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Auto Screen Capture Changelog

What's new in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.1.8

Mar 31, 2023
  • Fixed Region Select to work with displays that use a negative X value and/or a negative Y value. Fixed clipboard paste from selected bitmap via Region Select. Fixed scheduling timer so that Schedules start and stop on the top of the minute at zero seconds so you can stop a running Schedule within the same minute the Schedule was started.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.1.7 (Dec 22, 2022)

  • TimeFormatForTrigger considers seconds. Time property for Trigger sets time for zero seconds when loading Triggers, adding new Triggers, and changing existing Triggers so if a Trigger enables a module item it will rebuild the list of module items only once because DateTime.Now compared to Trigger.Time considers the top of the minute at zero seconds instead of triggering for an entire minute.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.1.6 (Dec 17, 2022)

  • Image Difference Tolerance (as part of Optimize Screen Capture) is now available for individual Screens and Regions. Can now change dashboard wallpaper.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.1.5 (Nov 8, 2022)

  • Optimize Screen Capture tolerance percentage is calculated based on Math.Ceiling() for better results when comparing very small changes between the previous captured image and the current captured image.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.1.4 (Nov 8, 2022)

  • https://sourceforge.net/projects/autoscreen/files/2.5.1.4/AutoScreenCaptureSetup.zip/download

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.1.2 (Oct 31, 2022)

  • Restored the ability to use milliseconds for the screen capture interval. Fixed bug with schedules that were supposed to override the main interval so that they now actually do override the main interval. Fixed cosmetic issue with Preview button. Fixed cosmetic issue with Screen Capture Status when Optimize Screen Capture was enabled. Command Deck now shows percentage of tolerance when Optimize Screen Capture is enabled.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.1.1 (Oct 27, 2022)

  • Fixed issue with One Time screen capture.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.1.0 (Sep 1, 2022)

  • Fixed issues with the SFTP client and failed screenshot uploads to an SFTP server. A null reference exception error would be thrown during a series of attempts in uploading screenshots that previously failed to upload causing the user to exit the application and start the application again (thereby voiding the failed upload process). It was also discovered that, when screenshots that had previously failed to upload, would upload successfully later (after establishing a successful connection with the SFTP server) the screenshots would be uploaded to the incorrect location. They would be uploaded based on the Folder path and the Macro path instead of simply the Macro path (as they usually do upon successful upload). Now screenshots that previously failed to upload will be uploaded based on the Macro path to keep it consistent with how successfully uploaded screenshots are handled.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.0.9 (Aug 27, 2022)

  • Fixed modules panel open state so it no longer affects width of tabs view if modules panel's state is open during LoadSettings
  • New schedules no longer crash when using "independent" logic and being started manually from Add Schedule dialog form
  • Schedule scope defaults to "All Screens and Regions" if value of "scope" is empty during loading of schedules collection from XML data file. Removed check on Seconds for schedules during schedule check timer so we can handle schedules when a second is skipped. Added more debug logging statements. Errors and Logs folders now save to AppDataLocal instead of base directory if not found
  • Fix to filepaths that may contain whitespace in between sub-folders due to stripping of invalid Windows characters from titles and/or labels before saving the screenshot image file to disk. This should prevent some GDI+ errors when saving JPEGs
  • Fix to schedules not starting or running the next day
  • Startup log file is now written to user's Local AppData directory inside "Auto Screen Capture" directory instead of same directory as application
  • Fixed issue with SFTP settings when FileTransferIsLinuxServer setting was not available in sftp.xml due to an upgrade from an old version of the application
  • Added Preview, Start Screen Capture, and Stop Screen Capture buttons to Dashboard
  • Dynamic Regex Validator and Encryptor/Decryptor tool windows no longer "float"; they now behave like normal non-floating windows
  • Fixed startup issue when upgrading from an old version of the application and using the wrong version of the config file
  • Fixed bug if you opened the application without having Dashboard as your selected tab view on startup

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.0.7 (Aug 20, 2022)

  • Fixed modules panel open state so it no longer affects width of tabs view if modules panel's state is open during LoadSettings.
  • New schedules no longer crash when using "independent" logic and being started manually from Add Schedule dialog form.
  • Schedule scope defaults to "All Screens and Regions" if value of "scope" is empty during loading of schedules collection from XML data file. Removed check on Seconds for schedules during schedule check timer so we can handle schedules when a second is skipped. Added more debug logging statements. Errors and Logs folders now save to AppDataLocal instead of base directory if not found.
  • Fix to filepaths that may contain whitespace in between sub-folders due to stripping of invalid Windows characters from titles and/or labels before saving the screenshot image file to disk. This should prevent some GDI+ errors when saving JPEGs.
  • Fix to schedules not starting or running the next day.
  • Startup log file is now written to user's Local AppData directory inside "Auto Screen Capture" directory instead of same directory as application.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.0.4 (Aug 18, 2022)

  • Fix to filepaths that may contain whitespace in between sub-folders due to stripping of invalid Windows characters from titles and/or labels before saving the screenshot image file to disk. This should prevent some GDI+ errors when saving JPEGs.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.0.2 (Aug 18, 2022)

  • Fix to schedules not starting or running the next day.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.0.1 (Aug 17, 2022)

  • Startup log file is now written to user's Local AppData directory inside "Auto Screen Capture" directory instead of same directory as application.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.5.0.0 (Aug 16, 2022)

  • Fix to encrypted screenshots so they can be handled correctly when decrypting multiple times. Fix to Application Focus so options are saved in Setup. Schedules have scope! This means schedules can take screenshots of individual screens and/or regions instead of all screens and regions (which is still an option). Schedules have their own intervals that run independently from the main interval, but can still control the main interval if needed. Multiple schedules can overlap their scheduled time ranges. Interval no longer uses milliseconds for performance reasons. The -interval command no longer uses milliseconds (-interval=hh:mm:ss should be used going forward) but can still parse the milliseconds part of the command for the purpose of backwards compatibility with older versions of the application so -interval=hh:mm:ss.nnn will still work even though only hours, minutes, and seconds will be used; milliseconds will be ignored. Schedules no longer use seconds for their One Time and Period options; again this is for performance reasons. Similarly the -captureat, -startat, and -stopat commands no longer require seconds to be defined (but still have their seconds part parsed to maintain backwards compatibility with older versions of the application). Module items in module lists have their textbox fields background colour set as a light yellow instead of the standard control grey for easier reading of titles. Any module item titles that exceed 20 characters show in a tool tip so you can hover over a long title and read the full title. Rewrote the code for hiding the application on startup so it hides better than before (especially if using the -hide command). The default filename pattern ("Macro") has changed from "%date%%name%%process% (%date% %time%).%format%" to "%date%%name%%date%_%time%.%format%". New application settings LowDiskMode and LowDiskBytesThreshold (which is set to 50 MB by default); LowDiskMode is set to consider low disk space in bytes instead of low disk space by percentage. New commands -optimize=on and -optimize=off for turning on and off Optimize Screen Capture. Capture Now Options gives the ability to define a Macro specifically for "Capture Now / Archive" and "Capture Now / Edit". Optimize Screen Capture no longer uses a hash dictionary. It now uses an image comparison library to compare the histogram between the new image and the previous image. You can set a level of "tolerance" to determine how acceptable the image difference should be. ⦁ Auto Screen Capture Configuration File has been enhanced to include definitions for default Screens, Regions, Editors, Schedules, Macro Tags, and Triggers so you no longer need to craft the specific XML data files for each user; simply ensure you have autoscreen.exe and autoscreen.conf available and the application will create the data files based on the default settings and default definitions. If existing data files are encountered then existing settings will be used. New tool "Command Deck" is a small floating window containing the application's most common controls. New Region Select option "Add Region (Express)" creates a new Region based on the selected screen area without showing the Add Region dialog window. A main menu bar added. You can now hide and show the modules on the right side of the main interface by clicking on the toggle button located on the very right side of the main interface. New commands -showInterface and -hideInterface to show and hide the main interface from the command line. New tool "Auto Screen Capture For Beginners" for people who are unfamiliar with the functionality of the application but familiar enough with other screen capture software

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.2.3 (Apr 23, 2022)

  • New trigger conditions CaptureCycleElapsed, DurationFromStartScreenCapture, and DurationFromStopScreenCapture
  • Trigger condition BeforeScreenshotTaken moved to SaveScreenshot method (instead of TakeScreenshot method)
  • Fixed exception errors when opening forms that are already open from system tray icon menu

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.2.2 (Apr 20, 2022)

  • Application settings AllowUserToConfigureEmailSettings and AllowUserToConfigureFileTransferSettings disable respective menu items instead of hiding menu items
  • Default triggers added (and disabled) "Email Screenshots" and "Upload With SFTP"
  • "New Region" added to Region Select system tray icon menu so you can perform a region selection and have the Add Region form open based on the provided region selection
  • Fixed the -show command line option so that any triggers using the ShowSystemTrayIcon action are enabled
  • Fixed the -hide command line option so that any triggers using the ShowSystemTrayIcon action are disabled
  • Screenshots uploaded to an SFTP server now retain folder structure based on Macro
  • File Transfer Settings includes new option "Connecting to a Linux server" to determine how the filepath should be handled on the SFTP server when splitting the path for sub-folder creation

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.2.1 (Apr 5, 2022)

  • Fixed triggering of After Screenshot Taken condition when using Optimize Screen Capture so it no longer triggers on that condition when a duplicate hash is encountered. Count added to status bar and status bar re-designed. Optimize Screen Capture includes hash dictionary grid view, Refresh Hash Dictionary button, and Clear Hash Dictionary button. Removed constraint on filepaths needing to be unique when adding screenshots to screenshot collection. Fixed bug with saving image and keeping a record of the image's hash value when using "Compare with last image" option in Optimize Screen Capture to resolve exception error "An item with the same key has already been added".

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.2.0 (Mar 31, 2022)

  • Optimize Screen Capture now has options for comparing with any previous image and comparing with the last image. File Transfer Settings now has options for deleting the local file upon successful upload and keeping failed uploads in queue and retrying until a successful upload has been achieved.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.1.9 (Mar 31, 2022)

  • Screenshots count is reset when screenshots limit is reached to avoid falling into an infinite loop. New trigger actions Restart Screen Capture, Delete Screenshots By Cycle Count, and Delete Screenshots From Oldest Capture Cycle. New command "-restart". New macro tag "%capturenow%". Screenshots that fail to upload to an SFTP server will try to upload to the same SFTP server in the next capture cycle until the upload is successful.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.1.8 (Mar 6, 2022)

  • Delete Screenshots trigger uses ScreenshotsFolder instead of DefaultScreenshotsFolder. Sending a test email from Email Settings logs any exception error and the Send Test Email button is enabled again after an exception has been caught. Email Settings form accepts multiple email addresses in TO, CC, and BCC fields using either ; or , as a separator.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.1.7 (Feb 23, 2022)

  • Additional debug logging has been included in the screen capture methods.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.1.6 (Feb 14, 2022)

  • DataRoaming introduced for autoscreen.conf and autoscreen.conf included as part of installation so that an installation of the application can run under normal user privileges without needing to run autoscreen.exe as Administrator from "C:Program Files" or "C:Program Files (x86)" since the data files are being written to the user's local or roaming app data folder (AppDataLocal by default).

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.1.5 (Feb 9, 2022)

  • List of screenshots show information based on Filter selection. Filter selection, selected calendar day, and screenshots list index saved.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.1.2 (Feb 9, 2022)

  • Discarded bad changes made in 2.4.1.1 so this is essentially 2.4.1.0 but with a new version of the installer.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.1.1 (Feb 9, 2022)

  • GetScreenBitmap fix.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.0.9 (Feb 7, 2022)

  • Allow Active Window to use GDI screen capture method for Screen.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.0.7 (Feb 6, 2022)

  • Fix to Region Select.
  • Resolution Ratio implemented.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.0.6 (Feb 6, 2022)

  • Screen Capture Status and Screen Capture Status With Label Switcher windows have larger text, Region Select uses BitBlt capture method, Preview for Screen and Region use BitBlt capture method, Initial Capture is set as default, Region Select logs selection information to log file.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.0.5 (Feb 4, 2022)

  • Icon Double Click trigger implemented as well as more trigger actions added.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.0.4 (Feb 4, 2022)

  • Fix to versioning system.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.0.3 (Feb 4, 2022)

  • Region Select fix.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.0.2 (Feb 3, 2022)

  • Region Select fix and Interval section added to Schedule form.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.0.1 (Feb 2, 2022)

  • Region Select fix.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.4.0.0 (Jan 31, 2022)

  • You can encrypt and decrypt screenshots. Screens will automatically adapt based on your current display setup so if you're constantly undocking your laptop and docking your laptop later while a screen capture is running then Auto Screen Capture will adjust the position and size of the screens appropriately. A passphrase can be set to challenge the user to enter the correct passphrase whenever a screen capture session is stopped, the interface is shown, or the application is going to exit.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.7.0 (Dec 8, 2021)

  • Attempting to fix bug with region select not working on multiple displays.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.6.9 (Dec 7, 2021)

  • Maybe fixed the bug with region select not working on multiple displays. Maybe. I haven't had multiple displays to test this properly for myself due to working from a laptop since March 2020.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.6.8 (Oct 29, 2021)

  • Fixed bug with "the handle is invalid" to prevent application from crashing when Windows is locked. The check on the invalid handle was accidentally removed in 2.3.4.1 but has now been restored.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.6.7 (Sep 8, 2021)

  • Fixed bug with emailing screenshots from a one time schedule.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.6.6 (Sep 6, 2021)

  • Execution level changed from highestAvailable to asInvoker.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.6.5 (Sep 6, 2021)

  • Execution level changed from requireAdministrator to highestAvailable.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.6.4 (Sep 4, 2021)

  • The Trigger form looks better.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.6.3 (Aug 24, 2021)

  • No Match option implemented for Active Window Title. Fixed visibility bug when no Triggers are available on startup.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.6.2 (Aug 21, 2021)

  • New command line options -show and -hide. The application will no longer appear in Alt+Tab when interface is hidden.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.6.1 (Jul 26, 2021)

  • Fix to Keyboard Shortcuts. Changed default trigger for closing window so interface will now hide on closing window instead of exiting to keep application running in system tray until Exit is selected from system tray icon menu.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.6.0 (Apr 26, 2021)

  • Fix to SMTP.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.4.9 (Mar 24, 2021)

  • Region Select Options and Region Select / Clipboard / Floating Screenshot implemented.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.4.8 (Mar 19, 2021)

  • Signed assembly in attempt to satisfy anti-virus software. Fixed weird Exit bug.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.4.7 (Mar 12, 2021)

  • SaveScreenshotRefs user setting introduced. Implemented command line options -saveScreenshotRefs=on and -saveScreenshotRefs=off.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.4.6 (Mar 11, 2021)

  • Fixed Show/Hide Interface bug so you no longer need to select the option twice to show the interface on initial startup.
  • AutoStartFromCommandLine is temporarily disabled when command line options -stop, -exit, -startat, -stopat, or -captureat are provided.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.4.5 (Mar 9, 2021)

  • "Keep screenshots for X days" trigger is now inactive by default to avoid potential data loss.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.4.4 (Mar 9, 2021)

  • Fix to Screen Capture method.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.4.2 (Mar 9, 2021)

  • Fix to Screen form for preview image.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.4.1 (Mar 9, 2021)

  • Does not capture image of screen if screen does not exist.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.4.0 (Feb 27, 2021)

  • Screenshots can be sent to a file server either from the main interface window or with a Trigger. The SMTP and SFTP settings are in their own XML files and can be configured. Help system is available but still early in development.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.3.9 (Feb 24, 2021)

  • Dashboard introduced so you can have an overview of all screens and regions.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.3.8 (Feb 23, 2021)

  • Screen now has Source (such as Graphics Card and Operating System), X, Y, Width, and Height.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.3.7 (Jan 14, 2021)

  • Memory leak fix.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.3.6 (Jan 2, 2021)

  • Active Window Title text comparison includes type of match to use during text comparison.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.3.5 (Dec 7, 2020)

  • Application Focus now has Delay Before and Delay After options.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.3.4 (Nov 24, 2020)

  • Bug fix to saving of file when adding screenshot to collection.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.3.3 (Nov 24, 2020)

  • An internal list of image hash values are stored when emailing screenshots so we do not email duplicate images.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.3.2 (Nov 10, 2020)

  • Can now run an Editor without arguments or without %filepath% tag when using Run Editor trigger action.
  • Includes changes to version collection, change to how Application Focus behaves when application not found (so now adds the application to the process list regardless), and bug fix applied to threads.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.3.1 (Nov 3, 2020)

  • New command line arguments -activeWindowTitle, -applicationFocus, and -label.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.3.0 (Nov 1, 2020)

  • Application Focus moved from Screen to Setup. Fixed Application Focus bug with Active Window Title. Renamed user setting keys. New method for capturing device display resolution.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.2.9 (Oct 28, 2020)

  • Application Focus implemented for Screen.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.2.8 (Sep 20, 2020)

  • Changelog added to About Auto Screen Capture window. Fixed bug with hidden system tray icon so no notification balloon appears when system tray icon is hidden.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.2.7 (Sep 10, 2020)

  • Quarter Year tag implemented.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.2.6 (Sep 6, 2020)

  • Time Range macro tag and Day/Time trigger implemented.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.2.5 (Sep 1, 2020)

  • Macro tag expressions can now use date time format.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.2.4 (Aug 24, 2020)

  • Listbox screenshots sorted.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.2.3 (Aug 24, 2020)

  • Information Window is now Show Screen Capture Status.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.2.2 (Aug 22, 2020)

  • Information Window implemented.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.2.1 (Aug 17, 2020)

  • Fixed bug with inactive schedules.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.2.0 (Aug 14, 2020)

  • Region Select / Auto Save region is created by default if regions.xml file not found so screenshots taken with Region Select / Auto Save can be viewed in the main interface.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.1.9 (Aug 13, 2020)

  • Schedules now have their own interval.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.1.8 (Aug 7, 2020)

  • Region Select implemented for Regions.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.1.7 (Aug 5, 2020)

  • OptimizeScreenCapture implemented.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.3.0.0 (Jun 8, 2020)

  • Commands can now be issued to a running instance of the application!
  • Also introduced is the ability to activate and deactivate screens, regions, schedules, tags, and triggers.
  • You can now set an image editor to be your default editor when using "Capture Now -> Edit".
  • Another amazing enhancement are the multiple schedules that you can create and being able to have better
  • control over the application's workflow with more trigger conditions and trigger actions.
  • The system tray icon turns red if an error has been encountered.
  • The system tray icon turns yellow if a drive being used is running low on available disk space.
  • You can define length of filepaths with the FilepathLengthLimit application setting.
  • It's also much faster at startup (even with a lot of screenshot references being available).
  • The codename for this version is based on "Boombayah" by BLACKPINK (https://youtu.be/bwmSjveL3Lc)
  • since this was constantly playing in the background while I was writing the code for 2.3.0.0 :)

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.2.8 (Oct 3, 2019)

  • Fixed an issue with displaying a screenshot preview.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.2.7 (Oct 3, 2019)

  • This version makes sure we can still save screenshots to a shared network drive.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.2.6 (Oct 3, 2019)

  • This is a very important update for users of the "2.2.0" series. There was a bug in the upgrade system which caused the application to not fix certain screenshot data in any of the Auto Screen Capture binaries that have a version number beginning with "2.2.0" due to an error in the code which prevented an old version to be detected correctly. You can safely run this version (2.2.2.6) on any old version of Auto Screen Capture (since 2.1.8.2) in order to upgrade the data format that's being used in the new 2.2.2 series. For example, if your screenshots.xml file was previously showing version 2.2.0.10, 2.2.0.11, 2.2.0.12, 2.2.0.13, 2.2.0.14, 2.2.0.15, 2.2.0.16, 2.2.0.17, 2.2.0.18, 2.2.0.19, 2.2.0.20, 2.2.0.21, or 2.2.0.22 it will now correclty show version 2.2.2.6 as its new version number.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.2.0 (Oct 2, 2019)

  • You can now email screenshots! Make sure to configure your application.xml file!

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.1.2 (Oct 1, 2019)

  • Introducing the Auto Screen Capture Configuration File!
  • The new "autoscreen.conf" file can be used to customize the configuration set utilized by Auto Screen Capture. So you can now store the application's settings in an entirely different location from the user's personal settings or simply create a centralized configuration area by using the new "-config" command line argument to specify which configuration file each autoscreen.exe binary should load at startup - great for networked server environments!
  • A configuration file that can be used by Auto Screen Capture should, at a minimum, contain the following 10 lines representing key-value pairs that will be parsed by the application upon execution:
  • ScreenshotsFolder=screenshots
  • DebugFolder=!autoscreendebug
  • LogsFolder=!autoscreendebuglogs
  • ApplicationSettingsFile=application.xml
  • UserSettingsFile=user.xml
  • EditorsFile=!autoscreeneditors.xml
  • RegionsFile=!autoscreenregions.xml
  • ScreensFile=!autoscreenscreens.xml
  • TriggersFile=!autoscreentriggers.xml
  • ScreenshotsFile=!autoscreenscreenshots.xml
  • As you can see, each line specifies either the name of a folder or a file. If only the folder name is given (such as "screenshots") then Auto Screen Capture will parse it as the "screenshots" folder in the same folder where the executed autoscreen.exe binary is found. You can also specify a folder name with a trailing backslash but this isn't necessary. If a file extension is found then Auto Screen Capture will parse the filename as an XML file. You can tell Auto Screen Capture where to find each XML file by specifying absolute or relative (sub)folder paths.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.1.0 (Sep 29, 2019)

  • Introducing the Auto Screen Capture Configuration File!
  • The new "autoscreen.conf" file can be used to customize the configuration set utilized by Auto Screen Capture. So you can now store the application's settings in an entirely different location from the user's personal settings or simply create a centralized configuration area by using the new "-config" command line argument to specify which configuration file each autoscreen.exe binary should load at startup - great for networked server environments!
  • A configuration file that can be used by Auto Screen Capture should, at a minimum, contain the following 10 lines representing key-value pairs that will be parsed by the application upon execution:
  • ScreenshotsFolder=screenshots
  • DebugFolder=!autoscreendebug
  • LogsFolder=!autoscreendebuglogs
  • ApplicationSettingsFile=application.xml
  • UserSettingsFile=user.xml
  • EditorsFile=!autoscreeneditors.xml
  • RegionsFile=!autoscreenregions.xml
  • ScreensFile=!autoscreenscreens.xml
  • TriggersFile=!autoscreentriggers.xml
  • ScreenshotsFile=!autoscreenscreenshots.xml
  • As you can see, each line specifies either the name of a folder or a file. If only the folder name is given (such as "screenshots") then Auto Screen Capture will parse it as the "screenshots" folder in the same folder where the executed autoscreen.exe binary is found. You can also specify a folder name with a trailing backslash but this isn't necessary. If a file extension is found then Auto Screen Capture will parse the filename as an XML file. You can tell Auto Screen Capture where to find each XML file by specifying absolute or relative (sub)folder paths.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.22 (Sep 23, 2019)

  • Fixed scheduled start time when running from command line.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.21 (Sep 22, 2019)

  • A new Configure menu has been added to each Screen and Region. This should make the application easier and more accessible for new users.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.20 (Sep 12, 2019)

  • This release has a minor fix for the tab pages on the left side of the interface (just underneath the calendar) so that, if you have way too many screens and/or regions listed (for example), you'll now be able to see a vertical scrollbar so you can scroll up and down the list. In other words, you'll be fine with staying on 2.2.0.19 unless you really need this version.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.17 (Aug 22, 2019)

  • Passphrase is now hashed when being stored as a user setting.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.16 (Aug 14, 2019)

  • This version is just a minor performance improvement so there's really nothing to get excited about.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.15 (Jul 13, 2019)

  • Version 2.2.0.15 strips out any backslash characters found in the active window title.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.14 (Jul 7, 2019)

  • A new macro tag (%title%) has been introduced which gets the title of the active window.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.13 (Jun 24, 2019)

  • Fixed null reference error when multiple application instances are started.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.12 (Jun 24, 2019)

  • Fixed bug with JPEG quality.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.11 (Jun 24, 2019)

  • Fixed a few bugs with JPEG quality, resolution ratio, and taskbar capture. Also re-introduced the %screen% macro tag that represents the screen number.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.10 (Jun 16, 2019)

  • Fixed bug with count value when display is not available.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.8 (Jun 14, 2019)

  • New macro tags for getting the name of the currently logged in user and the name of the machine being used.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.7 (Jun 14, 2019)

  • You can now capture the process name of the active window's application and filter by Process Name.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.6 (Jun 14, 2019)

  • This version introduces a minor change in how labels are applied. Now you have a list of all the labels you have used so far available in a drop down list. There is also a new checkbox control to determine if a particular label should be applied; check the "Apply this label to each screenshot" checkbox to apply the label you have either selected from the drop down list or typed in or simply uncheck the "Apply this label to each screenshot" checkbox to not apply a label.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.2 (Jun 4, 2019)

  • New Features:
  • Screens and regions have their own specified folder path and macro
  • Macro tags have been expanded to include %name%, %date%, %time%, and %count%
  • Import screen dimensions from an available screen when setting up a region capture to get its height and width without needing to type it in
  • Apply a label to each screenshot so you can keep yourself organized by filtering by label
  • Filter by image format, label, or window title
  • Window titles are now included in the list of screenshots to show you the title of the active window at the time screenshots were taken
  • Old screenshots can be automatically deleted after a certain number of specified days
  • Editors:
  • If you love to edit your screenshots with a particular image editor, or you want to open the latest screenshots with a particular application, then setup a few of your favorite executables as Editors. Once they're setup you can right-click on a screenshot preview and immediately open the image with the editor of your choice.
  • Triggers:
  • You can change the behavior of Auto Screen Capture by changing, removing, or adding Triggers. These little workflow items are useful for when you want a particular editor to run for each time screenshots are taken, have the main window simply hide when Auto Screen Capture is closed, or start taking screenshots when Auto Screen Capture starts. Each trigger checks for a particular condition and performs a specified action when that condition has been met. Triggers are powerful so please be careful how you configure them. The default list of triggers that are available to you on the first run of Auto Screen Capture should be sufficient.
  • Macro Tags:
  • The ability to name an image file with a particular timestamp is by using the power of macro tags. These are special values in which you include in the Macro field of a Screen or a Region and are often enclosed by percentage characters. For example, %date% returns the current date, %hour% returns the current hour, %name% returns the name of the Screen (or Region) in which the image file is based on, %format% is the name of the image format being used at the time, and %count% is the number of screen capture cycles captured so far in the current screen capture session. The list of available macro tags are shown under the Tags drop-down next to the Macro field of a Screen or Region.
  • Label:
  • Applying a label to each screenshot is basically telling Auto Screen Capture to keep a record of a value that's important to you during the current screen capture session. You have 500 characters to play around with as a label. This could be the name of a project you're working on, a reference to a ticket you're handling, or a small note to yourself as to the purpose of the current screen capture session. You can also leave it blank. That's okay too.
  • Filter:
  • You can now filter by image format, window title, or label. After days (and possibly months) of taking screenshots it can become difficult to keep the context of why certain screenshots were taken on a particular day. In the top-left corner of the main window of Auto Screen Capture are the Filter controls. Simply select the filter type you want to use (whether it be Image Format, Label or, Window Title) from the first drop-down list and then select the filter value from the second drop-down list. The calendar will refresh to show you the days on which screenshots were taken based on your filter selection. The small button to the right of the drop-down controls can be clicked on to refresh the list of filter values and return to a generalized filter selection.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.2.0.0 (May 24, 2019)

  • There's a cosmetic bug with loading the list of screenshots when the list is unfiltered, but other functionality seems to be working normally.
  • I discovered a few minor bugs during testing. I'll be continuing testing all this week.
  • Now that I'm satisfied with fixing the major bugs I wanted to fix version 2.2.0.0 is in its final stage of testing.
  • There are a few bugs I want to fix before 2.2 is ready (which is obviously taking priority over adding new features).
  • I think I've got 2.2 performing a lot better than 2.1 so that it doesn't use as much memory as before. I'm still testing 2.2 on a daily basis and making small adjustments to the code wherever necessary.
  • The code for upgrading old data on regions and screenshots has been completed. The final phase of the automatic upgrade functionality will be to completely remove slides and any references to the old Slideshow module.
  • The next challenge now is being able to maintain backwards compatible with version 2.1 so that if you're running 2.2 using data from 2.1 then 2.2 will effectively import and upgrade the data to the new 2.2 format for regions and screenshots.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.8.2 (Jan 4, 2019)

  • I've changed the application's COM GUID to, hopefully, avoid anti-virus software that still had any previous versions flagged as being harmful on a user's computer to stop further flagging the application as being harmful since the "harmful" registry code that supported the ability for the application to start when Windows started has now been removed. This version should no longer cause anti-virus software to see the application as being harmful.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.7.8 (Dec 19, 2018)

  • Your setting for "Schedule" is now saved so that the application will remember what you had it set as (and you no longer need to setup a Trigger to turn on Schedule during startup).

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.7.7 (Dec 10, 2018)

  • This version is a maintenance patch that fixes an issue with the Macro field's value when attempting to change the Macro field's value of an existing Region. I'm aware that anyone who previously had 2.1.7.6 may not see the version number "2.1.7.7" reflected in their copy of the application; it's just a setting that I didn't get around to updating for this new version.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.7.6 (Dec 9, 2018)

  • Introducing the new "!autoscreen" directory which now stores all the settings, logs, and important data needed for Auto Screen Capture to run.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.7.5 (Dec 7, 2018)

  • You're now able to specify particular regions (of any screen) with each region having its own name, macro (the file path and any date/time tags), X, Y, Width, and Height values.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.6.4 (Sep 27, 2018)

  • There are a few minor bug fixes and you can now edit a screenshot with your favorite image editor by using the new "Edit" button.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.5 (Jun 15, 2018)

  • Mouse pointer is now captured.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.4 (May 11, 2018)

  • This fixes the memory leak issue

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.3 (Apr 26, 2018)

  • There's a new option available called "Start application when Windows starts".
  • If you want Auto Screen Capture to take screenshots on startup then enable "Start capture when schedule is on" (in the Schedule section of the Screen Capture module) and "Turn on scheduled screen capturing at application startup" (under Options).

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.2 (Apr 10, 2018)

  • This version introduces a new module called "Editors" which enables you to add, change, and remove your favourite image editing applications to edit/open screenshots. Simply right-click on a screenshot preview in Screen 1, Screen 2, Screen 3, Screen 4, or Active Window to show the contextual menu that lists your favourite editors!
  • As always I'm constantly looking for ways to improve Auto Screen Capture so here's what's changed in this version ...
  • By default closing the application window will now simply close the window without exiting the application (rather than exiting the application by default); it makes more sense for an application (which resides in the system tray) to remain in the system tray when the application window is closed; this, of course, can be changed via the Options menu.
  • If the application window was minimized before closing it and you open the window again it will now open the application window in a normal window state rather than open in its previous minimized window state because the whole point of selecting "Open Window" is to actually open, and see, the application window.
  • "Open File Location" has been replaced by two new menu options called "Show Slide Location" and "Show Screenshot Location" to better represent the conceptual differences between a slide and a screenshot.
  • Starting the application now does a bunch of maintenance work before showing the main window so that old slides get deleted, the dates in the calendar are processed, and the Slideshow module will show the slides of the current day (if there are slides to show).
  • Playing and pausing the slideshow no longer interferes with the starting and stopping of a screen capture session so feel free to play a slideshow while a screen capture session is running at the same time.
  • Auto Reset now works as intended so if the resolution of a display changes while Auto Screen Capture is running then it will automatically figure out what the new dimensions should be for taking screenshots of that display; dimensions will also adjust automatically if you plug in a monitor or remove a monitor.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.1.0 (Mar 26, 2018)

  • You Choose What Your Screenshots Are Named:
  • There's a new field called "Macro" where you can specify the file name pattern of your screenshots. You can name them however you like. Here are the special tags that you can use in your macro:
  • %screen%
  • %year%
  • %month%
  • %day%
  • %hour%
  • %minute%
  • %second%
  • %millisecond%
  • %format%
  • Capture What Screens You Want:
  • You now have the ability to specify what you want to capture. Do you just want the Active Window or would prefer to capture only the second and third screens?
  • JPEG Quality Level:
  • To save on disk space you can now decide at what compression level JPEG images should be saved as.
  • Remove Slides Older Than X Days:
  • The slides (used in the Slideshow module) can take up a lot of disk space so now there's an option to specify how many days slides should remain before deciding to delete them automatically.
  • Auto Reset:
  • This new feature is especially useful for gamers. Whenever you change the resolution on your game Auto Screen Capture can now reset the dimensions of screenshots automatically without having to restart the application.
  • 10 Years of Code Cleanup:
  • Auto Screen Capture has a surprisingly large volume of code for such a simple application. I also wrote most of the core functionality about ten years ago so it was long due for a cleanup. I used Visual Studio 2017 with the CodeMaid and StyleCop extensions. Auto Screen Capture 2.1.0 now targets .NET Framework 4.5 and was compiled as a 64-bit application.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.0.7 (Nov 8, 2017)

  • You can now set a passphrase and lock your screen capture session

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.0.6 (Nov 4, 2017)

  • This release fixes a number of issues experienced by users over the past four years.

New in Auto Screen Capture 2.0.5 (May 14, 2015)

  • New icon showing a camera, a palm tree, and Firefox
  • Take automated chronologically organized full-screen screenshots of up to four displays (yes, some people are lucky enough to have four monitors)
  • Take automated chronologically organized screenshots of the active window
  • Log keystrokes to a specified log file which not only shows the keys that were pressed, but also the title of the active window and the time when the keys were pressed
  • Representation of capture delay is now in hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds
  • Representation of slideshow delay is now in hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds
  • Can now take an initial capture before starting the timer during a screen capture session
  • Can now choose your own screenshots folder
  • Can now run "autoscreen.exe" from the command line providing various options to set capture delay, image format, image resolution ratio, folder, start time, stop time, initial capture, and log file
  • Faster listing of screenshots for the selected day so thousands of screenshots can now be listed within seconds
  • Image resolution ratio can now be specified (minimum is 1% and maximum is 100%) which affects the width and height of screenshots taken to save on disk space
  • "Demo Mode" shows real-time updates of the screen capture settings to best represent how capture delay and image resolution ratio is going to look before starting a screen capture session
  • Scheduled screen capture session can now be set up to start taking screenshots at a specified time and/or stop taking screenshots at a specified time (can also choose which days of the week should be considered during a scheduled screen capture session)
  • Turn on scheduled screen capturing at application startup so a screen capture session will immediately start when the application opens
  • Open the application's window during a screen capture session
  • Select the image format from the system tray menu when starting a screen capture session
  • Turn on demo mode at application startup
  • Calendar now shows weeks of the year
  • Add a list of your favorite image editors
  • Edit a screenshot with your favorite image editor
  • Closing the application's window can now either exit the application or minimize the application to the system tray

New in Auto Screen Capture 1.0.8 (Jan 29, 2009)

  • Minor bug fixes
  • Optimized for Windows Vista and .NET 3.5
  • Improved screenshot processing

New in Auto Screen Capture 1.0.5 (Jun 28, 2008)

  • A *very* small fix was applied to the previous version (1.0.4) which now (in v1.0.5) ensures that the interval rate is correctly set before the recording process begins.