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1994-12-14
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CAPTURE IT! - Screen capture utility Version 2.2 26/Nov/94
SCREEN LOADER - Slideshow utility
Copyright(c) 1991,1992,1993,1994 by Henrique Avila Vianna. All rights reserved
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D O C U M E N T A T I O N F I L E
│ New features and changes in this revision are indicated by a vertical
│ bar at the left margin.
Introduction
------------
Can't you get that great picture of your favorite game? If your screen
grabber is not as powerful as you need, don't worry... Capture It! has arrived
to save you!
The ordinary screen capture utilities use the keyboard interrupt to copy
the screen when you press a hotkey. The problem is that the latest games
intercept INT 09 (the keyboard interrupt), what prevents the grabber from
receiving keyboard commands.
Capture It! has an exclusive timer system that captures the video memory
contents automatically every "n" seconds! You are still able to get the screen
manually, using the hotkey CTRL+ALT+C.
The program currently captures graphic screens of the following modes:
Hercules 720x348 monochrome
CGA 320x200 4 colors
CGA 640x200 2 colors
EGA/VGA 320x200 16 colors
EGA/VGA 640x350 16 colors
VGA 640x480 16 colors
VGA/MCGA 320x200 256 colors
How does it work?
-----------------
Capture It! is a TSR (Terminate-and-Stay-Resident) program. Once installed
it runs in background waiting for a request to get the screen (when you press
the hotkey or the specified time interval has been reached).
While resident, Capture It! uses about 10K bytes of memory and it CAN be
loaded high, if you have an expanded memory manager and you need as much base
memory as possible.
The syntax is:
CAPTURE <path> [<time> <number_of_screens>]
<path> - The path where the captured screens are to be saved.
This item is required.
<time> - Time in seconds between each screen captured.
This item is optional. If not specified, the program will
capture the screen only when you press CTRL+ALT+C.
<number_of_screens> - Maximum number of screens that should be captured
by the program. Useful to avoid filling up your disk with
dozens of screens! If you use the <time> parameter, you must
specify the <number_of_screens>.
│ The maximum <number_of_screens> is 9999.
Examples:
capture E:
captures the screen when the hotkey is pressed and save
the files in the current directory of drive E:
capture D:\GRAPHICS\PICTURES\ 10 20
captures the video contents every 10 seconds, or when the
hotkey is pressed. A maximum of 20 screens will be captured,
and the files will be saved in d:\graphics\pictures\
(DON'T FORGET THE LAST BACKSLASH!)
│ capture /R
│ removes a previous installed copy of the program from the
│ memory.
capture OR capture /?
will show you a brief help text.
The program will only capture the screen if the video mode at the moment
of the capture request is one of the valid modes (listed above). Otherwise, the
request will be noted down and, as soon as the video mode is set properly, it
will be attended. When the screen is captured and saved successfully, the PC
speaker beeps twice.
│ The captured screens are saved in files named PICTnnnn.CAP (where nnnn is
│ a number from 0001 to 9999).
│
│ After capturing all the screens you want, press CTRL+ALT+R at the DOS
│ prompt to uninstall Capture It! from memory. You may also run capture /r to
│ remove it.
│
│ If you want to change the time between captured screens or the maximum
│ number of screens, simply run the program again using the same syntax showed
│ above and the parameters will be updated without installing a new copy of
│ the program in the memory. If you run the program again without the <time>
│ and <number_of_screens> parameters, the timer option will be disabled. Note
│ that if you have already captured, say, 5 screens and you want to get 3 more
│ screens you should specify a new <number_of_screens> of 8, not 3.
│
│ The directory where the screens are saved can't be changed while the
│ program is resident. You must remove it and install a new copy with the new
│ desired path.
│
│ ATTENTION! When you install a new copy of Capture It!, it starts saving
│ the screens as PICT0001.CAP. So, you must rename previous captured files to
│ prevent the program from rewriting them.
Now what?
---------
The Capture It! files are saved in an uncompressed form, to speed up the
capturing process, but these .CAP files are not a standard format. Well, at
least the CGA captured screens can be BLOADed via BASIC. :) :)
But..... thanks to Oliver Fromme you can now convert these .CAP files to
the great (and well-known) GIF format.
There are two ways to do it:
- using directly the command-line driven CAP2GIF program (please
refer to the CAP2GIF.DOC file for instructions);
- or using SCReen LoaDer that lets you view and choose the pictures
you want to convert to GIF (if you are capturing by time you'll propably get
some undesired screens, so SCRLD lets you also delete files).
The SCRLD syntax is:
SCRLD [<path>] [/T<time>] [/F] [/L]
<path> - Path where to search for the .CAP files.
If not specified assumes the current path.
<time> - Time in seconds between each picture shown.
If not specified waits for a keypress to change picture.
The maximum <time> value is 65.
/F - If specified, uses fade effects between screens (VGA only).
/L - If specified, stays on loop.
While viewing a picture, the following command keys are available:
[G] - Calls the CAP2GIF program to save the picture as a .GIF file.
[D] - Deletes the file.
[ESC] - Quits to DOS.
Using the /T<time> option disables the [G] and [D] keyboard commands.
PLEASE NOTE THAT CAP2GIF AND SCRLD PROGRAMS *MUST* BE IN THE SAME DIRECTORY
Examples:
scrld
displays all .CAP files in the current drive and directory
scrld F:\
displays all .CAP files in the root of drive F:
scrld D:\GRAPHICS\TEMP\ /T5 /F /L
displays all .CAP files in d:\graphics\temp\ with an interval
of 5 seconds between each one. Uses fade in and fade out effects,
and stays in loop until the ESC key is pressed.
scrld /?
shows a brief help text.
SCRLD can also read standard BASIC BSAVED screens (CGA only).
Known problems
--------------
As you know, MS-DOS isn't a multi-task environment. TSR applications run
in background, using hardware interrupts to have the processor's attention.
These applications are somewhat "intruders" in the system, and may not run
properly all the time.
After capturing a screen, Capture It! may cause the system to hang up, or
may confuse the screen display. In both cases, the first screen captured must
be ok, so you may need to quit the game and run it again to get more screens.
(Using a RAM drive to store the captured screens may be not a good idea if you
have to reset the system! :-) ).
If you are capturing manually, try not to use the hotkey during long disk
transfers, specially if you are running from floppies.
Remove unnecessary TSR programs while using Capture It!. Two or more TSR
applications may be incompatible with each other.
Some programs may access the video board in a non-standard way in some
video modes. Newer games access the VGA 256-color mode differently from the
MCGA, what causes most of screen capture utilities to read the video information
incorrectly. Version 2.1 of Capture It! corrects this problem. Anyway, if you
get a distorted image of the captured screen, try using another video
configuration in your program.
A friend reported me problems using the Write Cache of SMARTDRV (the
screens didn't get saved). I personally use only the Read Cache and it
works fine.
Attention EGA card owners:
Screens captured on EGA cards won't be correctly displayed by SCRLD on a
VGA card. Convert them to GIF to assure compatibility.
Screens captured on EGA cards with Capture It! versions earlier than 2.1a
won't be properly converted to GIF by CAP2GIF.
Disclaimer
----------
*******************************************************************************
** All warranties are disclaimed, including damage to hardware and/or **
** software from use of this product. The author will not be liable to you **
** for any incidental or consequential damages arising out of your use or **
** inability to use the program, or any other claim by any other party. **
*******************************************************************************
Distribution Policy
-------------------
Capture It! and SCReen LoaDer are been distributed as FREEWARE programs.
That means they can be freely copied, since the files CAPTURE.EXE,
SCRLD.EXE, CAPTURE.DOC, CAP2GIF.EXE and CAP2GIF.DOC are distributed together,
unmodified, in the uncompressed form or compressed together by any popular
file compressor (such as PKZIP, ARJ, etc.) in a file named CAPTUR22.???.
Capture It! and SCReen LoaDer history
-------------------------------------
Version 1.0 - 06/Mar/91
Only CGA modes supported. Uses the [Gray *] key to capture
screens from programs that intercept the PrtScr interrupt.
Version 2.0 - 02/Jan/92
Timer system introduced.
Correct CGA palette saved.
New Hercules, EGA and VGA/MCGA 320x200 modes supported.
Version 2.1 - 17/Jul/93
Fixed bug in VGA (non-MCGA) 256 colors screens.
New hi-res EGA and VGA modes supported.
Fade effects extended to all VGA modes (SCReen LoaDer).
First version distributed on Internet.
Version 2.1a- 20/Aug/93
CAP2GIF program by Oliver Fromme included in the package.
Minor bugs fixed.
SCReen LoaDer now calls CAP2GIF and deletes files.
Version number excluded from the executable files names.
│ Version 2.2 - 26/Nov/94
│ Command line option added to remove resident program.
│ Now updates resident parameters (no need to uninstall).
│ Maximum number of screens raised to 9999 (useful to anybody?)
│ Fade effect improved on SCReen LoaDer.
│ Minor optimizations and bug-fixes made.
Contacting the author
---------------------
I WANNA HEAR FROM YOU!
If you find Capture It! of use, if you like it or dislike it, please let
me know! Your comments, bug reports, suggestions, GOOD GIF PICTURES or any kind
of contribution are welcome.
Send them to:
HENRIQUE AVILA VIANNA │ E-Mail addresses:
RUA ARMANDO SICA 55 │
96020-140 PELOTAS, RS │ InterNet: HVIANNA@VORTEX.UFRGS.BR
BRASIL │ BITNet : HVIANNA@BRUFPEL.BITNET
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