Re: automated screenshots (was Re: more doc work, Re: completed gataxx doc)

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Fri, 2006-08-04 at 17:02 +0100, Don Scorgie wrote:
> <scrubbing all the accumulated CC's.  Either they're on the doc-list or
> they won't be interested>
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, 2006-08-03 at 14:36 -0700, Ryan Paul wrote:
> > I just finished putting together a simple proof-of-concept utility that
> > automatically fades image borders and applies a drop shadow. It's
> > written in Python and it uses Cairo, PIL, and GTK.
> 
> Couple of points about it.  I know its only a proof-of-concept:
> 1. Without the instant-apply enabled, how do changes happen?  I presume
> when you save it.  Better to have instant-apply always on, I think.
> 
> 2. When the border is set to 0, the image gets whited-out.
> 
> Just stupid things I saw and wondered about.
> 
> >From looking at the sample image you attached: I'm not sure about the
> fading at the edges.  To me, it feels like it looses something (esp.
> with the drop-shadow).  The other problem is that information may become
> faded-out.  E.g. (again from the sample), the status bar at the bottom
> and the title of the window are faded, and difficult to read.
> 
> Since I'm on this [1], this will also cause problems with inverse themes
> (High-contrast-inverse), who would expect the shot to fade towards
> black.

Weighing in some additions and addenda:

1) Fading on top of a drop shadow looks really weird.
2) I don't think drop shadows are a good idea anyway.
3) When I recommended fading, I only recommended it for cropped
   images, where you've cut away irrelevant parts of the window
   to show only one region.  I recommended fading on the cropped
   edges to show this.  (We could consider other techniques to
   show cropped edges, like ragged edges.)
4) PNGs have alpha masks.  Fading should use an erase gradient
   to fade from full color to transparent.
5) The Screenshot utility in gnome-utils can take a full-window
   screenshot without the Metacity window decorations, and just
   put a black line around the images.  The Fedora people wanted
   this to reduce visual information and to save some vertical
   real estate, especially in their printed docs.  Maybe that's
   something we should consider.

--
Shaun