RDD Open Source Software

QuickCap

 QuickCap is a screen capture utility. QuickCap will allow you to save the image on your computer screen to a file, or copy the image to the clipboard for use in another application. QuickCap will write image files in PNG, JPG, or BMP format.

When QuickCap is started, a camera icon appears in the Windows system tray, on the task bar near the clock (see Screen shots). Click on the camera to activate QuickCap, and select whether you want to capture the entire screen or just a single active window to a file or the clipboard, and specify a file name if needed. Nothing else is required.

The motivation for QuickCap

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of utilities that will capture the image on a computer screen and save it to a file (some of these other screen capture utilities are listed here). Many are open source, others are freeware or shareware applications. Many have very useful options which will allow users to capture all or any specified portion of the screen image. Microsoft Windows even has the built in capability to copy a screen or window image to the clipboard, with no additional software necessary. With all of these options already available, why create yet another one?

I recently evaluated several open source and freeware/shareware screen capture utilities, in order to recommend one to a group of software testers: I needed a utility that was quick, clean, and would not distract me or my coworkers from the primary task at hand. I had three criteria in mind:

• The application had to be unobstrusive and efficient. I did not want to have to take a half dozen actions to define a region of the screen, capture the region, save the file, etc.
• The application had to be easy enough for my mother to install and use: simple and straightforward, with a very short and intuitive sequence of steps.
• I wanted a free and open source solution, if possible.

I had a surprisingly difficult time finding a screen capture utility that fit these three criteria. Mildly frustrated, I decided to invest a Saturday afternoon and just write an application to do what I needed. QuickCap is the result.

System requirements

QuickCap is written for Microsoft Windows. It is known to run on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The application should also run on Windows 95, 98, ME, and NT 4.

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