Command to Take a Screenshot

I’m on Ubuntu so I can take a screenshot, of the active window, after 2 seconds, with a command like this:

/usr/bin/gnome-screenshot -w -d 2

I wanted to quickly run this from my streamdeck so I could take screenshots while I work (I write quite a lot of technical blog posts, this comes up pretty often). It works a treat!

Pro-tip: Use a script to resize the window you are taking screenshots of (see also: earlier post about resizing windows), this way they will all be the same size, a useful aspect ratio and if you need to replace one, it will match too.

Add the Command to a Streamdeck Button

Here’s a simple example script that puts a button labelled “Pic” in the first slot on the streamdeck and sends my screenshot command when it is pressed.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"io/ioutil"
	"os/exec"
	"sync"

	"github.com/magicmonkey/go-streamdeck"
	"github.com/magicmonkey/go-streamdeck/actionhandlers"
	"github.com/magicmonkey/go-streamdeck/buttons"
	_ "github.com/magicmonkey/go-streamdeck/devices"
)

func main() {

	fmt.Println("Hello")

	sd, err := streamdeck.New()
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	myButton := buttons.NewTextButton("Pic")
	shotaction := &actionhandlers.CustomAction{}
	shotaction.SetHandler(func(btn streamdeck.Button) {
		go takeScreenshot()
	})
	myButton.SetActionHandler(shotaction)
	sd.AddButton(0, myButton)

	var wg sync.WaitGroup
	wg.Add(1)
	wg.Wait()
}

func takeScreenshot() {
	fmt.Println("Taking screenshot with delay...")
	cmd := exec.Command("/usr/bin/gnome-screenshot", "-w", "-d", "2")
	stderr, _ := cmd.StderrPipe()
	stdout, _ := cmd.StdoutPipe()
	if err := cmd.Run(); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	slurp, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(stderr)
	fmt.Printf("%s\n", slurp)
	slurp2, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(stdout)
	fmt.Printf("%s\n", slurp2)

	fmt.Println("Taken screenshot")
}

Using the go routine means that if I have other functionality in this application then I don’t need to wait for the command to complete before I can press another button – especially important because this command has a delay in it.

I know I’ll be referring back to this post when I want to add commands to buttons in my streamdeck project, so if it’s helpful for you as well, then that is even better :) If you want to see my project (under active development just now) then it’s on GitHub. Let me know if you use it!