.KEYWORD startap
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT SHOOTOUT
.TITLE Two more screen capture utilities
.OTHER
.SUMMARY If you write about Windows CE, you’re going to need to capture screens. In September, we showed you one way to capture Windows CE screens. In this helpful article, Frank McPherson shows you two programs with unique features, including one that will capture the Start Menu.
.AUTHOR Frank McPherson
In my September article, I gave instructions on using CaptureCE to capture screenshots of your Windows CE device. Since that article, I have worked with two other programs that can also be used for capturing screenshots: SnapIt and StarTap.
SnapIt is a $12 shareware program from Xoanan Industries, LLC. It runs on Handheld and Handheld Professional PCs, including the HP Jornada 820 and its StrongARM CPU. When it’s installed, a camera icon is added to the system tray, and initially the icon is crossed out, as shown in Figure A, indicating that SnapIt is disabled. To enable SnapIt, tap the camera icon and the red cross is removed.
.FIGPAIR A SnapIt’s camera icon is located in the system tray. Double tap it to open the program.
Double-tapping the camera icon opens SnapIt’s configuration dialog box, shown in Figure B. This dialog box shows the two benefits that SnapIt has over other screen capture programs. First, a key combination is assigned using the Shift, Ctrl, and Alt keys, providing the print screen key functionality. For more information on print screen functionality, see my article in the September 1999 issue.
.FIGPAIR B SnapIt’s configuration dialog box is used to define the key combination for capturing screenshots and specifying where to write the files.
The second benefit is the "Base file name" field in the configuration dialog box. In that field you can specify the storage location and file name that SnapIt uses when storing the screenshot to a file. By specifying a storage card, as I have done in Figure B, the files are written to a CompactFlash memory card. If you have a CompactFlash reader, such as the SanDisk USB reader that I use, you can quickly copy the screenshot files to your PC. So far SnapIt is the only screenshot program that I have found that provides this function.
.H1 Swiss Army knife of Windows CE applications
Screenshots of dialog boxes and applications are easy to make using CaptureCE or SnapIt, but have you tried capturing the start menu? If you do, you will find that as soon as you tap CaptureCE’s icon or use SnapIt’s key combination the start menu closes, and you may get only part of the start menu. Hardly the desired result!
As far as I know, Thumbs Up! Software’s StarTap is the only program that deals with this problem. StarTap is, in my opinion, the Swiss Army knife of Windows CE applications. It started life as an alternate to the Windows CE interface on Palm-sized PCs, but the folks at Thumbs Up! also packed it full of additional features. Chances are if Windows CE is missing something you need, StarTap fills the void. Handheld PC owners are not left out in the cold as Thumbs Up! has created a version of StarTap for them as well.
StarTap is on my "must have" software list for Windows CE. In future articles, I will describe the many features of StartTap (beyond screen capture) that help you get the most out of your device. This month, I am going to explain the Delayed Capture feature, which is how I captured the start menu shown in Figure C.
.FIGPAIR C Use StarTap to capture that hard-to-capture Start Menu.
Delayed Capture waits four seconds before creating the screenshot. To capture the Start Menu, all you do is tap the StarTap icon in the system tray, tap the Start button, and wait for StarTap to create the screenshot — which is indicated by a shutter sound. The screenshot file is written to the root directory in a bitmap graphics file.
In order to create screenshots with StarTap, you will have to turn on Capture. You can get to StarTap’s properties from the StarTap Control Panel — you won’t find the StarTap icon in the Windows CE’s Control Panel. Tap the Images tab as shown in Figure D, and check the box next to Capture. If you check View Img you can view the screenshot by using StarTap’s file explorer application.
.FIGPAIR D Check the Capture box to create screenshots using StarTap.
Next tap the TB Icon tab in the StarTap Properties dialog box to associate delayed screen capture to the StarTap system tray icon. Two actions are associated with this icon: single tap and double tap. You select these from the Action drop-down list. To enable delayed capture with a single tap of the system tray icon, select Single Tap in the Action drop-down list and then select Delay Capt from the Result drop-down list. After making this change, tap the OK button to close the dialog box. To create a screenshot, first tap the system tray icon, then tap the Start button and wait for the shutter sound.
Screen capture is just one of the tools that StarTap provides. Check back soon for my explanation on using StarTap Explorer to browse files on your Palm-sized PC and view the screenshot on your device.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
You can read Frank McPherson’s article on CaptureCE at http://www.windowscepower.com/issues/issue199909/screens001.html.
For more information on CaptureCE, check out http://www.oohito.com/index_e.htm.
SnapIt from Xoanan Industries can be found at http://www.xoanan.com/windowsce/SnapIt.htm.
You can find StarTap from Thumbs Up Software at http://www.thumbsupsoft.com.
For more information on the HP Jornada 820, visit http://www.hp.com/jornada.
Look into the SanDisk USB CompactFlash reader at http://www.sandisk.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Frank McPherson is a Senior Information Specialist at EDS. He is a Microsoft Windows CE Most Valuable Professional, and Assistant Forum Manager of MSN’s Computing Central Windows CE forum. His maintains the Windows CE Knowledge Center at http://start.at/know_ce, and he can be reached via e-mail at frank@fmcpherson.com.
