13730 QuickSnap is a screenshot utility for Mac OS X that enables users to quickly take screenshots of their screen, windows, menus, icons or a selection. Of course, Apple's own Grab utility which comes bundled with OS X, or even the unembellished OS X Finder can take screenshots using the Cmd+Shift+3 or 4 skeyboard shortcuts, and if you're a command line jock, there’s also the "screencapture" Terminal command, but QuickSnap's raison d'être is to make the task of taking screenshots faster and easier for novice users. QuickSnap users can choose from a variety of options to change how their screenshots are taken, what they are named, where they are saved and so forth, and the program's built-in options for filenames, formats, turning sounds on and off, and more are easily accessible.

QuickSnap's main features include:

• Screenshot modes
You can take screenshots of anything; windows, icons, menus, the entire screen or a user-defined selection. QuickSnap makes it easy to choose a capture mode with its user-friendly and intuitive unique interface.

• Increased user control
With QuickSnap, the user is given the choice of the name of screenshots, the format they are saved in, where they are saved, and so on.

• Customizing captures.
Capture sounds can be turned on and off, as can timed screenshots. The user can also make QuickSnap speak after a screenshot is taken, or beep.

• Hot keys
QuickSnap's Hot keys allow you to easily access the program from any application at any time. The user can set a combination of keys to take a screenshot, such as ?+?+A for example. These hot keys are entirely customizable, and make QuickSnap that much more useful.

• Status menu
This feature lets users access QuickSnap's features from their menu bar with a click

• DVD Player
QuickSnap lets you take screenshots of your favorite movies in the same way as taking a screenshot of a window, screen or selection.

• Interface
QuickSnap's claim is that it's easier to use than Apple's Grab and Ambrosia's Snapz Pro, with a simple and easy-to-use user interface. QuickSnap's three-button selector for screenshot modes in the main window makes taking screenshots quick and simple. Grab, for example, lacks a front-end user interface for the ease of use one expects from the Macintosh. QuickSnap also has several more features than Grab, such as automatic file naming and hot keys. Using the hot keys, QuickSnap can replace Apple's standard way of taking screenshots using Cmd+Shift+3

The Preferences window is where the bulk of QuickSnap's functionality is. There you can define how QuickSnap takes screenshots, where they are saved, in what format, what they are named, and so on.
Using the Preferences window
There are several sections in the Preferences window:
• General, for options relating to QuickSnap itself and screenshot files.
• Capture, for options relating to the way screenshots are taken.
• Hot Keys, for turning Hot Keys on and off.
• Software Update, for checking for new updates.
• Register, to enter your license information after purchasing QuickSnap.

To take a screenshot with QuickSnap, first choose the screenshot mode: Screen, Selection or Window by single-clicking on one of the mode buttons. Then click on the 'Capture' button, and the screenshot will be taken.

Capture shortcuts:
?+?+Z for Screen, ?+?+A for Selection, ?+?+A for Window.

You can change several options in the General and Capture sections of the Preferences window ( or select Preferences from the Apple menu).

Unfortunately, I ran into a couple of issues that I was unable to find solutions or workarounds for either in the Help documents or by experimentation. First, while there is a pull-down menu in the General preferences panel to select one of six image file formats for your screenshots to be saved in - JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, BMP and PSD, the saved files do not show file type suffixes, which can be confusing. It's not a big problem for me, because I generally save screenshots to the Clipboard, open them in ToyViewer, and save them from there after any editing or resizing is done.

Secondly, I found that shots saved by the program as JPEGs couldn't be opened by any graphics program I have, including Apple's Preview. Other formats seemed to work fine. Again, that wasn't a problem for me, but it could be very tedious for some users. Happily, there is a Preferences selection in the Capture panel to copy captures to the Clipboard.

Another annoyance is that there is no way I've discovered to hide the QuickSnap control palette other than with the Transparency slider in the General Preferences panel, which is a particular pain considering that the program can be controlled from the Menu Bar. At least the window's transparency is infinitely adjustable. Closing the QuickSnap window quits the program., which means that in order to have it conveniently available (i.e.: "quick") you have to keep the always-on-top QuickSnap window on your screen..

Captures also seemed sluggish compared with keyboard shortcut captures in the Finder, at least on my 1.33 GHz G4 Mac, and the online Help documentation could be considerably more comprehensive and clear.

Aside from those points, QuickSnap works as advertised. You'll have to decide whether it offers $15.00 worth of value compared with using Grab and Finder captures for free, and a free demo is available for downloading to facilitate your making an informed decision.

System requirements
Requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later
A Macintosh computer with a PowerPC G3, G4 or G5 processor or an Intel-based processor.

QuickSnap sells for $14.95 and can be downloaded as a free demo.

For more information, visit:
http://www.fastforwardsw.com/products/quicksnap/

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Charles W. Moore

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