Taking a screenshot can be a cumbersome process. You have to hit the "print screen" key, alt-tab to windows, start your paint program, paste, and save. If you don't take care to clear out the clipboard buffer, you may actually crash your game.

But, there is now a better way.

I wrote a utility that I call the ScreenShotAssistant (http://sourceforge.net/projects/screenassist). Now, to take a screenshot, you run this utility before you start Civ, decide on the naming convention and types of files you want to save, minimize and then start Civ. When you want a screenshot, simply hit the "print screen" key and the ScreenShotAssistant does the rest. It also clears the clipboard after saving the image to make sure that Civ doesn't have memory issues.

This is the first release, and I would love feedback. You can post here and on the forums at the project website, http://sourceforge.net/projects/screenassist.

EDIT: SSA 2.21 now available, with added features such as the "Generate Webpage" button, "Copy Filenames" button and the much requested "Civ 3" turn extractor. Go download now!
EDIT: SSA 2.1 now available, with added features such as the pause button and Index padding. Go download now!

I haven't downloaded it yet, but it sounds good :thumbsup:

Edit: My I also get it for free?

Oops, I should have mentioned that it is free. Actually, it is free and the source code is available for download, too.

I've been having trouble accessing the Sourceforge site today, so I am including the Setup.exe file for download here as well.

absolutely wonderful!

thanks for the tool!
i've had a wierd problem with my win2k-server that print-screen didn't copy the screenshot into the clipboard.
with your tool i can finally make screenshots in the action (so maybe even in multiplaying games ;) )

thanks again!


ps, i posted this same message at sourceforge as first entry in your discussion board there ;)

oh, and maybe you should rename the file. setup.exe is used nearly always. why not somthing like ScreenShotAssistSetup.exe? ;)

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. :)

Wow, my first feature request. ;) I'll change the install name for the next release.

well, if you really want some feature requests (the thing above is just the filename), how about having your program having an option to save the files with the year value (eg. 3450 BC, 1320 AC, etc)?

an easy solution would be to check the lastest autosave in the directory (you could find out which game is played by checking the process name: civ3.exe, civ3ptw.exe, civ3conq.exe) and using a directory listener. this method is used by ainwood's diplomacy helper.

the nicer (but much more difficult version) would be to check the memory offsets to get the year (or at least the turn-number, and then extrapolate from there). gramphos, ainwood, spiderzord or CCJ39 could maybe help you with this...

oh... but then it would have to be a seperate version for civ3... other people at sf.net probably will need it for other purposes ;)

I kinda thought about trying to tie it in to the actual year, but was anxious to get a working version out, so I left that for later, hoping no one would notice. :)

I like the idea of checking the memory offsets. Maybe gramphos, ainwood, spiderzord or CCJ39 would provide me with the info I need. I'll send a PM to them.

And, it shouldn't be too complicated to create seperate CIVIII release at SourceForge, so all is good. Conceivably, it could have specifics for multiple different games built in.

I'll use this so here's a :goodjob:

this is GREAT!

it is really a great tool, and it has an huge advantage: it can be used everywhere. i now use this tool to take screeshots in everygame that havent a SS bind and i also use it to take SS of my desktop and programs. thanks man, i never thought that a tool like this could be so useful.

plus i have a sugestion, i think that an opition like: "minimiza and put in tray" would be great, in that way we could just run it on startup and it will appear in tray, this is wonderful to if you wanna take a SS from your desktop, i wont's have a program in you taskbar but in tray.

think abou this, i think taht it's easy to do it and would be very nice!

That's a good idea; I will add tray minimize for the next release.

another nice feature (but i don't know if it's possible):

download to different paths.
eg.
PrntScrn --> directory 1
SHIFT-PrntScrn --> directory 2
CTRL-PrntScrn --> directory 3

i'd use one for the game, one for directly to the desktop and one general purpose one... all with an own counter... it'd be great :)

sabrewolf, do you mean you'd like to be able to have them all available at the same time, or would it be enough to be able to switch the directory and other settings quickly?

Although it may not be obvious, currently, by creating a new setting in SSA, you can specify exactly how you want it to behave. When you install, it comes with just the "default" setting. But, you can click on the "..." button in the setting area to create a new setting. For example, I have a setting called "gotm30" that has a directory, prefix, counter and image settings which differ from my "default" setting.

duh... i am so stupid!!! sorry... didn't even look at that anymore... i've only been trying around with the index and the prefix ;)

Nah, you're not stupid; I need to include more extensive documentation for all the features. I plan on updating the help section for the next release.

ok, i just posted a bug report (well, kind of) and another feature request at sourceforge ;)

I really like you prog. :goodjob:

But from time to time I get this Run-time error warning:
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads7/runtime.jpg

Any ideas how to stop it?

set output to png... it's anyway the superior graphics format ;)

hmm im use him :) :) :)

Good job man, it looks like a great program

It's fast to download, easy to use, and the pictures are accurate. Really good job! Thanksalot!
:goodjob: :) :D ;)

as arphahat hasn't answered to either posts or PMs here, bugreports/feature requests at sf.net or emails, i've taken a look at the code to check if i can optimize or change this or that. but VB isn't my favorite language and as i have VS.NET, i had to convert his version into VB.NET, which means lots of upgrade issues :(

Hi Arphahat!

Your Screenshot tool is great. Press just one button and there is the screenshot.

Very nice tool!
:goodjob:

SSA 2.0 now available, with added features such as the pause button and Index padding. Go download (http://sourceforge.net/projects/screenassist/) now!

Oh, and thanks for the compliments and sorry I was away for so long.

Haven't checked your latest version yet, but is that "pause button" possibly disabling the shoot&save function of PrintScreen while running screenshot assistant?
That would be great, because running the assistant and (for the purpose of cropping) paint or similar application at the same time is a bit unhandy, regarding the file names of your cropping work...;)
(if you cut out an area of the whole screen shot, it gets automatically saved to /path/pic_file_name_[running index])

Yup, Grille, it stops monitoring the clipboard while paused, so you can leave SSA open while editing images. :)

I've been busy... 2.1 available. Added resize support, tweaked a couple of oversights, and added a "Copy Filenames" button that will parse the output box for just the filenames to the clipboard for added convenience. :)

If I have 1.0 is there a way to patch it to 2.1 or do I have to download the fulkl version?
Do I have to uninstall 1.0 first?

No patch, since it is re-written from scratch in a different language. It is a pretty small program, though, so the download isn't long. No uninstall needed, they can co-exist on the same computer without a problem. And, the new program is just a zipped file, so the "install" is really just copying the files to their own directory.

I love this program! I can finally make a story with screens!

Thanks, I'm glad you like it. :)

Hey there Arohahat, I'm having problems installing the file it comes up with this messsage:

This will be usefull... Thank you very much!

This looks very useful!
When I hit Print Screen I get this message:

Hmmm... I cannot tell what is going on just from these dialog windows, but I'll take a guess or two...

mickeyj, I am not sure what you did, so please bear with me if you have already done this. ssa2.exe is the actual program, not an installation file, so you just need to copy that file (as well as the manifest file) into the directory where you want to run it from. If you try to run it from the zipped file, it may cause some error. Also, if you cannot run the program at all, it might be possible that you do not have the .Net runtime (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=262D25E3-F589-4842-8157-034D1E7CF3A3&displaylang=en) installed?
C# (which is what ssa2 is written in) is a partially interpreted programming language, so it needs the .Net runtime to run properly.

sausnebb, so you can start the program, but when you hit the print screen is when you get the error? What operating system are you using? Did you change the settings to something non-standard in the "Prefix" or other boxes? What would help is to start SSA, hit the pause button and get a screen shot the old way (ironic, no? :) ) so I can see what is going on.

Is anyone else seeing these, or other, problems? I haven't looked yet, but don't be hesitant to use the bug reporting utility (http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=105312&atid=640862) at the Sourceforge site.

edit: Oh, and one last thing. Make sure you are downloading the 2.0 (or higher) version. Ignore the installer and earlier version, since those are from the old way of doing things, left for legacy purposes.

Sorted!

I installed the .Net runtime and its working fine now.

Thanks - great utility

:)

Glad that resolved it for you, and glad you like it. :)

2.2, which I am planning on releasing sometime next week has some webpage generation features, an auto-resize feature, as well as Civ3 turn extractor code which will make it (potentially) even more useful.

Looking forward to it

thanks

wonderful ive been looking for something like this for along time now, tell me does it work in other games as well?

It should work in any case where you can get an image into the clipboard, so it should work for a variety of games. Although, some don't interact with the "PrtScn" key properly and it might not work in such cases. Feel free to experiment. :)

2.2 is now available! I would appreciate feedback on the "Civ 3" special feature, especially since I only tested on Conquests 2.2.

Version 2.2
Added "What's New" screen.
Added "Special Features" menu item.
Added "Civ 3" options setup dialog.
Added "Generate Website" button.
Added "Size Percentage" scrollbar.

EDIT: Oops... added an error... if you don't have 2.1, download it first, delete the "Settings.xml" file and then start 2.1. Close 2.1 and reinstall 2.2. Or, just wait until this evening when I release 2.21.

OK... Version 2.21 has been released. Only change is that I fixed the crashing issue on intial startup.

Amazing.
This is not only a CIV3 tool, its a everywhere tool. I still haven´t found a game where it doesn´t work.
Send this to microsoft with a note like "See? THIS is user-friendly!"

Neat tool. Thanks.

You might add on the sourceforge page and the readme.txt that the .NET runtime is required. Everything before Win2k/WinME will need it installed explicitly, and to my surprise my WinXPsp2 didn't have it installed so I got the startup failure until I downloaded it from Windows Updates.

By the way, you saved version 2.1 and version 2.21 (the .zip's with the executables) with the same filename, so although sourceforge has 2.1 and 2.21 listed seperately they link to the same file.

Nice one, Arphahat!

Just in case everyone doesn't already know, I'll mention that Windows takes a screenshot of the active window (rather than the whole screen) in response to Alt+PrintScreen.

Finaly! A helpfull bump! :D

Thanks bugrit! (don`t go bumping dead threads without something usefull to say ;))

:bump: :yup: :yup: :yup:

Hey,
Just have to thank bugrit for the bump. I have a dead photoshop. So finding this is a savior. I can use this for screenshots now. Then downloading to Picture it! Then the fun. I'm able to have conquest routes, planned cities, etc.
I've been here for almost 2 years a member for almost 1 and was never able to do this. I've :drool: over some pictures.

Finally I can do what you all have done for years. Screenshots! :yup: :yup: :yup:

A Big Thank you to Arphahat.

A Merry Christmas to all!!! :xbiggrin: :xmascheers:

Blaze Injun

I'm glad that this tool is still useful! Most new games incorporate the screenshot feature right into it, and XFire also has screenshot capability so I thought it was mostly a dead/dying tool. Well, it might be dying, but it won't go without a fight! :)

At any rate, sorry I've been away so long. If there are any problems / feature requests I may have some time to work on them, so let me know.

I went to the site to try to dl this program but it never actually gets there. it just tells me that there are files to read and temptingly looks like this is a download page.

Where do you actually dl this? I love the abilities it promises.

You could also use FSSCREEN... There are multiple screenshot capture programs which work with Civ.

Tell me more... I want the ability to take multiple pics without having to deal with each one as it happens.

EDIT: Nevermind, delete this post, i'm advertising.

Check your PMs.

Will this work in Vista? Has anyone tried?

Will this work in Vista? Has anyone tried?

I have not tried it, but it is written in .Net which comes as a part of Vista, so I would have to bet on it working.

*Year old bump*

This looks awesome! Time to try it out...