Re: Screen Copy ?

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

victor writes ...
> 
> Is it possible to make ( save as picture) a screen copy with a GS ?


     Yes. How much bother is involved depends upon the screen display
you want to capture.

     For super-res game screens and many other graphics displays (like a
Platinum Paint screen) an ancient CDA known as "EA Screen Saver",
"SDUMP.EA", etc. works well. It has been uploaded to Ground and
A2-Caltech in a .SHK file named "ScrnCap.SHK" along with a Text info
file and should be available for download soon.

     You can use GS-ShrinkIt to unShrink SCRNCAP.SHK to obtain the
screen capture utility itself, named "ScrnCapEA.CDA" and docs in a Text
file named "SCap.Readme.txt". Below is some more information about
ScrnCapEA.CDA:


>>


What ScrnCapEA.CDA Does

ScrnCapEA.CDA lets you capture game, etc. 320 or 640 mode
graphic screens as standard type $C1 GS unpacked Screen files
which can be loaded by Platinum Paint and many other GS
utilities.

ScrnCapEA.CDA will not capture true Desktop displays. For
example, you can not use it to capture your Finder display.

To use ScrnCapEA.CDA to capture a screen, you must be able
to access the Desk Accessories menu via the usual
OpenApple-Control-Escape keypress. Some programs shut off
access to the Desk Accessories menu. You will not be able
to use ScrnCapEA.CDA to capture screens from these
programs.



How to Use ScrnCapEA.CDA to Capture Screens

When you see a screen you want to capture, press
OpenApple-Control-Escape to get to the Desk Accessories
menu. Highlight  "EA Screen Saver" and press Return. If
there is no Beep, the screen has been saved.

ScrnCapEA.CDA saves captured screens as Screen files
named "Screen.0", "Screen.1", ..., etc.. The number is
automatically incremented for each capture.



Viewing and Naming Captured Screen Pics

Use Platinum Paint or some similar GS paint utility to
load-in and view your pics. Platinum Paint will let you
save the pics with a more descriptive name and, if you
wish, as standard compressed files which take up less
disk space than Screen files.  

<<


     Supertimer mentioned Clipit. This is a very nice capture NDA which
lets you grab a part or all of many super-res displays, including
desktop displays. The grabbed display is saved to the Clipboard. You can
get the pic from the Clipboard onto a Platinum Paint work screen by
going to Platinum Paint and doing a Paste.

     A limitation of Clipit and similar NDA's is that you must be able
to get to the 'Apple' menu or some NDA activation list or, if it there
is one, activate a 'Hot Key'. Also, these NDA's generally limit your
grab to the Clipboard. Usually, this means you end up with just one pic
per game, etc. session.  

     Games and other programs which shut off access to interrupts will,
often, be a problem. You will usually not be able to get to the Desk
Accessories menu and any screen capture 'Hot Key' keypresses will be
ignored. Usually, the 'Apple Menu' is not available, so screen capture
NDA's you use via the menu will not be available, either. Sometimes,
these programs include a built-in screen save feature; otherwise,
capturing a screen will take special measures.

     One way to capture most otherwise un-grabbable super-res screens is
via a ProDOS-8 super-res utility which can save the super-res screen.
The utility must be one which does not, itself, change the super-res
screen upon startup (e.g. Nibble's SuperPac or a save/disp program you
write yourself).

     Make sure your Startup Slot is set to Slot 5. Start the game, etc.
as usual. At some point insert a bootable ProDOS-8 diskette with the
super-res disp/save utility into Slot 5, Drive 1. When you see the
display you want to grab (and you are sure no Disk writes are occuring)
do an OpenApple-CTRL-Reset boot, start the disp/save program and save
the screen. Obviously, a disadvantage of this approach is that you get
kicked out of whatever game, etc. you are running at the time of the
boot. 


 
Rubywand