WinSnap Users Manual

Introduction

WinSnap was originally designed to take simple snapshots of non-rectangular windows, such as windows with XP visual styles, skinned media players, etc. The software is now more advanced with professional smoothing shadows, coloring effects, canvas transformations, and automatic saving of images in various formats and more.

WinSnap can help you to easily make small thumbnail previews and full-sized screenshots for your weblog and homepage, visualize technical and educational materials, and send reduced-size images via e-mail. (See examples)

WinSnap automates all manual work and handles technical issues that were previously only possible with Photoshop or other image editors. Using WinSnap you can perform professional screenshots immediately with just one click!

Main Features

Flexible screen capture capabilities
WinSnap can capture full screen or screen regions in various forms, together with separate windows and all visible windows in an entire application. WinSnap easily captures non-rectangular and transparent windows. All void space surrounding separate windows, non-rectangular window forms and regions can then be automatically filled with the background of your choice.
Professional shadow effects and powerful image processing
WinSnap provides Photoshop-like shadow effects with customizable size, angle, color, smoothing and other settings. The main difference from Photoshop and all other image editing programs is that WinSnap stores all window form information and draws realistic non-rectangular shadows. This is a considerable advantage when you taking snapshots of windows with XP visual styles and skinned windows (e.g. media players). In addition, WinSnap supports outline shadows and basic image coloring effects.
Basic canvas transformations
WinSnap can automatically rotate and scale images with the highest possible quality. In combination with other effects, it allows you to quickly create high-end thumbnail previews of full-size screenshots.
Aero Glass capturing with shadows and transparencies
WinSnap v2.0 was especially designed for capturing the new Windows Vista UI. It can handle all possible issues with translucent window frames and rounded corners. WinSnap can draw a drop shadow effect that is very similar to the Aero theme.
Alpha-Channel and PNG transparency support
Now shadows are semi-transparent! This function allows very easy image compositing, and is particularly useful when placing screenshots on multi-color backgrounds.
Unique Multi-Object capture mode
WinSnap v2.0 allows you to simultaneously select and capture multiple objects (e.g. windows, dialogs, buttons and controls). A few windows can be placed on the screen and easily combined into one screenshot image.
Work faster with configurable External Tools
You can quickly open screenshots in your favorite image editor using the Tools menu or shortcut keys. This feature also allows you to automatically save images into different directories and in different formats.
Easy Web publishing and E-mail dispatch
WinSnap was especially developed for Web publishing; HTML-style color themes allow you to easily adapt captured snapshots to your web pages. WinSnap also allows you to quickly send screen data via e-mail to demonstrate a particular problem you might be having with a program.
Advanced save and copy options
If multiple snapshots are taken, WinSnap can automatically save images onto disk. The filename can be automatically sequenced to prevent you from overwriting previous snapshots. Of course, WinSnap supports all popular image formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF and BMP.
Keyboard and mouse control
By analogy with TaskSwitchXP, WinSnap is a PrintScreen replacement software. By default, WinSnap replaces the standard PrintScreen key combinations and can operate in a hidden state to remove any signs of WinSnap from the screen. Hotkeys are fully configurable, while it is also possible to undertake all work with the mouse if preferred.
Multilingual user interface
WinSnap supports language extensions (Unicode based). If you would like to localize WinSnap to your native language, see instructions at the WinSnap\lang\ subfolder. You can then submit your translation to the NTWind forums.
Small and fast for an image editor
WinSnap only takes a very small amount of system resources for an image editing program. There is no need to worry about system performance while taking and editing screenshot images. It is smaller than Paint!

System requirements

WinSnap was developed for Windows 2000/XP/Vista and newer operating systems. All older versions of Windows are not supported! If you are running Windows 2000, you need GDI+ installed to use WinSnap. GDI+ is included in Windows XP and most Microsoft products (such as MS Office). You can download GDI+ from Microsoft Download Center.