Customising the GNOME Screenshot Application

Circa GNOME 2.20, the screenshot application became simplified -- it now just takes the screenshot of your entire desktop, with borders and asks you to save it somewhere.

What happens if you'd like to take a screenshot of a specific window, or remove the borders, or add a drop-shadow, or do any sort of resizing?

You can make a custom launcher for it. Luckily, none of the backend settings were removed, the user interface was just tided up.

First, right-click on your desktop and select 'Create Launcher' from the menu, which should take you to the configuration screen -- consisting of four boxes you will need to fill in.

In the Application drop-down box, make sure: Application is selected.

In the Name text-box, you enter the name of the launcher, Take Screenshot is a good choice, but you can call this anything you want.

In the Application text-box, you need to add the program with the options you need, you can select from:

--delay=X -- Delays the screenshot for X seconds after you double-click the link, very handy if you need to take shots of a menu bar or dialogue.
--window -- Takes a shot of the current window instead of the entire desktop.
--border-effect=X -- Takes a unmodified screenshot if you use 'none', adds a 2 pixel drop-shadow if you use 'shadow' or a 1 pixel black border if you use 'border'.
--window -- Takes a shot of the current window instead of the entire desktop.

The Comment text-box is optional, it offers you the ability to make a longer description of the launcher if you highlight it on the desktop, because of the options we've used above, we'll call it: Takes Screenshot of the current window after 10 seconds.

When you are finished, your launcher screen should look like the one below:



Click on the OK button when you're happy with your settings -- and the launcher should appear somewhere on your desktop.