyboard
       to maintain the input focus, and move the mouse  to  one
       of  the  four  corners  of the section of the screen you
       wish to save. Now press left mouse and continue  holding
       it  down  while  you stretch out a red rubberband to the
       opposite corner of the area of interest. To  tell  snap-
       shot  to  make  the  image file, go back to the snapshot
       window, press the right mouse and choose one of the  two
       "Save" menu items. You can repeat this sequence in vari-
       ous ways until such time as you wish to  exit.  At  this
       point,  you  can  choose  one of the two exit menu items
       with the  right  mouse.  To  move  the  snapshot  window
       itself,  use  your  favorite  window manager accelerator
       functions, such as ALT+F7.  Leftmouse functionality  The
       left  mouse  button stretches, reshapes, moves or starts
       an entirely new rubberband for you. The  cursor  is  the
       constant  visual  indicator  of  what will happen if you
       press left  mouse.  As  long  as  your  input  focus  is
       directed  to  snapshot  you  will see one of 4 different
       cursor types depending on the  location  of  the  mouse:
       camera  cursor  - will appear when you are on top of any
       area of the console screen other than on  the  sides  or
       inside  of the rubberband area of interest.  corner cur-
       sor - will appear when you are in the immediate vicinity
       of  one of the 4 corners of the currently placed rubber-
       band.  horizontal/vertical cursor - will appear when you
       are  in  the immediate vicinity of one of the 4 sides of
       the currently placed rubberband.   move  cursor  -  will
       appear  when  you  are fully inside the rubberband area.
       When your cursor is anywhere other than on  top  of  the
       snapshot  window,  whichever of the four cursors you see
       will tell you what will happen  at  that  point  if  you
       press  the left mouse button: if you see the camera cur-
       sor this means that by pressing the left mouse, you will
       start creating a new rubberband that you can stretch out
       in any direction which will stop when you let go of  the
       mouse button; when you see either the horizontal, verti-
       cal, or corner cursors this  means  that  pressing  left
       mouse at this time will enable you to stretch the corner
       or side of interest and  continue  doing  so  until  you
       release  the mouse button; when the move cursor is visi-
       ble (while inside  of  the  rubberband),  pressing  left
       mouse  at this point enables you to move the entire rub-
       berband in its current shape and size until you  let  go
       of the mouse. When you see the move cursor, you may also
       press middle mouse to move the rubberband.  To  pop  the
       snapshot button window, press down the left mouse button
       while your cursor is on top of the window,  and  release
       it  without moving more than one pixel in any direction.
       Pop-up  Menu  options  Snapshot  uses  the  gl   command
       fullscrn()  which  has some "humorous" side effects. One
       of them is that unless the  cursor  is  on  top  of  the
       actual  window  for  the graphics program (in this case,
       the snapshot button window), pressing right  mouse  will
       NOT  bring  up that program's menu.  Thus, to access the
       pop-up menu options, you must always  bring  the  cursor
       back  on top of the snapshot button window before press-
       ing right mouse to access snapshot's pop-menu.  The pop-
       up menu currently has five items defined:

       o   The  first  item  reads Save scrn as snap.rgb if you
           have just started up snapshot and have not yet swept
           out  a rubberband. This will create an image file of
           the entire console screen (notice that at this point
           there  is  a red rubberband that encloses the entire
           console screen).  Or  else  it  will  read  Save  as
           snap.rgb indicating that a rubberband area of inter-
           est currently exists.

       o   The second item--New  file  name--will  throw  up  a
           squat  rudimentary textport prompting you to input a
           new output image file name. If, after having  called
           up the textport, you decide you don't want to change
           the output image file name, simply pressing carriage
           with  an empty string will exit the textport and not
           change the filename.

       o   The third item--Ipaste snap.rgb--allows you to paste
           up  the  image  you  have most recently made. Notice
           that after you have swept out  some  sub-section  of
           the  screen  with the red rubberband, but before you
           have yet selected Save as snap.rgb, the Ipaste entry
           shows  up as a grey color instead of the solid black
           of the other menu items.  This is because  you  have
           not  yet created the actual image file-- hence there
           is nothing for ipaste to lock on to out in the  IRIS
           universe.  Once  you  have  chosen Save as snap.rgb,
           then when you pop-up the menu again,  you  will  see
           that  the  Ipaste menu item is now solid black indi-
           cating that ipaste now has a fix  on  the  currently
           saved  image  file  you have created. The same thing
           will happen after you have selected  New  file  name
           but  before  you save an image into it.  Notice that
           ipaste(1G) now recognizes the Esc key as a short-cut
           to  closing  the  ipaste image window. This is espe-
           cially useful when ipaste  is  called  with  the  -n
           option--as  snapshot uses it--since there is no bor-
           der to specify a call to exit from.

       o   The fourth item--Redraw Rubberband--will redraw  the
           rubberband.  This is usefull for when something else
           erases the rubberband.

       o   The fifth item--Save and  Exit--will  save  whatever
           you  currently have selected, and then exit the pro-
           gram.

       o   The sixth item--Exit--will simply exit  the  program
           without   saving  anything  that  may  be  currently
           defined to be snapshoted.

NOTES
       There is a window  constraint  that  affects  ipaste(1G)
       which  users  of snapshot will run into: under 4Dwm, the
       minimum ipaste window width is now constrained to be  88
       pixels.  See  the  ipaste(1G)  man page for more details
       about why this is so.  On machines having less  than  24
       bits  available for RGB display, the displayed image may
       appeared to have lost some quality. This occurs when the
       image  that  was  saved  was in colormap mode. The pixel
       color index is expanded into the full  RGB  information.
       When  redisplayed,  the  RGB  information is dithered on
       these machines to approximate the original image.   When
       you  have  selected the Save ... as ... pop-up menu item
       and snapshot is busy reading  pixels,  the  cursor  will
       change  to an hourglass until this proces s is finished.
       Another visual cue (in case you move  the  cursor  else-
       where  and  let  go of the input focus) is that the word
       "Snapshot" that is written on top of the snapshot button
       window--which  is  normally  WHITE--turns to RED for the
       duration  of  the  pixel  reading/image  file   building
       sequence.  It  reverts  to  WHITE when the image file is
       completed.  The -b option includes a bell-ringing  audio
       cue  which will then ringbell with a short duration upon
       completion of every  Save  operation.  The  text  string
       "snapshot"  which  appears in the snapshot button window
       will always turn RED when an image file  is  being  cre-
       ated,  and  return  to  WHITE  when finished, but the -b
       ring-the-bell option was included for those  wishing  to
       be  more forcefully appraised that snapshot is ready for
       more input action.  Regarding  what  is  actually  saved
       into your image file, the pixels that are underneath the
       red rubberband are NOT grabbed by snapshot.  This  means
       that  where  specific pixel boundaries are critical, you
       must be sure that what you want to make  into  an  image
       file  is  exactly  inside  the  red  rubberband--but not
       underneath these red border lines. The one exception  to
       this  is when the program is first invoked. As mentioned
       above, snapshot starts up with the default  red  rubber-
       band  set  to  the full console screen. In this case, if
       you select Save scrn as  snap.rgb,  the  red  rubberband
       will  first  disappear,  then  an  image  file  of  size
       XMAXSCREEN by YMAXSCREEN will be  created,  and  finally
       the red rubberband will reappear.

BUGS
       It  is possible under extreme circumstances to get frag-
       ments of the red outline to remain  on  the  screen.  If
       this  happens,  place  the red rubberband over the frag-
       ments and then  move  the  rubberband  again.   snapshot
       makes  use  of  the  fullscrn() GL command which, as the
       Reference Manual warns, must be used "with caution or  a
       sense  of humor." In this case, caution is advised: when
       wishing to access the pop-up menu, not  only  must  your
       cursor  be moved back on top of the snapshot button win-
       dow, but to work as intended, you must release whichever
       key  on the keyboard you have been holding down to main-
       tain the input focus while the cursor has  been  outside
       of  this button window. Not releasing said keyboard but-
       ton will produce "humor[ous]" results when playing  with
       the   pop-up   menu.    Another  side  effect  of  using
       fullscrn() while drawing the rubberband in  the  overlay
       or  popup  planes is collision with other utilities also
       using the  overlay  or  popup  planes.  To  restore  the
       snaphot  rubberband, select "Redraw Rubberband" from the
       popup menu.  snapshot is not yet smart  enough  to  make
       sure  there  is  enough free space on the disk partition
       from where  snapshot  itself  was  originally  executed,
       before  it  blindly  goes  off  and attempts to allocate
       enough memory to build an image file  of  the  area  you
       specify. Hence, if you find that an image that you paste
       up on the screen looks "funny", run DF(1) to first  con-
       firm that the disk partition that snapshot is running on
       has not had all of its "avail" space used up.



IRIX 6.5                  May 5, 2004              SNAPSHOT(6D)
