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macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

sal.dev

141–150 of 332 posts

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#141
post #45

Here is a key sequence I use very often. It takes a screenshot of a chosen window without the window's shadow. - First, type command + shift + 4 (the mouse pointer turns into crosshair). - Then type the space bar (the crosshair turns into a camera icon). - Hover the mouse pointer (a camera icon now), to highlight the chosen window. - Finally, hold the option key and click. This sounds like a lot of steps but it becom…

[deleted]

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#142
post #30

If you need to do any image manipulations/highlight on your screenshots, two of the best tools I found are: 1) Monosnap (freemium) - https://monosnap.com 2) Cleanshot ($29) - https://cleanshot.com Both tools also include large amount of extra functionality for taking screenshots and recordings.

I couldn't find anything on their website, my workflow, which I hate is:

Screenshot section to file, click on preview before it disappears, markup on iPad with Apple Pencil, copy to clipboard, paste to Docs/Slack/GitHub, delete file.

I really wish I could eliminate the temporary files in this process.

Do you happen to know if Cleanshot can do iPad annotation?

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#143
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you parent. Also, I was surprised one common hack I used to see talked about a lot not dicussed given they delved into changes you can make on the CLI: you can change the default location (Eg to a "Screenshots" folder) instead of the default of cluttering the desktop In terminal type "defaults write com.apple.screencapture location" where "location" is a path of your choosing. (I'm fond of nesting a "scr…

The post mentions doing this through the UI (no need for the terminal command).

my bad

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#144
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s so blisteringly effective to grab a portion of the screen, draw on it, copy the whole thing again and paste it to a coworker in chat or a task tool. You can make it even faster by cutting out the Preview step. When the thumbnail of the screenshot appears in the lower-right corner of the screen, click it, and then you can use Markup to annotate the image right there, and then share it as needed. Since I don't hav…

You say share as needed, but I’ve not found a great way to just grab it to the clipboard or get the file handle from there. My go to workaround is to screenshot, annotate, screenshot the annotation tool into clipboard and paste that. (I know)

⌘c after annotating in the way GP mentioned copies the annotated screenshot to the clipboard, you don't need to screenshot the tool.

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#145
post #30

If you need to do any image manipulations/highlight on your screenshots, two of the best tools I found are: 1) Monosnap (freemium) - https://monosnap.com 2) Cleanshot ($29) - https://cleanshot.com Both tools also include large amount of extra functionality for taking screenshots and recordings.

I like Pixelmator for even more manipulations (Photoshop-like). $19.99 gives you _a lot_ of value.

https://www.pixelmator.com/pro/

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#146

Oh my goodness thank you so much macOS for giving us a set of awesome screenshot tools and a way to edit them immediately in Preview.app. (Capture to clipboard, then command-N in Preview defaulting to new-from-clipboard.) It’s so blisteringly effective to grab a portion of the screen, draw on it, copy the whole thing again and paste it to a coworker in chat or a task tool. I recently discovered that with my trusty Lo…

I never found screenshotting on macOS intuitive. Using ShareX on Windows is like night and day. No need to memorize different shortcuts for each kind of screenshot. Just a single shortcut to enter screenshot mode. Then it's

* left click to capture full screen

* hover over a window and left click to capture a specific window

* click and drag to capture a region

* right click to cancel

There's also annotation and drawing tools directly in the screenshot mode. Imo this is way better than how macOS opens the editor afterwards. Because for the times you don't need to annotate, you still have to close the preview window. In other words:

MacOS

* annotation flow: start => capture => annotate

* normal flow: start => capture => close preview

ShareX

* annotation flow: start => annotate => capture

* normal flow: start => capture

ShareX also supports a ton of different other workflows. After capture it can automatically add the image to your clipboard, or open it in an external image editor, or upload it to imgur and add the link to your clipboard, etc etc.

(On Linux the closest thing I have found to ShareX is ksnip [2]. Takes a bit of configuring, for example I recommend disabling tabs, but overall it's good enough for me)

[1]: https://getsharex.com/

[2]: https://github.com/ksnip/ksnip

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#147

> How can you make full-app screenshots (⌘ ⇧ 5 then space bar) Ahem, cough ... Mr Testa, its 4, not 5 for full-app screenshots. ;-)

Fixed! Thanks for the help. I think 4 might technically work, but I meant to say "4", not "5".

I was just talking about DJ9 the other day. You are missed!

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#149
Windows-only recommendation so this is only somewhat related - but if you want a powerful, (mostly) well-thought-out, (seemingly) lightweight screenshot taker + editor on Windows, do have a look at ShareX[1].

It's completely free and you can tweak various workflows and map them to key combinations. I've had a "manual screenshot -> optional editing -> upload to imgur/save to clipboard" workflow bound to a mouse button (Logitech G600) for over 5 years and use it multiple times a day.

I downloaded it through Steam but whatever other download options they have should auto-update just fine as well, I would guess.

I only see this now but apparently the program is open-source. Never even knew that.

[1] https://getsharex.com/

Re: macOS screenshot tricks to impress your co-workers

#150

Random, related wish: I've always wanted a screenshot utility that captured windows/screens as PDFs (or SVGs), with each element as separate objects at their highest-available resolutions. For example, icons would be 512×512px objects. Vector representations would be created for controls like windows, menus, and buttons.

According to this comment, Acorn does that? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31769907
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