PupSnap: Bugs and Annoyances

[MochiMoppel]

All screenshot apps do more or less what they are supposed to do, but I'm not 100% happy with any of the ones I found in BW64.
I'm particularly disappointed by PupSnap, a scrot frontend, which includes a couple of bugs and annoyances.

Here an incomplete list:
- Assigning a different screenshot name works once, but PS doesn't remember that and falls back to its screenshot-<number> default at the next shot

- The name box shows the name of the last captured shot, not the name to be used for the next shot

- "Date" names are hardcoded to look like screenshot_2025-01-26_11:35:03. Colons are not supported in Microsoft file systems and therefore may cause problems when trying to copy such files to other file systems

- The "Folder" box ignores changes of the target folder when done directly in the box, even if the given folder exists. Only changes made via the folder button/dialog are acknowledged. That's not how an entry box is supposed to work .

- The "Send to Viewer" and "Send to Editor" checkboxes don't allow to check them both, that's good, but unchecking them both, so that just a shot is taken without a following viewer/editor, triggers a warning that one of them MUST be checked. That makes no sense. Fortunately it's possible to avoid this warning: When viewer is checked, just add any character to the viewer name, thus turning it to an unknown viewer. PupSnap will choke on it and create the shot without further disturbance.

- The "Scale" dropdown can - according to the tooltip - reduce a large screenshot to 600px to make it forum compatible. OK. But what it shouldn't do is pump up smaller images to the selected size. That may be the reason why lately I see oversized and blurry screenshots of originally small windows on the forum.

- The "Scale" dropdown also allows to select a meaningless "-" , which causes PupSnap to crash.

- The "Format" dropbox offers png, jpg, bmp,tiff. While IMHO bmp and tiff are a bad choice, what is missing is webp , which offers better compression than png or jpg and an excellent quality. Though not as common as png or jpg, webp is supported by scrot, mtpaint and viewnior, so would be perfect for BW64. Unfortunately PupSnap issues a stern alert ('PupSnap supports png, jpg, bmp and tiff formats!') when manually entering 'webp' into the dropdown edit field. I can circumvent this bogus alert by commenting out the lines

Code: Select all

if [ ! "$FILETYPE" = "png" -a ! "$FILETYPE" = "jpg" -a ! "$FILETYPE" = "bmp" -a ! "$FILETYPE" = "tiff" ]; then
Xdialog --title Alert --beep --msgbox "\n $(gettext 'PupSnap supports png, jpg, bmp and tiff formats!') \n" 0 0 && $WORKDIR/PupSnap && exit 0
fi

in the file /usr/local/PupSnap/func, but there should be an official way to allow formats supported by scrot.

- The optional "Hotkey" is set to Ctrl+Shift+S, which is not a good combination for a global hotkey. Traditionally Ctrl+Shift+<key> combinations are reserved for an application's own shortcuts. If set for PupSnap in JWM's jwmrc-personal file, the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+Shift+S in Librewolf (and Firefox?) for webpage screenshots and in LibreOffice for SaveAs function would not work anymore.

I haven't tested the "Image host" option because I don't use an image host.

[radky]

@MochiMoppel

- Assigning a different screenshot name works once, but PS doesn't remember that and falls back to its screenshot-<number> default at the next shot.

By design the PupSnap application auto-generates filenames to prevent loss of prior screenshots by inadvertent overwriting and to avoid a requisite popup dialog repeatedly asking permission to overwrite. From my perspective, deleting or overwriting prior screenshots should be a simple user choice (not inadvertent or requiring unnecessary user input) and the file manager option is provided for this purpose.

Appending a numerical suffix to the "Screenshot" basename provides a simple, consistent and reproducible naming scheme that avoids incompatible characters that may produce errors when the Name entry box is manually edited. For this reason, PupSnap does not attempt to add a numerical suffix to a filename manually added to the entry box. The user can override the auto-generated name but in this scenario the edited name should not contain characters that may fail in the Linux environment or prove incompatible with filename syntax in the Windows environment.

So yes, for each new screenshot, PupSnap supports the manual modification of filenames in the Name entry box, but otherwise will default to auto-generation of the filename with sequential enumeration -- such as Screenshot-1 or Screenshot-2. I have no plans to change this behavior.

- The name box shows the name of the last captured shot, not the name to be used for the next shot.

This is by design to confirm the filename is successfully assigned to the most-recent screenshot. In the Save folder there may be a mixture of numerically-defined filenames that (over time) may no longer have sequential suffix enumeration due to file management and deletion by the user, or there may be multiple Save folders. Consequently, until the Save folder is selected for the next screenshot (and file management is complete) it would be difficult to pre-determine a filename that would be successfully applied. Consequently, this determination is made after the Capture button is pressed.

- "Date" names are hardcoded to look like screenshot_2025-01-26_11:35:03. Colons are not supported in Microsoft file systems and therefore may cause problems when trying to copy such files to other file systems

In the next release of PupSnap the Date option will augment the designated timestamp by assigning sequential enumeration, such as Screenshot_2025-01-26-(1) or Screenshot_2025-01-26-(2).

- The "Folder" box ignores changes of the target folder when done directly in the box, even if the given folder exists. Only changes made via the folder button/dialog are acknowledged. That's not how an entry box is supposed to work .

This behavior is by design to prevent inevitable errors and failed screenshots when a user (such as myself) manually inserts or edits a long folder pathname in the entry box. However, the next release of PupSnap will support manually editing the Folder entry box. If the designated folder path does not exist, PupSnap will provide a popup notification dialog.

- The "Send to Viewer" and "Send to Editor" checkboxes don't allow to check them both, that's good, but unchecking them both, so that just a shot is taken without a following viewer/editor, triggers a warning that one of them MUST be checked...

In the next release, PupSnap will support screenshots without automatically loading an image viewer or image editor (i.e., the screenshot is successful even after unchecking the Viewer and Editor checkboxes.

- The "Scale" dropdown can - according to the tooltip - reduces a large screenshot to 600px to make it forum compatible. OK. But what it shouldn't do is pump up smaller images to the selected size...

This is by design to provide an option for image "magnification" which is particularly useful for Region or Window screenshots that may have small elements (or text) that would be difficult to visualize in the default image size. Granted, excessive magnification of bitmap images may show loss of spatial resolution, but when used in moderation this option can be beneficial, particularly for those with visual impairment. For screenshot size identical to the captured area the user can select the "Default" option to generate a screenshot with no magnification or minification, or select one of the scaled options to change the output size of the screenshot. I have no plans to change this behavior.

- The "Scale" dropdown also allows to select a meaningless "-" , which causes PupSnap to crash.

This rudimentary horizontal separator will be removed in the next release of PupSnap.

- The "Format" dropbox offers png, jpg, bmp,tiff. While IMHO bmp and tiff are a bad choice, what is missing is webp...

The next release of PupSnap will support the generation of screenshots in the webp image format. By the way, you may have little or no use for the venerable tiff image format since it is not typically used for personal or web imagery. However, the tiff format is still quite useful for photography, graphic design, and print publications. I have used it often for graphic design and printed publications.

- The optional "Hotkey" is set to Ctrl+Shift+S, which is not a good combination for a global hotkey.

It is very difficult to assign a hotkey that does not conflict at some point with other applications. If I recall correctly, you have previously expressed concern about the Synapse Ctrl-Space hotkey, yet this is the same hotkey sequence used by several other mainstream application launchers.