1

I have upgraded to Ubuntu 20 from 16 and the screenshot action has changed. In Ubuntu 16 (and previous versions) when Print Screen was pressed a small display with a highlighted default name showing date, time etc appeared and it was easy to enter a name for the screenshot and press enter to save to a specified directory. Is there any way to change Ubuntu 20 to show this behaviour as it was?

user1246411
  • 11
  • Ubuntu 16? Ubuntu 20? So this is a snap only system like Ubuntu Core 16 upgraded to Ubuntu Core 20?. All desktop, server and deb based systems use the yy.mm format for releases, there is no Ubuntu 16, but your format implies one of the specialist snap only based releases like Ubuntu Core - is that correct? You then upgraded to Ubuntu Core 20?? Ubuntu Core or snap 16/18/20 releases were not designed for desktop use but whilst they can run GNOME packaged as a snap, those releases are not intended for desktop use but for headless use primarily.. – guiverc May 11 '21 at 22:42
  • Sorry, you have lost me this is above my knowledge level – user1246411 May 12 '21 at 09:36

1 Answers1

1

Sadly there's no way to simulate the old behavior of GNOME screenshot, since that dialog you are mentioning is now displayed only when you invoke GNOME screenshot in interactive mode (using an icon from the Accessories menu or by typing gnome-screenshot -i). Then you have first to select what do you want to make screenshot of (whole screen, window, selected area), and then after you click "Take screenshot" the dialog appears asking what to do with the screenshot.

In all other modes (ie, directly taking the screenshot of whole screen as invoked by PrtSc - gnome-screenshot command without parameters, or a window as invoked by Alt-PrtSc - gnome-screenshot -w) the screenshot is immediately saved to ~/Pictures folder, skipping that dialog. You can add a -c parameter to the command, causing the screenshot to be copied to clipboard instead of saved (the same can be achieved with pressing additionally Ctrl with PrtSc or Alt+PrtSc), or a -f parameter causing it to be saved to explicitly named file, but there is no parameter to invoke that dialog after taking the screenshot. I don't know why they did this...

Someone suggested installing MATE screenshot tool and modifying the keyboard shortcuts to invoke it with appropriate parameters when pressing PrtSc or Alt+PrtSc. MATE screenshot behaves like the old GNOME screenshot, ie. displays the dialog you want. But I haven't tested this, and I don't know how much of MATE desktop will the tool pull in as dependencies when you try to install it.

raj
  • 10,353
  • Thanks for your reply, I have tried Mate screenshot which does display the dialog as you suggested but brings up another dialog which when you press enter (or click on Take Screenshot) saves the screenshot and then brings up the old format dialog box, so partly solves it. I have been trying to disable the first dialog that appears so far whitout success. Or maybe I will try installing Mate or even revert to Ubuntu 16. As you say, why have they changed what was a perfectly good tool? Anyway, thanks for your help – user1246411 May 12 '21 at 09:35
  • @user1246411 Try mate-screenshot command without parameters (should take screenshot of the whole screen) or mate-screenshot -w (should take screenshot of the active window). If it works as you expect (should skip the first dialog, but display the second), then you should disable the default PrtSc shortcuts in system settings and bind these commands to PrtSc and Alt+PrtSc instead. – raj May 12 '21 at 10:12
  • Thanks, I will try this and let you know oucome – user1246411 May 12 '21 at 12:37
  • Well, I ahve done the easy thing and installed Mint which seems to do what I want! Thanks for your help, I would never have got there otherwise – user1246411 May 14 '21 at 17:22