Re: Does any other program (windows or linux) do screenshot annotation efficiently?

Danny D. wrote:

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:57:33 +0100 bugbear wrote:

Try googling screenshot annotation
if that’s what you want, rather than "proving" that image editors aren’t screenshot annotators.

Interesting point, especially when it comes to freeware.
Since you’re experienced with freeware, you’re aware that the goal is to have as few programs as possible that get the job done.

I’m not "aware" of that, in fact I disagree. I would far rather have a larger number of dedicated programs, than a single jack of all trades.

And this applies to "software", wether paid for or not.

BugBear

bugbear posted Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:56:00 +0100

Since you’re experienced with freeware, you’re aware that the goal is to have as few programs as possible that get the job done.

I’m not "aware" of that, in fact I disagree. I would far rather have a larger number of dedicated programs, than a single jack of all trades.

I suppose the goal is not to have a single program,
tha is able to do everything…..

—
Poutnik

In article , Poutnik
wrote:

Since you’re experienced with freeware, you’re aware that the goal is to have as few programs as possible that get the job done.

I’m not "aware" of that, in fact I disagree. I would far rather have a larger number of dedicated programs, than a single jack of all trades.

I suppose the goal is not to have a single program,
tha is able to do everything…..

the goal is to get whatever is necessary to do what the user needs to do, not meet some goal of having the most or the fewest apps.

nospam posted Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:02:48 -0400

In article , Poutnik
wrote:

Since you’re experienced with freeware, you’re aware that the goal is to have as few programs as possible that get the job done.

I’m not "aware" of that, in fact I disagree. I would far rather have a larger number of dedicated programs, than a single jack of all trades.

I suppose the goal is not to have a single program,
tha is able to do everything…..

the goal is to get whatever is necessary to do what the user needs to do, not meet some goal of having the most or the fewest apps.

This should be obvious.

—
Poutnik

Danny D. wrote:

On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:57:33 +0100 bugbear wrote:

Try googling screenshot annotation
if that’s what you want, rather than "proving" that image editors aren’t screenshot annotators.

Interesting point, especially when it comes to freeware.

It’s quite obvious. DSLRs are very very bad hammers. I have tried hammering nails in with about every make and they are very expensive and come apart much too easily. Someone told me I should google for hammers and use one. Interesting point …

Since you’re experienced with freeware, you’re aware that the goal is to have as few programs as possible that get the job done.

Actually, the goal is to have lots of small programs that do *one* thing, do it *very* well and do it *completely* — and have all these small programs interoperate with each other.

As an example: Take listing file names. Think "Windows Explorer" showing you what’s in a directory. Read through http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/ls-in vocation.html and all of it’s subpages, and tell me how little of that the Windows Exporer can actually do.

The main job for screenshot editors, is, basically, the following
[ ] Crop (preferably with an option for standard aspect ratios such as 4:3)

Not really.

[ ] Read & convert to/from desired formats (certainly jpg, gif, & png)

Not at all.

[ ] Cut & paste & move objects on the screen (layers & transparency are helpful)

Nope, that’s image manipulation.

[ ] Annotate text (with standard font, color, & transparency options)

Probably

[ ] Circle objects (again, with standard color, thickness, & shape options)

Probably

[ ] Point to objects (this is the hardest of all features to find in freeware)

Probably

[ ] blur sections of the screen shot
[ ] blacken or grey out sections of the screen shot

(think SSNs, phone numbers, names, passwords, …)

Since most image editors handle most of those tasks, my point is contrary to yours, in that I feel image editors can certainly perform screenshot annotations.

Sure, you can draw arrows and elipses and circles and write texts. You can also use a bicycle to ride across the USA. A plane does get you across much faster, though.

However, the hardest feature to find in freeware image editors is the "arrowing" feature. In fact, on Linux, I still have never found an image editor that handles arrows anywhere near as well as Paint.NET does on Windows.

That’s probably because Paint.NET is a painting program (the name is quite a hint) and Inkscape and Gimp etc are not. You can of course judge cars by the number of cup holders, instead of accelleration, top speed (assuming you don’t have a global speed limit), off road capability, passengers,
luggage compartment size, MPG, cost, … but if you’re rating cars then as "how well do they perform to let people sit in them while partying" they don’t come off as good as chairs and tables.

And, on Windows, no other image editor handles arrows as well as Paint.NET does. Why not? I’m not sure – but kudos to whomever it is that wrote Paint.NET as only they understood arrows.

Or maybe you don’t understand how to use these programs.

Have you at least googled >>gimp arrow<<? Guess not.

I’m told, from the professional folks on a.g.p that Photoshop and Elements handle arrows well, so, again, we have the case that image editors can certainly perform screenshot annotation tasks.

Sure, cars can also provide seating at a party.

I will take a look at the screenshot annotators for Linux, but, from a quick scan,

…. you can’t tell.

most seem to concentrate on the image-capture task, which is so trivial to accomplish at a single keyclick on all operating systems that I have to wonder why they promote the capture task so much.

That is because some people may want to capture only the current screen (with a multi-monitor setup and the desktop spanning serveral screens), active window, with or without window decoration or some freely chosen rectangular or freehand region, after some seconds for performing some action therein, with or without hiding the cursor, in a lossy or lossless format, at a certain image quality, into the clipboard or into a file (and where) or send it directly to some program (like an image editor or an uploader), …
(That’s the feature list of a real, existing, *simple*
screenshot capturing program under Linux).

As I said: one thing, but thoroughly.
If you can tell me how to do that all with just one keyclick … preferably on a machine you’re accessing via VNC on a remote X display …

But I’ll take a look & report back, just in case there’s a good one out there on Linux just waiting to be discovered.

-Wolfgang