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I use (and adore) shutter.

However, sometimes I want to take a screenshot of a selection that is state-dependent, and clicking the mouse changes the state.

For example, if I have a drop-down menu, and I then open Shutter (even with a keyboard shortcut), the Selection dialogue opens and causes the drop-down menu to retract (and I thus am unable to take a screenshot of it).

How can I open the screenshot-of-selection dialog while leaving my screen in the exact state that it's in (ie, without registering any mouse clicks).

Justin Myles Holmes
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    Have you tried putting a sleep command in front of the shutter command like sleep 5; shutter -a that will cause the system to sleep for 5 seconds that way you can move your mouse into position, then the -a means to take a snapshot of the active window? – Terrance Apr 24 '17 at 14:57
  • Well, ideally, I want to use Selection, not Active Window. And it's the launch of the selection dialogue itself that causes the "de-click", so that will happen even after a sleep. – Justin Myles Holmes Apr 24 '17 at 15:02
  • what I usually do is I start the screenshot tool in gnome (I don't know if that's shutter), set a timer of 3 secs, get my window in the situation I want, and it clicks screenshot like this for example – Sumeet Deshmukh Apr 24 '17 at 15:06
  • Look at the man page for shutter man shutter. -m causes a 10 second delay while you move your mouse into position so you can get the menu. -t does tooltips with a 10 second delay. – Terrance Apr 24 '17 at 15:19
  • The Shutter GUI has an option to "Select a single menu or cascading menus from any application". Is that what you're looking for? – wjandrea Apr 24 '17 at 16:44
  • Shutter is end of life unless parts are completely re-written. It has been dropped from Debian testing since it is no longer well maintained. It is written in perl and uses libraries that are no longer available. https://bugs.launchpad.net/shutter/+bug/1765726 – mike stewart Aug 17 '18 at 23:54

2 Answers2

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The key is to use a screenshot utility that also allows you to use a variable delay; enough time for you to create the state you'd like to capture.

Shutter allows this kind of timed delay. However, Shutter has reached end of life unless it is ported to gtk3. It has been dropped from Debian testing since it is no longer well maintained. It is written in perl using libraries that are no longer available. As of Aug 2018, there is only one release in the last year; the previous release was 2014.

I suggest finding an alternative screenshot utility. Here is a list of alternative screenshot utilities.

For example, Flameshot is newer, active, smaller, and similar featureset including delayed captures just like Shutter ... and isn't built using old perl libraries. It allows you to select partial or full screenshots, annotate, obscure, and quickly save or post to the cloud (Imgur).

Flameshot Demo

Pang
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mike stewart
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Using delays works, but what also works is using something like byzanz the makes an animated gif video.

RobotHumans
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