Release: CaptVB

CaptVB
CaptVB is a screenshot utility written in eVB.

The user interface is inspired by the Snipping Tool included with modern versions of Windows.
If you have ever used Snipping Tool, you will likely feel right at home with CaptVB.

CaptVB currently has the following features:

• Immediate screen capture or delayed by 3, 5 or 10 seconds.


• Fully configurable save location and file naming pattern including current date and time.


• Optionally ask where to save each screenshot.


• Option to keep the main window always on top.


• Play a sound or flash the notification LED (if available) after screen capture.

Links:

GitHub Repo
Releases





Attachments
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arrangement.png (2KB - 0 downloads)

Yay! Thank you, I added to SCL
https://www.hpcfactor.com/scl/2119/WinCEDev/CaptVB/version_0.9.0
I'll add testing data soon.

That is fan-tas-tic! Excellent work sir!

Awesome!

What a great idea!

Thanks all, I'm glad you're finding it useful.
I'm still working on a couple of improvements that didn't make it into the initial release, so please stay tuned.

On Windows CE 6.0 x86, I get
“Application Error
An error was encountered while running this program: unable to load function NotificationLED_NLedGetDeviceInfo_Count

Thanks for testing! I sometimes forget about the modular nature of Windows CE compared to 'regular' Windows...
While the application does account for certain devices not having a notification LED (using NLedGetDeviceInfo), I did not anticipate that the entire function would be missing.

I have released version 0.9.1 which should solve this problem.
Could you give it a try whenever you have some time?

CaptVB v0.9.1

Edited by WinCEDev 2023-08-21 10:39 PM

Hey WinCEDev, thanks for that! I added 0.9.1 to the SCL.
Now, the program does open but I can't get it to save screenshots, I click it and the program disappears
^Still using on Windows CE 6.0 x86 running 1920x1080 screen resolution

Also, the selector for the drop down for time delay doesn't let me use the UI to change the option, but the left and right arrow keys let me
^The second issue is more minor, so we could always work on them in order

Hmm, that's weird.

The window is supposed to disappear while the screenshot is being taken, but this shouldn't take very long. On my Jornada 680, it takes about 10 seconds from pressing the screenshot button to CaptVB reappearing again. While your screen resolution is much higher, your CE 6.0 thin client is also going to be way faster than my Jornada. Could you check if CaptVB truly quit or is it still running in the background? You'd be looking for the "pvbload.exe" eVB runtime process.

Just out of curiosity, does it make a difference if you choose any of the delay options or select the option to "Ask before saving"?

I'll make a debug build that shows a message box on each step on the screenshot process so we can get a better idea on what's going on.
Unfortunately I'm going to be pretty busy this week so I will probably not be able to get that to you until the weekend.

I'm not quite sure what could be causing the issues with the delay dropdown, I'm not doing anything special with that in code.
Do you remember if the same problem also happens with the language dropdown of my Telephone Alphabet application?

Edited by WinCEDev 2023-08-22 11:58 PM

Hey, again, I appreciate all of your help. I promise I'm not trying to be a pain.
Here's some updates for you


It's still running in background

No difference, and also tried the "Play Sound After" as well

Yes, I pulled of Telephone Alphabet, and it does the same thing there too.
I also added a screenshot. You'll have to zoom in it's that subtle black line underneath "No Delay"

Take your time! We're all good.






Attachments
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2023_8_23__22_29_44.jpg (5KB - 0 downloads)

Hi torch,

Thanks for testing!
And don't worry, I'd love to see this working on CE 6.0 too.

As promised I have created a version that shows a debug message after completing any significant step in the code. It should help us pinpoint why it is hanging. The fact that it's still running in the background has me hopeful we can fix it, because at least it doesn't seem like it has crashed the runtime or anything like that.

It's best to replace the .vb of your current installation with this testing one, as otherwise it is missing the toolbar/systray images and probably will not launch.

For now I'm focussing on solving the hanging problem first, but I did make one small change to the dropdown, it now uses the default ComboBox style rather than dropdown list. Not sure if that makes a difference, but it's probably worth testing.

Could you let me know what the contents are of the last message box that you see before it hangs up?
Also, any of the numeric values it shows are not supposed to be zero (but the exact value does not matter).
Please let me know if it shows you any values as zero.

Thanks!

Edited by WinCEDev 2023-08-26 2:26 AM




Attachments
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CaptVB.vb (55KB - 2 downloads)

Hi, so to run the debug algorithm, do I just do as I do normally?

I did:
-Ask for Destination
-With option set to no delay

I did click capture, but it just shows a dialog box that say "Visual Basic: Starting" but then the captvb minimizes to system tray and disappears
No other dialog box or numerical sequence shows up for me.

Also, the dropdown menu still has the same behavior, only it's a white line underneath instead of black.

I wonder if there's an issue with how the captvb minimizes to system tray for the screenshot.

May I suggest a test version which disables that feature, so we can work on knocking out the actual act of capturing not working first?
Does that make sense?

Thanks so much for your continued testing efforts.



Yes, I should have mentioned that, sorry. The program works as normal, but it shows debug messages at certain times during code execution.





The system tray code is only called when you select one of the delay options, so I don't think that is the problem unless no system tray icon shows up when you select one of the delays, but that would be a separate issue.

Since it only showed the "Starting!" message, it is most likely getting hung up while processing the window message queue. When I tested CaptVB on my Jornada, I noticed that sometimes, part of the CaptVB window would still be in the screenshot (it didn't get enough time to hide itself). I implemented my own version of "DoEvents" from desktop VB, and while it worked on my Jornada, I think I must have made a mistake somewhere.

I have attached a new version that disables this functionality altogether, could you please test again?
I have left the debug messages enabled for now in case something else goes wrong.



Thanks, I honestly didn't have much hope that the dropdown style would change anything.
When the hanging problem is fixed we can look into this in more detail.

Edited by WinCEDev 2023-08-27 7:19 PM




Attachments
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CaptVB.vb (55KB - 3 downloads)

Thank you for checking this out.
Unfortunately the new version is unchanged.
I still get the “Starting” message. Then it minimizes into the system tray (but no icon is present )

As C:Amie and I dunk for bananas figured out when we were testing VB runtime on x86, for some reason, it’s a little funky. I think about 75% of the vb programs in SCL work on x86.

Edit: Did more testing for you on my other device: NEC MobilePro 900 running CE 4.2 ARM processor
0.9.0 works great
+
0.9.1 as well

Two things I noticed:
The help menu title bar mentions "Telephone Alphabet Help"
but the contents themselves reference CaptVB so that's correct

Also, the default No Delay option still showed a snippet of the captvb window before it "Disappears", but the three second delay works great.

This is actually one of the best screenshot programs I've used. Basic but gets the job done and is very fast! Definitely gonna be my go-to.

Edit2: ditto on 790 MIPS running on CE3.0
Everything is the same as the 900

Edited by torch 2023-09-02 6:36 AM