Screenshot taking and auto-uploading script

[neonik]

Hello and such.

(For news and changes see the bottom of this post)

Let's be straighforward. Is anyone interested in an automatical script that takes screenshtos and makes thumbnails of them and uploads them to your ftp server right away?
I'm one of those who needs such a script. So I was looking for one for quite a while, having found nothing suitable, I decided to write my own one. Yesterday I began with this, got it working... Feel free to try it out and supply me with critics and suggestions on how to extend it.

Technical description:
Dependencies:
1. app-shells/bash
2. net-ftp/ftp
3. media-gfx/imagemagick
Going to add also support for lftp and scrot (if you know of other screenshot taking apps that can also resize the images taken, please let me know of them )

Abilities (so far):
Taking several screenshots, acquiring their thumbnails and uploading them all (or per choice) to a remote server.

The utility is quite configurable (check the config file). The current release 0.0.4 is what I brought it to yesterday in a few hours (to be honest, my first bash script ) - that's for the case you begin flaming me

Resources and thanksgiving:
1. neenee (for description of what such a script could look like)
2. http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ - great How-To (I used some of the ideas from there)


Notes:
1. Currently only the interactive mode is working but I'm going to script a fully automatical one (you'd only need o execute a one-word command, namely the script self).
2. Colors: if you get bad looking colors, don't worry, I'll replace those color codes with original RGB values.
3. Dependencies: so far bash, ftp and imagemagick. I'll write patches for lftp and scrop, maybe some more - please let me know of what you'd like to use.
4. Ebuild: I do have a ready ebuild I wrote yesterday for netshot, but I gotta first check it out and adjust a little bit. In future all patching will be done via USE flags (i.e. bash/php/perl/python, ftp/lftp, imagemagick/scrop and so on).
5. Programming languages: for now BASH, a Perl version is in development, a PHP version will be also done (I do have much more experience with PHP than any other scripting language), and possibly Python. Don't think we need a C/C++ implementation thereof (but if yet, please let me know).
6. The script will work from everywhere, just make sure you have done chmod 755 netshot-0.0.4.sh
7. The supplied configuration file is required
8. Localization: for now only English, I'll also make German localization.
9. License: GNU GPL (although, I guess BSD would suit it better)


Downloads:
1. Script self
2. Configuration file
3. Ebuild file

Configuration (without an ebuild yet):
1. Create a configuration directory and copy the config file there:

Code: Select all

$ mkdir ~/.netshot && cp $PATH_TO_CONF/netshot.conf ~/.netshot

2. Modify the configuration file (everything is described in it with coments):

Code: Select all

$ $EDITOR ~/.netshot/netshot.conf

Request:
Please post all your critics, suggestions and comments here in this thread or send me a PM, contact me on IRC (neonik) or send me an email (root[at]neonik[dot]net). If you'd like to make changes to the application and let me know of them, please also submit a patch (via diff) against the original files.

Thank you in advance for all helpful information and trying it out.

Update (20040418-1621):
Current version: 0.0.7-bash

Notes:
1. automated mode complete
2. some little fixes
3. netshot.conf updated a bit

Update (20040415-1225):
Current version: 0.0.6-bash

Notes:
1. updated handling of already existing files (no overwrite any longer)
2. thumbnail numbers are ordered in accordance with the numbers of screenshots
3. some more little fixes
4. netshot.conf updated a bit


Update (20040412-2030):
Current version: 0.0.5-bash

All -current's are available directly at http://www.neonik.net/projects/netshot/ ... {sh,php,pl}
All milestone releases are available also there with their version numbers ( http://www.neonik.net/projects/netshot/netshot-0.0.5.sh for current, *-0.0.4.sh for prior ).

Notes:
1. the configuration file has also been updated
2. few minor bug fixes



Edit:
1. added the ebuild (if anyone can improve the build, please let me know how, I would really appreciate this )
2. version bump to 0.0.5-bash. Will upload shortly (many things fixed)
3. according to the recent version bump download links updated (net-misc/netshot-0.0.5)
4. new version (0.0.6-bash), updating links; see notes; ebuild not updated yet
5. ebuild updated (version 0.0.6-bash) - rewritten
6. automated mode complete
7. updated links for version 0.0.7-bash

[at6]

hi neonik,

thanks mate! nice to have such a script to show off with my daily changing desktop

cheers,

marc

[neonik]

hi neonik,

thanks mate! nice to have such a script to show off with my daily changing desktop

cheers,

marc

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who would have a use of this tool

[neonik]

I'm almost done with the PHP version.
It can so far:
1. bring up the menu
2. ask what to do
3. take screenshots
4. generate thumbnails

It can neither upload them nor check if they already exist and will overwrite all existing screenshots with the same name. Screenshot names are generated via the variable you set in the configuration file, date, an ordinate number and the extension you set in your config file. In the end it looks like Screenshot-20041304-0.jpg.

If anyone is interested in contributing to netshot, please do so, cause I'm feeling lazy to think of what it should do more. Fixing bugs and a little bit extend it will I do, though

[neonik]

Well automated mode now complete and I feel acutally no need other than experiment in writing an alternative perl/PHP and similar versions. So, anyway, it's nearly finished.

[benguru]

Wow, this is really cool. Now I can link to my screenshot in buddy profile, and all my friends can see what I am doing, it would be just like Big Brother... ok maybe not in my profile. Also I haven't tested it yet, but it looks like it could be automated with a cron job.

[neonik]

Basically, yes. If you disable protection from overwriting that is... Good idea, gotta add that to the config. Otherwise you'd need a link wrapper to your actual screenshot.

What would you prefer a link wrapper or configurable overwriting? Both are easy to make... I'll just do both

Thanks for the reply, benguru.

[neonik]

Got it done.
Here (I've already marked it version 0.0.8-bash but haven't updated the rest):
http://www.neonik.net/projects/netshot/netshot.sh
http://www.neonik.net/projects/netshot/netshot.conf
(You'll need the new config too.)

The only little issue now is that it won't upload the symlink with its name, but instead will follow that and upload the linked file self (I'll fix it later, though).

[neonik]

Fixed netshot.sh, uploaded (was a mistake in relinking for interactive()).