LoudmouthmanOut of the Box .
So there I was about to write a small and probably useful article on the “Saved Search as a Folder” option within Mozilla Thunderbird when I was hit by the sudden inadequacies of my current Operating System. You see, out of the box ,this installation of Microsoft Windows XP Pro ( 64 bit ) cannot simply take a screen shot and save it for me. Ive searched the menus high and low and scoured the Google topics and usenet groups far and wide and theres simply nothing that competes with Ubuntus’ graceful, you’ve pressed ALT+Print Screen now how do you want to save it ? , approach.
I sat stunned for a moment in realisation that I was not going to be greeted with an application whose purpose was to continue the flow of my productivity. Instead I had to think “Now What ?” and as I considered my options things looked bleak. I just wanted to save the document. I did not want to start a whole new application in order to paste the image and pick the format and then close the application and continue.
Granted this is exactly what Ubuntu has done for me in its desktop environment. However its automation of an application through a Key Stroke has created a feeling of moving forward with an idea. I might never have come to the realisation that I had gained something which I had not known I was missing. Ubuntu desktop lets me keep thinking “What next ?” and in turn it keeps the ideas and productivity moving forward not sitting still.
So this Blog Entry is dedicated to the developers and maintainers who had the foresight of this users requirements and enabled the Auto-Launching of that Screen Capture application.
I thank you ..
Well XP is 5 years old now and lacks alot of useful tools we require for todays computing, Ubuntu is newer and is bound to have the extras that we do require.
Vista does have the snipping tool which makes taking screenshots very easy and will save them straight away as jpg or png. But Vista is a while away yet.
Actually I am missing Vista already. I had a major Ubuntu problem today (self inflicted, not Ubuntu’s fault) which wiped my whole boot record and I could not boot into any of my operating systems (ubuntu, xp or vista) so I decided to start afresh with a new install of XP. I am missing the Vista features like the snipping tool and lots of other things. Its funny how quickly we get used to such features. I have only been using it for a month or so and already going back to XP feels alien to me.
BTW if you get stuck like that with XP again you could have pasted into Paint. I know you didn’t want another application but it would have sufficed on that lil’ ‘ole OS of ours 🙂
Try to capture an entire screenshot (vis-a-vis a window shot) with the menu displayed, like you wanted to show the menus in action.
It looks like this is not possible at all. Wouldn’t it be neat if the screenshot is copied to the clipboard and then pasted on an application like the way it’s done in Microsoft Windows? Or the screenshot feature be able to capture when the main menu is displayed?