Friday, January 17, 2003
Pocket Screensnap 5.0 Review
Posted by Jordan Rosenwald in "SOFTWARE" @ 04:45 PM
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!
Whether showing off your PDA or getting posting your latest software creation, screen shots are key.
Figure 1: The main screen is simple but effective.
Where To Buy
The software can be purchased from Handango (affiliate link) for $9.95. There's also a free trial available for download at the same URL.
Snappy Screen Snaps!
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.
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.
Save and View
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.
Figure 2: Rename your screen captures on the fly.
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.
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.
Figure 3: See all your screen captures as thumbnails
Gotchas
• Only saves files as bitmaps (BMP).
• Deleting screen captures is a bit cumbersome.
• Have to “Stop Task” to exit program.
Conclusions
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.
Whether showing off your PDA or getting posting your latest software creation, screen shots are key.
Figure 1: The main screen is simple but effective.
Where To Buy
The software can be purchased from Handango (affiliate link) for $9.95. There's also a free trial available for download at the same URL.
Snappy Screen Snaps!
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.
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.
Save and View
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.
Figure 2: Rename your screen captures on the fly.
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.
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.
Figure 3: See all your screen captures as thumbnails
Gotchas
• Only saves files as bitmaps (BMP).
• Deleting screen captures is a bit cumbersome.
• Have to “Stop Task” to exit program.
Conclusions
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.
