[Genma Saotome]

I was out to shoot some screenshots and lest I miss the shot I wanted I hit pause and lo and behold at the bottom of the screen was that black line left over from the previous command.


Now I do like that black line feature but there are times like this when it would be real nice to press some key-combination and have it go away instantly (while paused or running) so it doesn't spoil the screenshot.

Is there a way to do that? If not, is it feasible to have a key command that will work immediately?

[James Ross]

Genma Saotome, on 01 January 2016 - 12:34 PM, said:

I was out to shoot some screenshots and lest I miss the shot I wanted I hit pause and lo and behold at the bottom of the screen was that black line left over from the previous command.
Clipboard0686.jpg

Now I do like that black line feature but there are times like this when it would be real nice to press some key-combination and have it go away instantly (while paused or running) so it doesn't spoil the screenshot.

Is there a way to do that? If not, is it feasible to have a key command that will work immediately?

If you use the Open Rails screen capture function (Print Screen key, or you can rebind it in Options if that conflicts with something else), the black bars/recent messages are all automatically excluded. (I can actually see it momentarily hiding them, even while paused, when I press Print Screen.)

Maybe it'd be nice to hide them explicitly with another key, but it shouldn't matter for most people.

[Genma Saotome]

James Ross, on 01 January 2016 - 01:23 PM, said:

If you use the Open Rails screen capture function (Print Screen key, or you can rebind it in Options if that conflicts with something else), the black bars/recent messages are all automatically excluded. (I can actually see it momentarily hiding them, even while paused, when I press Print Screen.)

Maybe it'd be nice to hide them explicitly with another key, but it shouldn't matter for most people.

I see... I am used to doing alt-printscrn followed by a paste/save with IRFAN. I guess I'll have to get used to the other way of taking screenshots (but that will always required a cut/paste on the files as I organized screenshots by route.

Actually there is a thought... How does this sound: Add a screenshot directory to the route's own root folder and change the Print Screen key to go there... a different setting for each route you run.

[James Ross]

Genma Saotome, on 01 January 2016 - 01:32 PM, said:

I see... I am used to doing alt-printscrn followed by a paste/save with IRFAN. I guess I'll have to get used to the other way of taking screenshots (but that will always required a cut/paste on the files as I organized screenshots by route.

Actually there is a thought... How does this sound: Add a screenshot directory to the route's own root folder and change the Print Screen key to go there... a different setting for each route you run.

We could allow the ScreenshotPath to be configured this way, but perhaps a better option is to provide you exactly what you're used to: a shortcut in Open Rails that just copies the image to the clipboard. Maybe even Alt + Print Screen would be a good default as we'd be overriding the default behaviour with something that does the same thing but better[1]. And people could still reconfigure the key if they needed the original.

[1] It won't be quite the same when running in a window, as Open Rails would not capture the window border/title bar, but otherwise it should be capturing the same thing as Alt + Print Screen does by default - just without the black bars.

[Genma Saotome]

Do you need me to write up a Blueprint (problem statement only) or do you want to write it (including a solution)?

[Hobo]

This may be a silly question but where does " print screen " put the screenshots in OR as default . I've never used it yet .

[James Ross]

Hobo, on 01 January 2016 - 03:12 PM, said:

This may be a silly question but where does " print screen " put the screenshots in OR as default . I've never used it yet .

The default location is a (created if it doesn't exist) folder called "Open Rails" in your Pictures folder, so typically "C:\Users\<username>\Pictures\Open Rails". A black-bar message appears with the full path when you take a screenshot. If you'd like them elsewhere, you can set the hidden setting "ScreenshotPath".

[Hobo]

Thank you ! I've been using a program called " RapidShots " for many years but I'll certainly try the OR version .

[atsf37l]

One thing that Alt-PrintScreen does that doesn't happen with the in-game print screen is that the resulting capture is already in .jpg mode so you cut out the step of changing the .png to .jpg for use in places like ET posts which don't accept .png images. :bigboss:

[James Ross]

Genma Saotome, on 01 January 2016 - 02:42 PM, said:

Do you need me to write up a Blueprint (problem statement only) or do you want to write it (including a solution)?

Created https://blueprints.l...ot-to-clipboard.

atsf37l, on 02 January 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

One thing that Alt-PrintScreen does that doesn't happen with the in-game print screen is that the resulting capture is already in .jpg mode so you cut out the step of changing the .png to .jpg for use in places like ET posts which don't accept .png images. :bigboss:

Alt + Print Screen doesn't use any particular file format, as it doesn't write the image to disk. The suggested OR implementation will also capture just to the clipboard, allowing you to paste into anything you like and save in any format you like. (The Print Screen function will continue to use PNG images because they're lossless and that can be important.)