Screen capture for FireFox: ScreenGrab

A while ago LifeHacker.com wrote about the screen capture utility ScreenGrab by Andy. ScreenGrab is an extension for FireFox that allows you to capture a FireFox browser screen and save it as a PNG file in 3 different ways:

• The entire FireFox window (same as the PC ALT+PrtScr)
• The entire content of the site (scrolling content)
• The content that is viewable in the FireFox window (ViewPort)

Andy says he is working on adding the following features:

• Being able to select a region to grab (using something similar to MeasureIt).
• Removing my dependence on Java (much like the folks over at Pearl Crescent did with their PageSaver, based - like I said one would be eventually, on the Canvas widget).
• All those configuration options people keep whining about (default save to location, default naming, different file types, different menu locations).
• Making a shortcut key to do the grab.

SnagIt vs. ScreenGrab + Kleptomania

When making a choice on which to use for Web application testing here are some things to think about:

• SnagIt won't give you the OCR/text capture feature that Kleptomania has.
• ScreenGrab won't work in Internet Explorer.
• ScreenGrab doesn't have drawing tools.

For Web application testing ScreenGrab fills a hole in one of my favorite tools Kleptomania because it captures content that requires scrolling. Putting the two together is about the same price as SnagIt. Neither are magic bullets for Web application screen and text capturing. TechSmith, if you add OCR/text capture to SnagIt I'm sold. Until then I'm sticking with ScreenGrab and Kleptomania.

ScreenGrab 0.8 is free, download it here.