Shotty, another screenshot tool for Vista/7

[KiHu]

www.localhostruploadr.com

[Denis W. Veteran]

Come on guys, enough of the OS wars.

Awesome! Thanks for the heads up, rm20010. I've been looking for a free alternative to Window Clippings for a long time.

Definitely. I still have the last 'freeware' copy of Window Clippings installed.

www.localhostruploadr.com

Still use localhostr uploadr (except when stuff refuses to upload :p), but I'd like to have the option of keeping some offline screenshots ;)

[hdood]

It's all in the details. And you'd be surprised how many Mac OS X users use this feature.

Not really, I bet it's just as low a percentage as I imagine.

and MSpaint doesn't even show transparency..

Unlike OS X Paint which, oh wait, there is no OS X Paint. Most graphics software for Windows support alpha levels just fine. I guess the notable exception is Visual Studio, which still doesn't support it in 2010.

Now I do think that Windows should ship with slightly better screenshot tools, as I don't think the snipping tool is that great, but I don't think the ability to preserve transparency of window borders really has that much value. It's a neat trick, but not much more. If you could take transparent grabs of child windows and elements within windows then maybe that would have slightly more value, but there are architectural limitation in Windows that prevent this from being feasible. There's no such thing as a transparent child window for instance, and a common way to create the appearance of this is for the child window to actually ask the parent to paint its background. The design of the Windows APIs stems from the 1980s, and various functionality has just been jury rigged over the years. It's easy to say that things should be easy to add just because Microsoft is so big, but reality isn't like that.

[bjoswald]

No need for a third-party app to do this. PrtScrn and MS Paint does a good enough job.

Oh, and to Neo:

It's ****ty for a 2010 OS to not support transparency--especially when it was a selling point for the previous version it's based on--but it's also ****ty that we still have to defragment, maintain a healthy registry and deal with virus scanners. :(

[Neowinian]

Nice put I will still stick to my old ways of 'prnt scrn'.

[Jan Veteran]

How do you get it to save transparency?

How do you get it to save transparency?

EDIT: Nevermind. Got to press the Keyboard shortcut.

[.Neo]

Yes because a very basic image editor that is really only used for saving a screenshot or to make a funny edit, must have support for layers, alpha transparency, etc right?

We're not in the 90s anymore, so yes it should have support for alpha transparency. I'm not saying anything about layers and such so I have no idea where that comes from. However, alpha transparency isn't exactly considered an advanced feature anymore these days.

Excuse me? That made no sense what so ever. And if you bothered to check it wasn't me who said anything about that ;)

My bad! I looked wrong. :)

[SiCKX]

has anyone compared this to winsnap? and if so which do you like more/

It's about the same thing as WinSnap. Just too lazy to install this as well. :D

EDIT: it's sweeter than WinSnap.

No need for a third-party app to do this. PrtScrn and MS Paint does a good enough job.

MSPaint and PrtScrn is just too much of a hassle. With WinSnap and this you just press PrntScrn and the file is saved to your HDD as a .png file, with transparency. Can't be any faster than 1 key press.

[Mr. Gibs]

We're not in the 90s anymore, so yes it should have support for alpha transparency. I'm not saying anything about layers and such so I have no idea where that comes from. However, alpha transparency isn't exactly considered an advanced feature anymore these days.

Still not what paint was designed for. Hell my little brother uses it for drawing silly pictures. If you want more features go get paint.net, gimp (which are free) or go get photoshop (which is paid).

I don't see why Microsoft should add features for a program that really has no need for alpha transparency or anything more than just saving basic screenshots and drawing squiggles

[.Neo]

Still not what paint was designed for. Hell my little brother uses it for drawing silly pictures. If you want more features go get paint.net, gimp (which are free) or go get photoshop (which is paid).

I don't see why Microsoft should add features for a program that really has no need for alpha transparency or anything more than just saving basic screenshots and drawing squiggles

If it supports file types such as PNG I don't see why it shouldn't support transparency as well, seems a bit weird. Just wondering, does Windows 7 have another application build-in similar to Mac OS X' Preview?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preview_(software)

[Mouettus]

so you're running yet another program in the background juste to have transparency!?

thx... I'll pass

they only ppl I'd see to be interested in this is web developers to show software screenshots (looks more professional on a website). that's it.

very nice program tho...!

[Mr. Gibs]

If it supports file types such as PNG I don't see why it shouldn't support transparency as well, seems a bit weird. Just wondering, does Windows 7 have another application build-in similar to Mac OS X' Preview?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preview_(software)

Yes. 2 in fact:

- Windows Photo viewer (included natively)

- Windows live gallery (more advanced version of photo viewer, has support for facial recognition etc but you have to download it)

PDF cannot be viewed natively in Windows since Adobe sued Microsoft a while back.

[hdood]

Live Gallery is more like iPhoto. Windows doesn't have any built-in stuff that allows basic manipulation, if that's what he means. It has Windows Photo Viewer for viewing images (any format you have a codec installed for), and Explorer's preview pane for previewing arbitrary formats (which will show any format you have support installed for):

Windows and OS X are simply different, and I already explained why transparency is a complicated issue in Windows and not something that can be added without fundamentally redesigning Windows.

[pezzonovante]

It's ****ty for a 2010 OS to not support transparency--especially when it was a selling point for the previous version it's based on--but it's also ****ty that we still have to defragment, maintain a healthy registry and deal with virus scanners. :(

No, you don't have to defragment, or worry about a healthy registry with Vista/7. Vista/7 automatically defragments once a week, and modern Windows versions use registry virtualization to make sure Windows no longer slows down even if you use it for years without reinstalling. And MSE is a lightweight and hassle free AV which does its job very well.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Let's settle down, folks. This thread is about Shotty. We shouldn't be debating the various features of Windows and Mac operating systems.