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Screen Grabs in Leopard
October 29, 2007
Update: I threw together a quick ‘n’ dirty script. Read more about CleanGrab.
The default behavior in Leopard for creating a screen grab of a window (command-shift-4, spacebar) is to include about 50 pixels of the transparent background as a way to account for the window drop shadow. This is beyond annoying and has crippled a great utility that I use daily.
As of right now I haven’t found a workaround, preference setting or hack to get this back to working order. Whoever made this change was probably the same person that made the glass dock. And it’s obvious that Apple doesn’t know how people use the screen grab utility.
In the meantime, if you’re looking to create clean screen grabs of windows and applications in Leopard (you know, like maybe for inclusion in a book or something), you’ll want to use a third-party application. John Gruber has already confirmed that Ambrosia Software’s Snapz Pro X still creates perfect, non-broken grabs of application windows. There several similar utilities out there, including Quicksnap and InstantShot. None of these except Snapz Pro X will save to a BMP file (which may not matter to you, but does to me).
To me that feature is a real help in my workflow and far from “crippling”. So I think you need to get a little less self involved in terms of “it’s obvious that Apple doesn’t know how people use the screen grab utility”.
And for your usecase, that’s “screencapture -io foo.png"…
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Consider taking a look at Skitch to see if it fits your needs too. I like it.
Colin, I have use Skitch and really like it, but from my time with it also did not do window-only screenshots, but instead included some of the background with the screenshot. Maybe I’m missing a preference somewhere?
How is adding a drop shadow helpful with workflow? Just curious.
flynn,
Thank you for including the command and flags. That was much more helpful than your personal attack!
Ryan: There is a preference to actually exclude your background in a screenshot. And, if I am not mistaken, you can “double click” on a window and it will automatically create the snapshot of the window without the need of dragging the box around it.
Be sure to kick the tires of the application pretty thoroughly. Being that it is currently in Beta, not everything is documented yet. Take another peak - and if you need an invite to get the latest build or something - give a shout.
Thanks for the info, Colin. I love Skitch for quick screenshots to share.
@Greg. I can see this being greatly beneficial for technical writers that might need to do a lot of screenshots showing spatial relationships between multiple windows (which window should be in front, which should be in the background). But in fairness, I think there should’ve been an option to turn this off/on to begin with as people do have differing ways of using it.
“much more helpful than your personal attack!”
Personal attack? You’ve led a sheltered life Ryan.
“...it’s obvious that Apple doesn’t know how people use the screen grab utility.”
That observation sees you presume, pompously to this reader, that you do know how people use the screen grab utility. All too many bloggers have taken to presenting their personal viewpoints as reflecting the Mac world at large, as you did here.
Phil, your observation sees you presume, pompously to this reader, that you know who Ryan is and therefore could make such a statement. All too many anonymous blog commenters have taken to presenting their personal viewpoints as reflecting people who know Ryan at large, as you did here.
Douché
You can use Preview in Leopard to grab shadow-less captures. Check under the File
This is yet another one of Apple’s “wtf were they thinking” moments in Leopard.
...but Grab can do a shadow-less screen capture just like Preview. The only difference is with Grab, you can give the window focus before you capture it, so you can have that active, ugly dark grey titlebar and all. :)