CLI screen capture tools

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webfork
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CLI screen capture tools

#1 Post by webfork »

I went digging here and came up with a few things that might be useful for software testing, extremely low overhead screenshot tools, or activity tracking.
  • Microsoft's DXCap - Not quite what I was looking for. Because it's CLI, it wants a pre-determined timeframe to record screen captures. I couldn't figure out how to get it to take screenshots at a given rate e.g. 1 / second, 10 seconds, 1 min, etc. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/visual ... ew=vs-2019
  • Minicap - Mouser of course has something here with an amazing amount of features but no auto-capture: https://www.donationcoder.com/software/ ... ps/minicap ... with all that functionality, you'd almost just want to try and figure out another program to run this one on a cycle in the background.
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Related: It's not specifically a video screen recording tool so I almost overlooked it, but I saw that Captura has CLI options: https://github.com/MathewSachin/Captura/issues/562 and was blown away to see a step recording (screenshot every action) option: captura-cli start --encoder steps:images ... wasn't sure I'd ever see a CLI step recorder.

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vevy
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Re: CLI screen capture tools

#2 Post by vevy »

Add to that ffmpeg (screenshots, screencasting, audio capture (system sound, mic), device input, capture cursor/not, capture part of screen, etc). https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Desktop

This tool is bottomless.

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Re: CLI screen capture tools

#3 Post by webfork »

vevy wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2020 7:21 pm This tool is bottomless.
Wow, yeah well said.

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Re: CLI screen capture tools

#4 Post by vevy »

Believe me, I am acutely aware!

And thanks for the suggested tools by the way!

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Re: CLI screen capture tools

#5 Post by webfork »

vevy wrote: Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:06 pm And thanks for the suggested tools by the way!
Sure thing -- a few simple applications have not only saved me a lot of time up at work, they are also a lot more fun. Building even the most basic intelligence / into your workflow is much more interesting than just trudging through the daily cycle.

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Re: CLI screen capture tools

#6 Post by vevy »

Yeah. I'd rather spend 4 hours building a system for a task than 2 hours doing it in a monotonous, repetitive way. If anything, it is an avenue for learning and an exercise for my creative/design muscles! ;)

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Re: CLI screen capture tools

#7 Post by webfork »

vevy wrote: Mon Jun 29, 2020 11:47 am it is an avenue for learning and an exercise for my creative/design muscles!
Agreed. I have caught myself daydreaming about different processes I can do for document management using a combo of batch files, command-line tools, and macros.

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