Release: CaptVB

That's so strange, I was almost certain that you would be seeing a bit more happen this time.
When you dismiss the "Starting!" message, it is still nowhere near the actual code that takes the screenshot...

Since I removed the DoEvents code with our last test, all it is doing before it will show the next debug message is hiding and disabling the window.

Relevant code:


If you're willing to keep testing then I have attached a new version that doesn't hide or disable the window.
Unless there is something in the eVB runtime going horribly wrong, it should then at least output a bit more than just the starting message.

I have also attached a test application that calls the screenshot function directly and writes it to "\Temp\Screenshot.bmp".
If that is successful then we at least know that the core functionality should work on CE 6.0, too.



Good catch on the help file, I will fix this in the next release! Glad to hear it's working well on CE 3.0 and 4.2.

I also experienced the window still being partially visible in screenshots sometimes, still working on a fix for that.
As you've found, a good workaround for now is to use the 3-second delay option.

And thanks so much! I'm honored that you would consider using CaptVB as your go-to application.

Do please let me know if there's any functionality you would like to see. One of the things I am working on for the next version is a single-window screenshot option. Often times it's not necessary to capture the whole screen, but just the application you want to show/share. Should be a lot faster, too.


Edited by WinCEDev 2023-09-06 10:19 PM




Attachments
----------------
CaptVB.vb (55KB - 4 downloads)
Screenshot Test.vb (12KB - 4 downloads)

Okay, I clicked the "Capture" Button. First, the dialog box says "Starting", then "Ask Before Saving is Enabled"
Nothing happens after that, no other dialog boxes generate, but the window doesn't disappear at least.


I'm always happy to test, it's just a factor to consider that the x86 runtime is a little...funky.

In order with messages. I clicked "Take Screenshot", states screen resolution as 1920x1080, created display drawing contest 8913499, created bitmap info structure, created DIB section on memory DC 9306769, copied screen dc to memory dc, cleaned up drawing elements, created file handle 10298115, image length 6220800, *I clicked enter too soon to see what this dialog box read*, wrote bitmapinfoheader to file, wrote image data to file, closed the file, deleted bitmap object.

Subsequently, the test screenshot saves correctly into the temp folder.

That would be fantastic, I'd love that feature!


Edited by torch 2023-09-07 9:10 AM

I'm using this a lot now and it's great. The one thing I miss from screensnap is having a shortcut key. However, I would not want it if it would sacrifice the small footprint of your app. So, I'd like to offer that as a possible additional feature.

Thank you, unfortunately this sounds like an eVB runtime bug, most likely something to do with the CommandBar. It would make no sense for it to stop there otherwise.



Awesome, good to know that this works fine at least. That's actually great news because it means that the issues you've been seeing are not likely to be related to the code handling the screenshot, but rather due to UI control related issues.

I have attached a version of CaptVB with an alternate UI that offers all of the same options. Could you please test if this works too? If it does, I think what I'll do is make the current interface the 'compact' mode (it will still be the default), and then offer an option to switch to the alternate interface if desired. This is actually useful in multiple ways since the alternate interface can be more easily operated with a keyboard (accelerator keys), and some people might prefer this over the menu based interface.

I left debug messages enabled just in case we run into anything else. If it works you don't have to go through the trouble of posting the debug output again, I mostly added that for if it was crashing during the screenshot process, but we already figured out that's not the case.



Thank you! If you mean a global hotkey to trigger the screenshot functionality, that would be rather difficult to do in eVB unfortunately, as there's no way to listen for global key press events without using an external component. The other way is polling for it which is very inefficient and not really an option on H/PCs as this will impact general performance of the device.

I tried making it so that you could press the Enter key at the CaptVB window to take a screenshot, but the CommandBar control does not forward keypress events to the form, even with KeyPreview set to True. The alternative interface I made to troubleshoot with @torch should let you do this though.

Edited by WinCEDev 2023-09-13 11:28 PM




Attachments
----------------
CaptVB.vb (59KB - 4 downloads)

Okay, fyi, I left default settings alone (Always On Top Unchecked/Ask for Destination Checked/No Delay)

Here's the VB messages when I click Take ScreenShot
Starting
AskBeforeSaving is enabled
Starting
AskBeforeSaving is Enabled

Application Error
Application pvbload.exe encountered a serious error and must shut down

@C:Amie - we may be hitting a roadblock with the runtimes for x86. Any thoughts or ideas?

Presumably it doesn't do it in the x86 emulator, so it is likely a CE6 issue rather than an x86 one?

We need to get a stack trace really. Can you put the entire app in an on error block and write the err object out to disk after every major relevant event fires? Or do some lazy msgbox debugging to find the last line to execute before the crash?

Don't you mean, the BEST kind of debugging?

What about a mode where it automatically takes a screenshot X seconds after starting and then exits when done? Then I could set up a shortcut to simply start the app...

Oh that’s a cool idea! Because we don’t yet have a screenshot program like that !

You're so right, I do

Hi all! Apologies for not replying earlier, work has been very busy lately and I didn't have a chance to write a proper reply until now.



Thanks again for testing, at this point I'm pretty sure that something inside the eVB runtime may be going wrong, because the order of those message boxes don't make sense (it should only show each of them once).



The versions I attached for troubleshooting show message boxes at each significant step in the process.
If it crashes after the AskBeforeSaving message box, it should be in this part of the code:

But it appears to be rather random, @torch tried to run a previous version with AskBeforeSaving disabled, and it still didn't work.
When "Ask Before Saving" is disabled it does not generate the temporary file name, and that code is not called at all.



That's a good idea, I'll look into implementing that.
I was thinking of making this a separate application that you can install alongside the 'regular' version of CaptVB. It would then use the settings you choose in the GUI app so it is still as configurable.

(Now you may be wondering why I cannot just combine that functionality into the main application, sadly eVB apps cannot properly start up hidden when they have forms. There are rather hacky ways to get it to start up hidden anyway but I have tried them and none of them are very good.)



Absolutely!
It is actually my only way to troubleshoot on-device, because I do not have a sync cable.
I have a wireless network card in my Jornada and transfer the files over FTP.

Edited by WinCEDev 2023-10-05 9:59 PM

Awesome! Can't wait to try it out.

The obvious answer would be command line arguments, which are a bit of a pain to implement on CE.

A poor man alternative could be to trap a key press during startup - say it was launched while ctrl + shift were depressed or the notification button, it would run a timer, snap, bell and exit.