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• Download Zoomer v1.0 binaries - 147 Kb
• Download Zoomer v1.0 source - 69.8 Kb
• Download Zoomer v1.0 setup - 396 Kb

Introduction

This is a small application for taking screenshots interactively without much of a hassle, developed under C# and .NET Framework v1. I was quite surprised when I found myself using it a lot more than I initially thought I would. I want to believe that is it quite straight-forward to use and pleasant to work with. It really comes in handy whenever you have to take screenshots of whatever is on your screen without having to capture the whole screen and then crop/edit the image so that it ends up to the correct size and shape.

Anyways, enough of this unnecessary introduction, let's just get to the good part.

Background

Zoomer is a somewhat lighter version of the Cropper tool which lets you do similar sort of things. (Let me say here, that this application tries by no means to mimic or replace Cropper which I think it's way cooler than this one!). A variety of controls (from CodeProject) make up some important parts of Zoomer (such as an Image Processing library) and are developers' individual work, which I don't claim to be mine. After all, Zoomer is just a free-ware project for fun and is not to be distributed commercially or anything similar.

Note: All controls used can be found in the source (references part) or in the binaries ZIP file (which includes the executable file along with each used .dll). Thank you guys for all of the wonderful controls that made the whole process of writing Zoomer a lot easier!

Using Zoomer / Available Features

As I already said, I think that Zoomer is quite straightforward to use.

After you position the grayed-out area of the main form above whatever you want to capture (you can check the image size in pixels as you resize the form), you set a zoom factor, apply a filter, and hit the capture button. You can then save the image in any of several image formats. Right-click on Zoomer all of the currently available options (the Capture process can also be activated through the context menu).

What I found really useful is the fact that Zoomer stays always on top of any other window so that it allows you to resize/move whatever you are about to capture without hiding Zoomer in the background.

The following is a list of Zoomer's available features:

1. Choose screenshot size interactively.
2. Apply zoom factor (up to 50% currently).
3. Apply one filter (next version will allow for filter combinations).
4. Preview whatever you are about to capture in a different window (preview selected zoom/filter).
5. Choose image format to save screenshot (JPG, BMP, PNG,...).

Points of Interest

Due to the UI design of Zoomer, currently you won't be able to capture screenshots less than 270x2 in size.

History

This is the first version of Zoomer (v1.0).

Hope you enjoy using it! Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

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Some improvements lena123 20:56 6 Feb '07   Hi, very, very nice tool. I want to make it my main tool for capturing. Most I need it for sending screen shots to different people. So what is missing (for me at least) is copy functionality. I mean, I want to define the default picture format, then clicking Ctrl-C on preview area will copy the picture. Open mail, paste, done! Please consider this in your future versions. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Some improvements Polis Pilavas 21:38 6 Feb '07   Hi Lena, Thanks very much for your nice comments. You just made my morning. So by "copying" you mean that you just want to skip the save process. Am I right? Regards, Polis Can you practice what you teach? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Some improvements lena123 20:49 7 Feb '07   Yes, exactly. And thanks for the rapid response. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink capture WMP screenshot? newpant 5:21 21 Nov '05   i want to know whether it can capture WMP or other player when play movie? how can i capture that??? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.00/5 Re: capture WMP screenshot? Polis Pilavas 9:09 21 Nov '05   newpant wrote: whether it can capture WMP or other player when play movie? I am sorry, the current version of the tool (v1.0) does not allow you to take such a screenshot. You are able to capture the WMP, or any other media player, but not their streaming contents. Regards, Polis Can you practice what you teach? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Cropping, automated? eclipse2k1 1:54 21 Jun '05   Nice tool, missing an essential function, though... When i make Screenshots of any specific window, i simply hold the ALT-Key while pressing the Print Screen Key, so i get a screenshot cropped to the exact dimensions of the focused Window, or Dialog (hey, this information might be useful since not all people know that). Without the automatic cropping function in need to align the border of the Zoomer precisely which is quite time intensive - a lot more then opening MS Paint and paste the already cropped image. This simple fact makes it quite useless for me. You could include some window detection routines? Just an idea for the future Versions Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Cropping, automated? Polis Pilavas 2:37 21 Jun '05   Thank you for your comments. Yes, what you said makes a lot of sense. I was planning to include such a function in future verions so that Zoomer can detect windows on the screen using classic Win API. It's in my plans and I will update the article once I've done it. Thanks again. Regards, Polis Can you practice what you teach? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink You might want to revisit your zips fwsouthern 16:56 20 Jun '05   Your source is missing "..\ZoomerSetup\ZoomerSetup.vdproj" and 4 dll's (even though they are contained in your "bin" zip). You might also want to include the sources for the 4 dll's as it makes your code and article somewhat cryptic. As for the operation of your program, I find it disconcerting that I have to drag the sides of the rectangle (in relative order) and still maintain visibility of the "click" button or right-click to capture, particularly where the capture rectangle remains the same size -- how about a task bar for initial drag and/or a rubber band drawing capability, coupled with a key sequence to invoke capture? How about allowing the user to set the opacity? Also, how do you propose to handle multi-screen displays? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: You might want to revisit your zips Michael Dillmann 0:52 21 Jun '05   dito. would like to check the app. regards Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: You might want to revisit your zips Polis Pilavas 2:55 21 Jun '05   I've just re-uploaded the setup project file for Zoomer, thanks for mentioning it. As fas the source of the 4 dll files, I will try my best to include the source code or at least provide you with the URL for each control used. Allowing the user to set opacity might be a good idea so I will keep it in mind for the next version. To be honest with you, I didn't give any attention to multi-screen displays as this is an initial release. I will take it under consideration though. fwsouthern wrote: As for the operation of your program, I find it disconcerting that I have to drag the sides of the rectangle (in relative order) and still maintain visibility of the "click" button or right-click to capture, particularly where the capture rectangle remains the same size -- how about a task bar for initial drag and/or a rubber band drawing capability, coupled with a key sequence to invoke capture? I am not sure I understand this comment though. What you are saying is to provide the user with keyboard shortcut for taking screenshots as well? Thanks for your good comments anyways. I will take them under consideration. Regards, Polis Can you practice what you teach? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: You might want to revisit your zips fwsouthern 6:51 21 Jun '05   Operation is a kludge and does not work, at least as to resizing the capture area. I also had difficulty changing the size of the capture area (doesn't appear to work even though the object rectangle can be resized). I would suggest a better way than dragging the sides of a window to position (one side at a time, ugh!). I have an old Win95 utility called "Mr. Snappy 95" which allows either full screen (primary only, unfortunately) or "rectangle" -- basically does a full screen bitmap capture and, in crop mode, allows you to draw a rubber band rectangle on the "thumbnail" capture image to select what portion of the image you want to save -- only saves in bmp format but does the job for quick screen captures. While not a perfect solution (basically written before there were many multi-screen systems), the operation is much smoother than yours. I would suggest something similar -- allow either "desktop" capture followed by rubber band cropping or specification of "screen" followed by rubber band crop selection, or BOTH, and, of course, selection of image format (and quality for jpg format). Somehow, dragging edges of an object to position it is kind of irregular. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: You might want to revisit your zips Polis Pilavas 12:30 21 Jun '05   Yes, I get your point. I will give some more thought into this Regards, Polis Can you practice what you teach? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Nice tool, thanks Mark Focas 15:56 20 Jun '05   Thanks Polis, This is a very nice tool, I have always used print screen, pasted into paint, saved as jpg etc, this eliminates all that hassle. A couple of points, The zoom facter is confusing, selecting 50% makes the image larger, I would expect it to make it smaller. It would be good to have zoom factors to reduce the size, and perhaps a custom zoom factor. I didn't save my screenshots in the default folder, and every time I saved a shot, the saveas dialog would take me back to the apps default save folder. I wonder too, if the name could be different, as initially assumed this was an alternative to the windows magnifier. Also, most of the articles on this site usually discuss the implementation of the code, how did you handle difficult problems, how some of the implementation was achieved etc. Having said all that, it is just comments on how to improve the app, I thinks this is a handy app, and I will use it a lot. Being in a minority of one, doesn't make you insane George Orwell However, in my case it does Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 Re: Nice tool, thanks Polis Pilavas 2:40 21 Jun '05   Thanks for commenting on Zoomer. I will make sure I review the zoom factor. Also, a custom zoom factor will be implemented in future versions as it was in my plans. I will take care of the default folder of the saveAs dialog as well so that it remembers the last saved folder. (I really forgot about that, so thanks for bringing it up). Once I update Zoomer's version, I will also update the article and include some more techincal details and things I had to overcome as well. Thanks again for your excellent comment. Regards, Polis Can you practice what you teach? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink

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