I'm trying to find a replacement for ShareX on windows.
I've tried the built in screenshot tool, but that doesn't allow annotations after capture and no sound is recorded on screencasts.
I tried flameshot, but that only works on x11 and I've kinda settled on wayland now.
There was another I tried which didn't work as it was KDE only.
The features I need are:
Take screenshot and be able to annotate it with text, arrows etc
Record a screencast with audio captured from mic.
Ideally I'd like it to upload to google cloud too, create a shortened URL and copy that to the clipboard, as ShareX did, but I don't think that's going to be possible. I think I might be able to write something myself to monitor a folder and perform those steps if I have to.
Flameshot is the only tool that I know of that can make annotations after taking screenshots. It's supposed to have experimental Wayland support but I'm not sure how well it does.
As for screencasting, the built-in tool is known to be broken at this point. It seems to be specific to Zorin OS as it works fine in other distributions using the same version of the desktop environment.
There is Kooha and GPU Screen Recorder, both should be available as Flatpak packages in the software store and compatible with Wayland.
But I don't think neither of these options are integrated with Google Drive; you will have to handle that separately.
OBS might what you want if you want to screencast with mic and you can also have a camera attached. For purely screen recording. GPU Screen Recorder is the best IMO.
Thanks, I've installed ksnip, but I'm not sure it's working quite right.
When I select 'Screenshot Portal' from the tray icon it takes a full window screenshot and I don't get any options for selecting an area of the screen. Then once the screenshot is taken it looks like it's opening another app which asks if I want to open it in the editor:
Yeah, I just need to record the screen. I'm a web developer and use screen recordings to send to clients for training, or showing features. So just 'quick and dirty' screen recordings really.
I tried GPU Screen recording, but it seems that can only do full screen recordings and I need to be able to select an area of the screen to record.
As far as I remember, all the screenshot apps I tested work this way. Could this be a Gnome/Wayland limitation?
Anyway, on this screen click on Options and you can select whether you want to capture, the entire screen, region, etc. Then click Share to capture it.
But I don't use it that way. I capture it with the gnome buit-in app using the Print Screen shortcut. And in Ksnip just press Ctrl + V to paste. I find it much more practical to do it this way.
ImageMagick (preinstalled) can be enough to add simple annotations to pictures. Open a picture with ImageMagick > click it > Image Edit > Annotate… > customize the 4 options before typing otherwise it will use the default ones.
Realised to get what I wanted wasn't going to work with one application so I wrote a little script to monitor a folder, upload to Google Cloud Bucket when a new file is created, shorten the URL and copy to the clipboard.
Now I can use different apps for screenshots, annotated screenshots & screencasts and as long as they write to the same the folder they will all get uploaded to the cloud.
Script needs a re-write for videos, as these are streamed to the folder and get uploaded as soon as the file is created, so you end up with empty videos!
I'll need to work out how/if it can be recognised when a file is being streamed and only trigger once it has finished. Maybe check filesize or last modified time, or python might have a better way to handle this.
hmm thanks for this thread , iv'e now installed ksnip which work great for taking screenshots and editing it before saving
then wanted to try gpu screen recorder but seems only available on flatpak for non-arch systems but i get this
so not sure how to proceed ,is it safe ?
In my opinion, it's quite misleading and exaggerated. For example, it complains about using a legacy windowing system (X11) is unsafe – since it only, or mostly, works with X11. However, the very author of GPU Screen Recorder has written a piece disproving this myth that so commonly gets thrown around.
This warning also says that the software developer is verified, and that's neat, except that anyone can upload packages to the main repository, even when the person doing the uploading is not the same as the developer. This is a much, much bigger risk than using a "legacy" window system.... but they seem to give the thumbs up anyway. Luckily, for this package, the publisher and the author are indeed the same person.
I don't use it for this specific case but out of curiosity I looked to see if there is an option for stream files. Seems that --streaming-upload-cutoff option has this purpose:
--streaming-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix Cutoff for switching to chunked upload if file size is unknown, upload starts after reaching cutoff or when file ends (default 100Ki)
Now that you mention it I'm pretty sure I've used rclone before, I think with google drive for backups.
Hey ho, just re-invented the wheel!
Anyway I've fixed my project so that it works with streamed content now, and also improved the notification that show's the shortened URL so it's now a link, rather than just text.
I'm back on wayland again, will just put up with the annoying permission screen.
Slightly unclear whether this has been fixed in a future gnome release or not.
Anyway, related question is, is there any way of stopping the shutter sound when taking a screenshot? I can't find any settings for modifiying the sounds used by the system.
I'm surprised about this too, and it seems that plenty of people on the internet have asked about this as well. The only solution I could find is basically a hack, although simple enough:
This renames the audio file that gets played when taking a screenshot. I suspect it will be restored after certain updates, however. A setting for this would be a nice addition to GNOME, but maybe Zorin OS could implement it separately as well.
Thanks, I had googled first but didn't turn anything up.
I'd also found the sounds directory, but had no idea which the shutter sound was, although in hindsight I could just have used find but didn't think of that.
I was expecting to find some sort of 'sound theme' config, in a similar way to how the visual ui can be tweaked, surprised not to find anything. Would certainly be handy and is the sort of thing someone moving from windows would expect to be there.
