What’s Next for Window Clippings

I know a lot of you are wondering what’s going on with Window Clippings. I had hoped to release another update this year but time has just slipped away. It’s turned into a pretty hectic year what with moving from Canada to the UK and starting a new job as a technology consultant in London, quite a departure from commercial software development.

Unfortunately I cannot work on Window Clippings full time at the moment as I know many of you would like but progress is still being made. I have scrapped plans for the minor 2.1 release and am moving ahead with work on a more significant 2.5 release. The release is aimed at addressing a few key themes:

  • Usability and bug fixes
  • Installation and initial experience
  • Feature parity with Vista’s snipping tool
  • Screen capture API
  • More built-in add-ins

Usability and bug fixes

I’ve chatted with many users about how they use the product and have received much invaluable feedback. There are some bugs but mostly I’m focusing on making the core features easier to use and Window Clippings work more naturally and intuitively.

Installation and initial experience

I’m biting the bullet and providing an installer. I’ve always had it in my head that something like this doesn’t absolutely need an installer and should just work. Although I will continue in that spirit I realize that not everybody is a techie or cares to find a good spot to stick Window Clippings and an installer would simply help folks get started more easily.

Feature parity with Vista’s Snipping tool

I’ve also been told by a number of users that they’d love to replace Vista’s Snipping tool with Window Clippings but that the Snipping tool provides freehand selection and highlighting facilities which Window Clippings really should provide. So the next release aims to provide feature parity and in particular supports freehand selection to complement the existing rectangular selection. There’s also a new highlight filter add-in that lets you easily use a “marker” to highlight a captured image or use ellipses and other shapes to draw attention to parts of a screenshot.

Window capture API

I’ve had many requests from ISVs to incorporate the screen capture functionality into their applications. Although I’ve provided this in some cases it was never very easy to separate the functionality from the Window Clippings application. Well this is now fixed and Window Clippings itself is built using the window capture API which will be licensed separately.

More built-in add-ins

I’ve been working on a number of new add-ins that will join the existing built-in add-ins including the highlight filter mentioned above, a more polished watermark filter, a much more sophisticated “Save to disk” add-in with support for thumbnails and a “Send to Amazon S3” add-in to name a few.

So development on Window Clippings continues but it is unfortunately something I can only work on in my spare time at the moment what with Window Clippings only really covering the costs of web hosting and Internet access. Considering the many thousands of regular users I’m suspecting that the “free” version is just too good!  :)

Anyway, I just wanted to confirm that a new version is in the works and give you an idea of what you can look forward to. Let me know what you think!

 

11 Comments

  • Here is what I think: Stop the free version. The free lunch is over :-)
    Looking forward to v2.5!

  • A couple of thoughts....
    1. If you're to busy get some help... by either having a person partner with you privately (giving them a cut of registration fees) or...
    2. Go Open source.

    Love Windows Clippings, actually paid for a copy from you... but its been a little problematic for me.

    How to get it to reliably start with Windows??

  • ck: A common problem is that the windowclippings.exe file that is downloaded is “blocked” and therefore isn’t allowed to start automatically when you log in. Assuming this is the case, you can right-click on the file in Explorer and select Properties from the context menu. Then on the General tab click the Unblock button and then the OK button. You should then be able to configure the startup options for Window Clippings on the Window Clippings Options window’s General tab.
    This is exactly the kind of thing that convinced me to provide an installer!  :)

  • Great to hear further development is in the works! :)

    Yay for installer especially! I dislike the fact I'm never entirely sure -where- I left the exe. App's live in %ProgramFiles%!

    I forget if I've requested this, but I will again just in case. A feature to have different sets of plug-ins that I can output to.
    e.g: If I'm just taking a random screenshot of something, I select for it to save it to disk and then FTP it to a folder on my server. If I want to take a promotional shot of some software I'm working on, I select a different option and have it save, watermark and then send to a different FTP folder.

  • I think I requested this once already, but one thing I'd love to see is, in the file saving options, the ability to append the date and time to the filename. I've always saved my screen captures as yyyymmdd-hhmmss.jpg or .png or whatever, and I do miss having that ability with Window Clippings. Even a plug-in would be great. Thanks for the update!

  • Daniel: that’s not a bad idea! :)

    Nidonocu: 2.5 includes both a “Send To” menu on the capture screen’s context menu as well as configurable profiles so that you can have different sets of options for different needs. I think you’ll be pleased!

    Andrew: the new “Save to disk” action has many more options including the ability to control the resulting file name.

  • Martin: I am in fact using Windows Installer XML. I toyed with simply doing the installer in C++ but I think the benefits of the Windows Installer service outweigh the absolute pain of programming against it and WiX sure helps.

  • Two little niggles I have, which you may already be addressing.

    My tired brain can't absorb the fact that once I've selected the area I want to capture I have to double-click to do the grab. About half the time I press Enter, only to have to repeat the selection. It would be nice if Enter behaved the same as double-click.

    I've noticed that the Crop or Expand Selection doesn't expand properly, or maybe I'm doing it wrong. Let's say I start by selecting a small window, select crop or expand and expand the selection. The rubber band with sizing handles goes outside the bounds of the original window selection but the masked area remains unchanged and when the capture is made, only the original unmasked window selection is captured.

  • Steve: those fall under usability. The ability to use the Enter key to capture will be supported. The second is a bit more subtle. If you first select one or more windows then the selection rectangle can only be used to crop the image and not expand it further. If however you don’t select any windows then the selection rectangle can be used to select any area on the screen. So if you’d like to select beyond the bounds of a window then simply select “Crop or Expand Selection” and select the area directly by dragging without first selecting the window. I need to change the wording depending on whether there is a selection already. I think that would make it less confusing. Thanks for the feedback!

  • Agree with top post, drop the free version. I am a vista X64 Ultimate user and not had any issue. I am a heavy user, taking 100+ screenshots a day as Director of Operations in our software company. Keeny great work mate keep it up. Again pitty you went to the UK, Australian would have been a much better and sunnier option :) Can't wait for the white board features to arrive.

    About installer, just make your installing notes a bit BIGGER and drop the many hours you will spend coding this. Will help get V2.5 out quicker!

  • Great ! An API, at last :-)

    I have waited for it since Vista came out, since it broke my own screen pixel reading code I use in the color picker of Creative Docs .NET. I wonder how/if your license will allow me to include the required bits of Window Clippings directly in my own MSI.

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