The UltraGrabber FKEY is a free software utility written by Bryan K. “Beaker” Ressler.
The UltraGrabber FKEY is an FKEY for grabbing a rectangular area of the screen into the Clipboard as a PICT. It can grab an arbitrary area you drag out, or specific sizes that are of use to programmers and others.
The UltraGrabber FKEY was written in frustration one day. I couldn’t quite believe how all the screen grabbing utilities always stopped working every time a new version of System software or a new machine came out. So, thinking to myself “how hard can it be?” I wrote the UltraGrabber FKEY. I have determined empirically that it is indeed pretty easy. The features of the 2K FKEY are detailed below.
••• Requirements
UltraGrabber works on any Macintosh, including Quadras and PowerBooks, with and without color. I expect it to continue working with future Macs, since I was specifically careful to not do anything even slightly skanky.
••• Installation
I'm not going to go into this. Just paste this into your System with ResEdit or hook up UltraGrabber.fkey with Suitcase. The resource ID (0..9 please) determines which Command-Shift-Number it will be associated with. If you don't know what I'm talking about, find one of those Macintosh-basics books and look up "FKEY installation."
••• Operation
The UltraGrabber FKEY defaults to Command-Shift-0. When you type Command-Shift-0, you'll see little a crosshair cursor. Line the crosshairs up with whatever you want to grab (and note that in the Finder and some other apps, you don't have too long before the application capriciously puts up a watch cursor). Now drag to the opposite corner of whatever you want to grab. Now let off the mouse button, and what you dragged out will be in the Clipboard as a PICT.
The UltraGrabber FKEY can also grab specific predetermined size areas of the screen. This can be helpful when creating icons, cursors, etc. To use UltraGrabber in this way, type one of the following keys after the Command-Shift-0.
Key Rectangular size (horizontal x vertical)
--- ---------------------------------------
1 128 x 128
6 64 x 64
c 16 x 16 (cursor size)
d Go back to drag mode (the crosshair)
h 36 x 36 (half inch)
i 32 x 32 (icon size)
n 72 x 72 (inch)
q 160 x 120 (common QuickTime movie size)
After you type the letter, you'll see a gray rectangle of that size instead of the crosshair cursor. When you click the mouse button, the area delineated by the box will be grabbed to the Clipboard as a PICT. You can return to standard "drag mode" (the crosshair cursor) by typing "d".
I hope you like this FKEY. If you find any bugs or want more features, contact me at one of the addresses below.
