# Screen shots (recording)

The easiest (and common) way to make screen shot is to use alt-PrintScreen button (this is supported by the Windows). The problem is that this simply goes into clipboard and then shall be pasted in "Paint" (or some other image handling software) and then save it.

There are cases when one needs to make a screen shots for every move. This is mainly needed for creating animated GIFs. This action is in fact not needed by most of the users and there is special recording mode in which YSokoban will do that. To activate/deactivate recording mode use: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-F3

The rest of this page describes how YSokoban is used in special recording mode. Have in mind that F3 is overloaded with usage because of historical reasons. F3 changes skin only in YSokoban and does recording things in special bmp/png version. Later on normal and special versions was merged into normal YSokoban.

## Screen shot mode

All hot keys that handle screen shots use F3 with some combination of ctrl, shift or alt. There are two screen shot modes:

- level screen shot mode - in this mode a screen shot of a level part is taken, so no title, status bar, border.
- full window screen shot mode - a screen shot for entire YSokoban window is taken, in this mode YSokoban has to be fully visible. If there is some other window over it you will get it on screen shot too.

Switching between two modes (window/level) is done by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F3.

## Visual mark (recording/not recording)

When in recording mode there is a special mark in top right corner of a level which has letter(s) inside a circle.

- 'L' means level screen shot mode which will preserve PNG format
- 'W' means full window screen shot which will preserve PNG format
- 'bl' means level screen shot mode which will preserve BMP format
- 'bw' means full window screen shot which will preserve BMP format

When not recording circle is black. When recording circle is red.

Note: When preserving PNG files it is slower than when preserving BMP, because PNG format uses compression and compressing image before save takes some time (up to few seconds per image, depending of the power of the computer).

## Specify folder where screen shots are saved

Before starting to make screen shots one may want to specify folder where shots should go. Use Alt-F3 to specify where to store screen shots (a dialog will appear to select folder).

## Making screen shots (recording)

To get a single screen shot (of what you currently see on screen) press Shift-X.

To get a screen shot for all levels in a collection (always starting position of levels) use Ctrl-Shift-X.

To record your solution (during play or replay) press Ctrl-F3 to start recording. On every move a new file will be recorded with a name which has a frame number in it. Pressing Ctrl-F3 again will stop recording. To continue recording (with next frame number) press Shift-F3. To start new recording session (with frame number 0 again) press Ctrl-F3. So Ctrl-F3 and Shift-F3 will both stop recording if it is currently in recording and will both start recording if it does not record, the only difference is that Ctrl-F3 will start always with frame 0, while Shift-F3 will continue with next frame number. Clicking on the mark starts/continues recording. Ctrl-click on mark will always start recording and reset frame number to 0. Right-click on the mark will switch recording mode. Ctrl-Shift-right click will change PNG/BMP mode.

## Hot keys to control recording

To activate/deactivate recording mode use: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-F3 Next table describes hot keys.

Hot key | Recording mode | Non recording mode
--- | --- | ---
Ctrl-Alt-Shift-F3 | switch to non recording mode | switch to recording mode
Ctrl-Shift-F3 | switch between BMP/PNG mode | < same (switch bmp/png) but no visual change
Ctrl-Alt-F3 | switch between full screen shot and level screen shot mode | < same (switch W/L mode) but no visual change
Alt-F3 | select folder for writing BMP/PNG files | < same (select folder for writing BMP/PNG files)
Shift-F3 | if recording - stop; if not recording - continue recording (with next frame number) | -
Ctrl-F3 | if recording - stop; if not recording - start recording with frame 0 | switch skin with/without grid
F3 | switch skin | < same (switch skin)
Shift-X | make screen shot of current state (what you see on screen) | < same (make screen shot of current state)
Ctrl-Shift-X | make screen shot of all levels (initial state for every level) | < same (all levels screen shot)

## Control recording with mouse (only in recording mode)

When clicking on mark (circle with L/W inside) with mouse:

Click | Action
--- | ---
Left click | starts/continues recording
Ctrl-click | always start recording and reset frame number to 0.
Right-click | switch recording mode Level/Window.
Ctrl-Shift-Right click | switch PNG/BMP recording

## Command line parameters

YSokoban supports control of recording mode with following command line parameters:

- -bmp - starts YSokoban in recording mode with BMP format of recorded images
- -png - starts YSokoban in recording mode with PNG format of recorded images
- -w - switch YSokoban to full window mode (but does not activate recording mode)
- -l - switch YSokoban to level mode (but does not activate recording mode)
- -norec - starts YSokoban in non recording mode

For more see command line

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