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Xfce4 Screenshooter 1.7.9 – Looking for a new maintainer

  • February 10, 2010
  • Jérôme Guelfucci

I recently released Xfce4 Screenshooter 1.7.9. This is a release candidate for the 1.8 branch. It contains a great number of new improvements and bug fixes, listed below.

I recently started to contribute more to the Xfce core, particularly Xfce4 Session and Xfce4 Settings (I'll try to blog more about that later), which leaves me very little time for Xfce4 Screenshooter. I would like to find someone to take over the maintenance of this projet, if you feel motivated please contact me (jeromeg@xfce.org or jeromeg in #xfce on freenode). Obviously, some basic knowledge of English (to communicate with the rest of the Xfce team and to develop the UI) and knowing C is required. If you are not used to the gtk/glib API, I'm ready to do some mentoring during a transitional phase. Anyway, I would be happy to explain the current code organization, the main issues, the weak areas, etc. This is a good opportunity to join a nice community which needs more contributors to keep rocking!


**Edit**: Bruno Ramos kindly volunteered for this! \o/ For other people interested in contributing, I'll post in the next few days on a few Xfce goodies which need a new maintainer. Please also remember that patches for bugs opened in the bugzilla are a great way to start contributing. Do not hesitate to join #xfce on freenode if you have any questions.

Changelog

  • The XMLRPC-C dependency has been replaced by libsoup.
  • Gtk 2.14 is now required to compile.
  • Switch to a non-recursive Makefile.am. This reduces the build time and centralizes the build information.

New features

  • Scrolling the panel plugin button changes the area to be captured.
  • When compositing is on, use a nice partially transparent rubber-banding, still needs some polishing.
  • F1 opens the help page.
  • Automatically fill the title and comment fields in the ZimageZ upload information dialog.
  • Make enter validate the upload in the ZimageZ upload information dialog.
  • Use the XDG image directory as the default directory for saving screenshots. If it does not exist, fall back to $HOME.
  • Major interface rethinking. This new interface is based on a suggestion by Yves-Alexis Pérez. The former main dialog is split into two dialogs: one for selecting the region to be captured and the delay, while the second one displays a preview of the screenshot and lists the available actions. The main application shows the first dialog, then the second one. If one of the region CLI options is given, the screenshot is taken accordingly and the second dialog is displayed. The panel plugin uses the first dialog as a configuration dialog. When you click the plugin, the screenshot is taken and the second dialog is shown.
  • Allow drag and dropping of the preview to other applications in order to paste the screenshot (Mike Massonnet).

Bugs fixed

  • UTF-8 characters in user name or password caused a login failure.
  • Fix all warnings triggered by running autogen.sh.
  • Fix the ZimageZ upload when behind a proxy.
  • Fix copying of links in the ZimageZ upload finished dialog.
  • Fix 100% CPU usage when selecting a region in a non composited environment (spotted by Gauvain Pocentek).
  • When capturing a window with rounded corners, don't capture the background of the window but make the screenshot transparent instead.
  • Make sure the save folder in the panel plugin preferences is valid.
  • Don't show the copy to clipboard option in the application if no clipboard manager is running as the screenshot won't be preserved after closing the application anyway in that case.
  • Allow xfce4-screenshooter -r to be used as a command for a keybinding.
  • Allow silent build.
  • Fix most pre-build warnings.
  • Escape screenshots path when opening them with an application.
  • Plug some leaks in the application and in the panel plugin.
  • Do not accept conflicting CLI options. Warn the user when he uses CLI options which are not coherent.
  • Correctly save preferences, even if the rc file does not exist (Mike Massonnet).
  • One second is now the minimal delay when using the interactive mode. This caused the screenshooter dialog to be partially displayed on the screenshot in some cases.
  • A lot of updated translations for the application, the panel plugin and the documentation. Thanks to the Xfce translation team!

Screenshots can be found on the homepage.

Help needed for Xfce4 Screenshooter documentation

  • November 11, 2009
  • Jérôme Guelfucci

The current git version of Xfce4 Screenshooter is starting to be in a pretty good shape and I think it is almost ready for a new release. Unfortunately, a lot of things changed during this release cycle so the documentation needs a major refactoring. I need your help for this !

I think this is a good opportunity for someone willing to start contributing to Xfce, I'm ready to provide all the help needed to build the git version of Xfce4 Screenshooter, to explain how the documentation system works and to cooperate to get the documentation ready as soon as possible. I see this as an opportunity to attract new contributors (this task does not require any particular skills, just time, will and a good English level).

Feel free to contact me by mail.

Xfce4 Screenshooter 1.6.0

  • June 14, 2009
  • Jérôme Guelfucci

I'm pleased to announce the 1.6.0 release of Xfce4 Screenshooter. This cycle was quite long because I had some exams and the number of implemented features is bigger than usual.

First, there is a brand new interface based on a review by Fabrice Viale : it is simpler and more polished. This new interface also allows you to choose whether the mouse cursor should be captured and whether the application should be closed after taking the screenshot. Here is a screenshot of the application:

Xfce4 Screenshooter 1.6.0 interface

It is now possible to save screenshots on any remote share supported by GVFS: ftp, sftp, samba... You just need to connect to a share or a distant computer using Gigolo or gvfs-connect and it will be displayed in the sidebar of the save dialog.

This release also features the possibility to host screenshots online, on ZimageZ. You just need to set up an account on their website and you will then be able to upload your screenshots to ZimageZ directly from Xfce4 Screenshooter. This feature is still a bit experimental and will be improved in the next release: for example accents in the user name or password cause a fail during the upload...

There are also some other small changes which can be found in the changelog. I would like to thank Jannis Pohlmann (for his help concerning jobs and threads), Fabrice Viale (for his interface review), Mike Massonnet and Enrico Tröger (for their various patches) ,Yves-Alexis Perez and Ali Abdallah (for the testing and the suggestions). And last but not least, the translation team who did a great job by adding and updating a lot of translations of the application and of the documentation.

Xfce4 Screenshooter news

  • May 1, 2009
  • Jérôme Guelfucci

I was quite busy during the last few days but I found some time to work on Xfce4 Screenshooter. It is now able to upload screenshots to ZimageZ, a free image hosting solution. At the beginning, I was planning to use Imageshack, but the API they provide is not easy to use. Meanwhile, I discovered ZimageZ which I really like: it provides galeries, a clean interface and an XML-RPC API which allowed me to implement the image upload stuff almost easily.

At the moment, things are a bit raw. A(n ugly) dialog pops up asking for your ZimageZ user name and login, an image title and a comment; once you validate it, the upload starts. No progress indication yet. I still need to make everything look more beautiful, to improve the error handling and to document this stuff!

I won't implement any other new features for this release. From now on, I'll focus on getting things usable and good looking.

Xfce4 Screenshooter news

  • March 21, 2009
  • Jérôme Guelfucci

During the last few days, I found some time to improve Xfce4 Screenshooter and implement some new features.

Interface

The interface has been slightly improved, it should be more user friendly and take less space. I also added an option allowing you to chose whether the mouse pointer should be displayed on the screenshot.

screenshooter_improved_interface

Improved 'Region' mode

When selecting a region to be screenshooted using the mouse, you can now use the Escape key to cancel the operation.

Saving screenshots to remote locations

It is now possible to save screenshots to remote locations such as FTP, computers accessible via SSH, a Samba shared folder... The window below is displayed to show the progress of the upload and to cancel it.

screenshooter_upload_dialog

This is totally transparent for the user. Remote locations connected with Gigolo or gvfs-connect are automatically available in the save dialog, as any other local folder.

I still have to update the documentation for those new features and to improve various other points, a new release might be out in May.