Pocket Screensnap 5.0 Review

[Jordan Rosenwald]

Reviewing software? Demoing products? Showing off your Pocket PC? If you don’t have pictures, you got nothing. Pocket Screensnap, from DeveloperOne, can turn your “nothing” into “something.” Read on to find out what I thought about this product!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/reviewimages/jordan-dec02-pscreensnap-1.gif" /><br /><!><br /><i>Whether showing off your PDA or getting posting your latest software creation, screen shots are key.</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/reviewimages/jordan-dec02-pscreensnap-1.gif" /><br /><br /><i>Figure 1: The main screen is simple but effective.</i><br /><br /><span><b>Where To Buy</b></span><br />The software can be <a href="http://www.handango.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?siteId=311&platformId=2&productType=2&catalog=0§ionId=0&productId=9438">purchased from Handango</a> (affiliate link) for $9.95. There's also a free trial available for download at the same URL.<br /><br /><span><b>Snappy Screen Snaps!</b></span><br />Screen shots are important! Well, maybe not to everyone, but if you’re a software developer, they're your bread and butter for marketing your product. DeveloperOne, the fine makers of other Pocket PC programs like Agenda Fusion, Code Wallet Pro and several others, have put their coding talent together to produce version 5.0 of Pocket Screensnap, a quick, easy and relatively intuitive screen capture utility.<br /><br />The installation is what you’d expect from a company that's as experienced as DeveloperOne. Launching and using the software is just about as smooth. The main screen gives pretty straight forward instructions on how the screen captures are done. The basic gist is that as long as the program is running your second application button will not launch any program. Instead it will take a picture of your screen and save it to a directory that you can specify. To get back the functionality of that button, you will need to close the task on Pocket Screensnap, as there is no exit from the application. <br /><br /><span><b>Save and View</b></span><br />A nice feature is the ability to change the name of the screen shot at the time it is taken. Otherwise it will simply be named whatever pattern you previously defined (or left the default) incremented by a factor of one.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/reviewimages/jordan-dec02-pscreensnap-2.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 2: Rename your screen captures on the fly.</i><br /><br />Once the pictures are taken, they are displayed in the application in thumbnails, which can be customized to different row/column choices. Oddly, the screen shots can only be deleted by selecting Options > Delete Images > Select Images to Delete. Then select the thumbnails you want to delete, which marks them with a big red “x.” Then selecting Options > Delete Images > Delete Selected Images. A shortcut menu approach (or tap and hold), like so many image viewer programs, might have been a better idea here.<br /><br />Another shortcoming is the fact that the pictures are saved as bitmaps (BMP). Sure, you’re not likely to need more then a half dozen to a dozen pictures, but at 200k+ per picture that can eat up a bit of space. Having an option to save as GIF or JPEG would be useful.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/reviewimages/jordan-dec02-pscreensnap-3.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 3: See all your screen captures as thumbnails</i><br /><br /><span><b>Gotchas</b></span><br />• Only saves files as bitmaps (BMP).<br />• Deleting screen captures is a bit cumbersome.<br />• Have to “Stop Task” to exit program.<br /><br /><span><b>Conclusions</b></span><br />Pocket Screensnap is a great program for those that need to take screen shots often. There are a few details that DeveloperOne need to iron out (I found deleting files to be far too annoying). But for those that want the quality image that a bitmap can deliver and don’t mind converting on your desktop, this program is great. It has a very small footprint and all the major features you’d expect.

[Jason Dunn]

This is what I use for all my screen shots, mostly because I haven't gone out to find anything else. The app really needs two things IMO:

1) Tap and hold delete menu
2) Save as GIF and JPEG

That's all, and then it would be almost perfect. :D

[Perry Reed]

I use Pocket Controller to do my screenshots. That way they're already on my PC where I generally work with them. Of course, I suppose that defeats the idea of using my PPC for everything! :)

[Ed Hansberry]

The iPAQs with iTask have a built in screen capture, but I still prefer this app, though somehow I have ScreenSnap 5.2... hmmm....

[Dave Beauvais]

... Have to “Stop Task” to exit program.
I contacted Developer One after I purchased ScreenSnap many months ago to complain about that. Later that day, they e-mailed me a copy of v5.2 which has a "Close" option on the file menu. Excellent service! I'm not certain if this is the version you'd get if you bought it today, since their site still shows it as "5.0"; if not, just e-mail them and they'll hook you up with the good stuff! ;)

--Dave

[Pony99CA]

One Gotcha that was missed was the inability to configure which button took the snapshot. I should be able to choose which button I use least for the task, not have their choice forced on me. :?

Steve

P.S. For a free screen capture program, but without the nice UI of Pocket Screensnap, try Magic SS (http://www.louterrailloune.com/magicss.html).

[palmsolo]

I used ScreenSnap for a couple years for all my reviews and always went through converting the bmp to gif on my desktop. I then discovered IA ScreenShot which allows me to choose from gif, jpg, and bmp. I find this program to be much more useful and functional for me. Just saving me the 15-20 minutes in conversion is worth the small cost.

[Dave Beauvais]

One Gotcha that was missed was the inability to configure which button took the snapshot. I should be able to choose which button I use least for the task, not have their choice forced on me. :?
Maybe you used an older version, but v5.0/v5.2 allow you to set the button you wish to use. From the Options menu, select "Set snapshot button" and then choose the button you want from the drop-down list in the resulting dialog.

... Just saving me the 15-20 minutes in conversion is worth the small cost.
I created an action (macro) in Photoshop that reduces the color depth from RGB to 32 indexed colors and resaves them as GIFs. (32 colors is almost always sufficient for a screenshot for online use, and dramatically reduces the file size.) Unless I want to add any markup to the images such as arrows, total time to convert an entire folder full of screenshots is about forty-five seconds, including the time to start Photoshop.

--Dave

[Pony99CA]

One Gotcha that was missed was the inability to configure which button took the snapshot. I should be able to choose which button I use least for the task, not have their choice forced on me. :?
Maybe you used an older version, but v5.0/v5.2 allow you to set the button you wish to use. From the Options menu, select "Set snapshot button" and then choose the button you want from the drop-down list in the resulting dialog.

Actually, I've never used Pocket ScreenSnap. I based my comment on your review where you said:


The basic gist is that as long as the program is running your second application button will not launch any program.

There was no mention that the button could be customized, so I assumed that it couldn't be. Even the Pocket ScreenSnap Web page (http://www.developerone.com/pocketpc/screensnap/) doesn't mention customization. I'm glad to see that it can be, though.

Steve

[Gerard]

Your review covers this app well, but I'm afraid your sample screenshots have little to do with the actual appearance of screenshots in BMP format. JPEG saved versions really mess up resolution, causing very visible pixelation around edges of anything contrasty. It's called 'JPEG lossiness'. This format is really only applicable for grabbing photo-laden screens, graphically intensive stuff where there are more than 256 colours. If you want to show basic screens and dialogues, GIF is the way to go, or if you have the capability, PNG, to avoid the nonsense about GIF patents.
I use PQV for screenshots, though on occasion I use the capture built into GigaBar. There's one there with a 4 second delay.
PQV offers 4 formats: BMP, PCX, JPG, and GIF. GIF direct captures with this program scarcely alter appearance from most originals, and the program allows mapping to any button, along with a presetable delay from 0 to 999 seconds. Average filesize is between 4 and 6KB, with increasing size depending on percentage of the screen that is not white, up to about 28KB max. The newest versions also allow very configurable JPEG quality size for conversion and reduction of BMP captures to smaller files on the PPC as needed, with 5 levels of quality allowed.
I bought ScreenSnap in late August of 2000, and tried a few versions after that. It seems not to have improved or changed much since that time. Still only BMP, and still focused on the graphical representation of existing screenshots... but how many people save any serious quantity of screenshots in any one folder? I take them while testing a software for review, then immediately rename them to use in the composition of the HTML component of the review, and move them to the folder where that review is under construction. ScreenSnap typifies, to my mind, the toy approach to PPC development. The developer seems not to take the device very seriously. Many photo apps seem to share this mentality. I prefer the 'means business' approach of PQV, which is all about getting the job done and very little devoted to appearances and space-wasting googaws.
Just an opinion, but what seems the best software to me is either a tiny EXE which does one thing perfectly (MagicSS is that), or a bulkier app which does dozens or hundreds of things well, like PQV.