Window Clippings 2.1: How to Include a Disabled Parent Window

In my last “how to” article I showed how you can select multiple windows with Window Clippings by holding down the Ctrl key while clicking additional windows. You may however come across a window that is disabled and thus cannot be selected. By far the most common reason for this is when an application is displaying a modal dialog box and the parent window is then disabled until the dialog box is closed.

Let’s start again with the capture screen:

Here you can see the Calculator application with its modal “About” dialog box.

To include the parent window simply hold down the Shift key while clicking or double clicking the “About Calculator” window. Window Clippings will automatically include the parent in the selection:

And here’s the result:

Stay tuned for more “How to ...” articles.

© 2008 Kenny Kerr

4 Comments

  • Hi Kenny,

    I was wondering can you show a "how to" on capturing a drop down menu? Often I want to screen a screen clip of an open drop down but each time I try it closes when it loses focus.

  • Robert Kozak: Sure thing. I’ll post one tonight.

  • 2 Questions:
    1. How do I get the registration to work? I entered my email address and License key. When I hit the register button nothing happens.

    2. How do you set up the add in to paint. I thought that it said that they worked together. Maybe I made a mistake.

  • John Averill:
    1. Double check that you copied the email address and license key correctly from the email with your license information. The email address and license key are bound together so they need to match exactly (you cannot use a different email address). Make sure there aren’t any spaces or other characters around the text that your paste into those text boxes on the About tab. Also make sure you pasted the email address into the top text box and the license key into the bottom text box.
    2. Window Clippings and Paint.NET work together (not Microsoft Paint). For it to work you need version 2.1.28 (or later) of Window Clippings and version 3.31 (or later) of Paint.NET installed. You should then see the new “Send to Paint.NET” action when you click the Add button on the General tab. Here’s where I introduced this new feature.

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