How to take an image of the monitor screen display

[bigpup]

All Puppy versions will usually have some program for doing this listed in Application Menu -> Graphic

Most will have Take a Shot

But there are others around this forum.

There is one that all Puppies usually have, but not well known it can do this.

MtPaint program

Some Puppy versions may have the print screen key set to make MtPaint take an image and open it displaying the image for edit in MtPaint.

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Info provided by williams2

if you have mtpaint, you can type (paste) in a terminal:

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sleep 10 ; mtpaint -s

which gives you 10 seconds then takes a screen shot.
then an mtpaint window pops up.
you can process the picture if you like,
for example, you can select part of the picture
then click Image -> crop
then click File -> Save as

Note:
You need to do this to not have the terminal window in the image.
after clicking enter to activate the command code.
If you make sure to minimize the terminal window, before the image is made. (have 10 seconds after clicking enter)
That works to not have the terminal in the image.

[mikewalsh]

Here's a MenuEntry .pet for exactly the above; to let the user use mtPaint to take a screenshot, with a 10 second delay. Because it gives you a .desktop file, you can also add it somewhere more convenient like the Quick Launch area to the left of the task bar, next to the Menu button...

(If you want to adjust the 'time-out', just go into /usr/local/bin/mtp-snap.sh, and adjust the sleep value to suit yourself.)

It puts a Menu entry under 'Graphic', titled "mtPaint-screenshot".

Hope some of you find it useful.

Mike.

[Sofiya]

Set default applications - like all puppies have
I usually choose here - what will be the default screenshot
and hotkey - prt sc takes a picture with mtpaint

[MochiMoppel]

if you have mtpaint, you can type (paste) in a terminal:

Code: Select all

sleep 10 ; mtpaint -s

which gives you 10 seconds then takes a screen shot.
then an mtpaint window pops up.
<snip>
Note:
You need to do this to not have the terminal window in the image.
after clicking enter to activate the command code.
If you make sure to minimize the terminal window, before the image is made. (have 10 seconds after clicking enter)
That works to not have the terminal in the image.

You don't really need to do this. To take a shot without delay try this:

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mtpaint -s & exit

The terminal window will be already closed when mtpaint takes a screenshot

[wiak]

You don't really need to do this. To take a shot without delay try this:

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mtpaint -s & exit

The terminal window will be already closed when mtpaint takes a screenshot

Didn't work on my core i7 laptop. Terminal window was still captured by mtpaint. Maybe works on slower computer?

[MochiMoppel]

Maybe works on slower computer?

Works on my netbook, definitely slower than a core i7

Fast computers may need some initial delay. Can't be that much though. Try 0.1sec for a start

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{ sleep .1 ; mtpaint -s ;} & exit

[wiak]

Maybe works on slower computer?

Works on my netbook, definitely slower than a core i7

Fast computers may need some initial delay. Can't be that much though. Try 0.1sec for a start

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{ sleep .1 ; mtpaint -s ;} & exit

No, sorry, didn't work at all - went up by 0.1 increments - seemed to just add delay prior to mtpaint -s, but the exit did not happen as you presumably think it should. I wouldn't know why, but the terminal just stays open till the very end.

EDIT: Good news... sleep .1 works now. But, not with any terminal - I was using the default terminal in xfce4 and didn't work at all; when I tried with xterm that 0.1 sleep worked (didn't work without the sleep .1).

[Clarity]

EDIT: Good news... sleep .1 works now. But, not with any terminal - I was using the default terminal in xfce4 and didn't work at all; when I tried with xterm that 0.1 sleep worked (didn't work without the sleep .1).

Yes, this points to a 'problem' in the variois terminal programs that run on Linux. This become evident as there is no "standard" terminal that exist across the spectrum of this forum's many distros.

Question to community distro developers

• Would the community find it prudent to adopt a 'standard" terminal for all of its distros while allowing the options of others? Like, for instance, one that mirrors the distro's console in every way as a standoard OOTB terminal will other terminals could be added/preent as well.

EDIT: Opps, this POST in its entirity is off-subject and should be moved. BUT not sure where.

[wiak]

Would the community find it prudent to adopt a 'standard" terminal for all of its distros while allowing the options of others? Like, for instance, one that mirrors the distro's console in every way as a standoard OOTB terminal will other terminals could be added/preent as well.

Unlikely. Default terminal is often provided in the case of a desktop environment (such as xfce or lxde for example). For most purposes I wouldn't myself, for example, want a terminal to be the default if it didn't provide tab-support or allow easy copy/paste (such as xfce4-terminal or lxterminal). I like having standard xterm present, but not as 'default' and some similar terminals are more popular in Puppy itself (presumably because smaller to install), but with some differences in option argument functionality, which can also be a pain. Of course if you are using Xfce, and have xfce4-terminal you don't also want lxterminal and so on... in general utility apps can be written to work with various terminals, but not all Puppy app/utilities take that approach, though it is certainly a way to at least partially cater for terminal-oriented differences. The how to take an image method above simply didn't seem to work with xfce4-terminal at all though so if written into a utility that would have to be kept in mind by the utility creator.

The other reason I find the 'default_terminal' approach unsatisfactory is that, for one, some use a different name for that - say, defaultterminal or default-terminal, but more important not all distros use that naming mechanism at all and why should we be restricted in our use of forum-created utility apps to only main page forum distros? Better in my view therefore to write utility apps that check which terminals (and filemanagers) that are present on a system (within reasonable limits in terms of typical popularity in Linux universe) and cater for them automatically via slight in-utility-app code differences. That way the utility will probably simply 'work' no matter what Linux distro you use it on (assuming dependencies are met). I'm basically against a Puppy-only or forum-only environment mentality - in the past that mentality has led to the likes of root folder being hard-coded as the home directory and similar bad practices - the more universal we code our outputs the better IMO.

[MochiMoppel]

No, sorry, didn't work at all - went up by 0.1 increments - seemed to just add delay prior to mtpaint -s, but the exit did not happen as you presumably think it should.

I'm pretty sure that the exit was executed . Probably printed "exit" at a new line, All the exit command has to do is exiting the shell. It's not the job of exit to close the window.

I wouldn't know why, but the terminal just stays open till the very end.

Because it's configured this way?
You can do the same thing with urxvt:
Open a new console with urxvt +hold. In the new console enter an exit command. The window will close. That's the default behavior in my distro.
Now open a console with urxvt -hold and do the same. The window will stay open. That's the same as in your terminal.

The urxvt defaults can be changed in the .Xdefaults file:
urxvt.hold: Truewill keep the console window open after an exit command.

[wiak]

I wouldn't know why, but the terminal just stays open till the very end.

Because it's configured this way?
You can do the same thing with urxvt:
Open a new console with urxvt +hold. In the new console enter an exit command. The window will close. That's the default behavior in my distro.
Now open a console with urxvt -hold and do the same. The window will stay open. That's the same as in your terminal.

Perhaps you mean something different, but if I simply open an xfce4-terminal and type exit and press return key the terminal closes.

[MochiMoppel]

Perhaps you mean something different, but if I simply open an xfce4-terminal and type exit and press return key the terminal closes.

If so then your statement "I was using the default terminal in xfce4 and didn't work at all" may point to a different and more serious problem, i.e. that the {...;} construct didn't combine the sleep and mtpaint commands and that this combo couldn't be backgrounded with '&' . I don't have xfce4 and don't know what's going on. Maybe your xfce4-terminal doesn't use a bash shell?

[wiak]

Maybe your xfce4-terminal doesn't use a bash shell?

It is using bash.

[wiak]

Good news... I must have been impatient or thought image was actual desktop at some point during yesterday xfce4-terminal test...

Today it worked, but only with sleep greater or equal to 2.3 on my i7 laptop:

{ sleep 2.3; mtpaint -s ;} & exit