пятница, 11 июня 2010 г.

Screenshoting. Weapons of choice

Most testers on everyday basis create defect reports, or bug reports or just submit bugs – you can name it as you wish. I’ve already shared my opinion regarding the importance of writing a good bug report. There I mentioned attachments as one of the three most important parts of a report. So, this is the part where screen content capture tools come to the stage. Let’s talk about them.

The niche of screen content capture tools is really large nowadays (you can check for yourself e.g. here or here or anywhere on the Internet) – well, it’s not only testers who use this software.
I’ve tried some tools and made my decision. So here they are – my “weapons of choice”: 1. SnagIt and 2. Win7 Snipping Tool

1. SnagIt

SnagIt – is a rather powerful tool that allows not only to make a screenshot fast and easy but to also add tons of different stuff to it, like borders, text with shadows and other effects, arrows, stamps and such. This makes it really convenient to emphasize the target screenshot spots and create kind of explanation schemas. SnagIt has lots of preferences and settings, e.g. 10+ profiles for capturing different content types (region, full screen, scrolloing window, menu with time delay, video…) thus it is a great aid when you need to make a very precise and detailed screenshot. As I’ve already mentioned there is a possibility to record video, which “weights” almost nothing after you archive it, which is really nice.
Besides all that great stuff that I’ve named, SnagIt has pretty good exporting capabilities – e.g. exporting to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, IM and sending via email or FTP

To cut a long story short, I can say that it’s an ideal tool for creating precise and beautiful screenshots for your needs.

2. Snipping Tool

Snipping tool – is a built-in screen capture tool in Windows 7. It is a good example of minimal art in designing software to solve a particular task (in our case - screenshoting). Within Snipping Tool you will not find dozens of settings and tweaks, but you’ll see a set of options capable to create a good screenshot fast. There are 4 basic capturing profiles (free-form, rectangle, window and screen) which actually covers most of cases. Here we have only two tools – pen and highlighter and this is not enough in half of cases. There is no export, but you can still send the created file using email.
To sum it up, Snipping Tool – is a pretty nice tool for simple screenshoting.

To put it in a nutshell: for creation of “heavy” and complex screenshots – use SnagIt, and when you need to attach just a simple screenshot - Snipping Tool will do.

Also available in russian.

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