WinGrab
by Jonathan Hunt

This program enables you to grab windows and their panes as sprites and save them. This can be very useful when you need to include pictures of windows in tutorials or manuals.

The application can be loaded by double-clicking on its icon in a filer window. Once loaded, the application's icon will appear on the icon bar.

Using Window Grabber
Clicking Menu on the icon bar icon will bring up the main menu, which contains the following entries:

Info
Moving to the right of this entry opens a standard Info dialogue box.

Save
Moving to the right of this entry opens a save box, allowing you to save the last window grabbed as a sprite file. If there is no window to save, this entry will be greyed out. 

Hot key
Moving to the right of this entry opens the Hot key window. While this window is open, any key pressed will become the current hot key setting. After the window has been closed, pressing the hot key will start the grabbing process on the window under the mouse pointer.

Grab
Clicking on this entry will start the grabbing process. The mouse pointer will change to an arrow with a window next to it. Select the window to be grabbed by clicking on it with Select. Pressing Escape or any of the other mouse buttons will abort the grab.

Options
Moving to the right of this entry opens the Options window. This window allows you to alter the parameters involved in the grabbing process.

If Bring to front is selected, the window to be grabbed will be brought to the top of the window stack before it is grabbed.

If Force to full size is selected, the window will be made as big as possible before it is grabbed. If Grab tool icons is selected, the whole of the window will be grabbed, including the title bar, scroll bars, etc. If this option isn't selected, only the visible work area will be grabbed.

If Delay is selected, you can specify the time interval between starting the grabbing process and the window being grabbed. The time interval can be altered by editing the writable icon.

Quit
Clicking on this entry will quit Window Grabber.

The grabbing process
This can be started by clicking on the icon bar icon with Select or the Grab entry on the main menu, and then clicking on the window you want to grab. Alternatively, press the currently selected hot key when the mouse pointer is over the window you want to grab.

If the Delay option is selected, the Timer window will then open, and count down the number of seconds remaining before the window is grabbed. During the countdown you will not be able to start another grab. The countdown can be aborted at any time by clicking on the Cancel icon.

After the window has been grabbed, a save box will appear, allowing the grabbed window to be saved either to a filer window or directly to an application that can handle Sprite files. The grabbed window is retained in memory until it is overwritten by a new grab and can be saved using the Save window on the main menu.

Errors during the grabbing process
There are a number of errors that can occur during the grabbing process. These will be reported in standard error boxes.

Not a window
This can occur if you try to grab the icon bar or the Desktop work area.

Window is closed
This can occur during a delayed grab if you select a window to grab, and then during the count down either close the window or quit the application owning the window.

Cannot grab this window
This can occur if you try to grab a window that Window Grabber can't gain control over.

Cannot bring window to front
This can occur if you try to grab a window that doesn't allow windows behind it or if you try and grab a window that contains a pane. Try again with the "Bring to front" option turned off.

Not enough memory to create sprite
This occurs when Window Grabber cannot claim enough memory from the Wimp to grab the window. Try quitting other applications or changing to a lower resolution mode.

 Copyright RISC User 1994