Written by ahmed shimi

Flameshot

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Powerful yet simple to use screenshot software.

Usage Preview

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Index

Features

  • Customizable appearance.
  • Easy to use.
  • In-app screenshot edition.
  • DBus interface.
  • Upload to Imgur.

Usage

Example commands:

  • capture with GUI:

flameshot gui

  • capture with GUI with custom save path:

flameshot gui -p ~/myStuff/captures

  • open GUI with a delay of 2 seconds:

flameshot gui -d 2000

  • fullscreen capture (asking savepath):

flameshot full

  • fullscreen capture with custom save path (no GUI) and delayed:

flameshot full -p ~/myStuff/captures -d 5000

  • fullscreen capture with custom save path copying to clipboard:

flameshot full -c -p ~/myStuff/captures

In case of doubt choose the first or the second command as shortcut in your favorite desktop environment.

A systray icon will be in your system’s panel while Flameshot is running. Do a right click on the tray icon and you’ll see some menu items to open the configuration window and the information window. Check out the information window to see all the available shortcuts in the graphical capture mode.

CLI configuration

You can use the graphical menu to configure Flameshot, but alternatively you can use your terminal or scripts to do so.

  • open the confguration menu:

flameshot config

  • show the initial help message in the capture mode:

flameshot config --showhelp true

  • for more information about the available options use the help flag:

flameshot config -h

Shortcuts

These shortcuts are available in GUI mode:

Keys Description
←↓↑→ Move selection 1px
SHIFT + ←↓↑→ Resize selection 1px
ESC Quit capture
CTRL + C Copy to clipboard
CTRL + S Save selection as a file
CTRL + Z Undo the last modification
Right Click Show color picker
Mouse Wheel Change the tool’s thickness

Shift + drag a handler of the selection area: mirror redimension in the opposite handler.

Considerations

  • Experimental Gnome Wayland and Plasma Wayland support.
  • If you are using Gnome you need to install the TopIcons extension in order to see the systemtray icon.
  • In order to speed up the first launch of Flameshot (DBus init of the app can be slow), consider starting the application automatically on boot.
  • Press Enter or Ctrl + C when you are in a capture mode and you don’t have an active selection and the whole desktop will be copied to your clipboard! Pressing Ctrl + S will save your capture in a file! Check the Shortcuts for more information.
  • Execute the command flameshot without parameters or use the “Launch Flameshot” desktop entry to launch a running instance of the program without taking actions.

Installation

There are a packages available for a few distros:

If you are not using any of these distros you’ll need to compile the program 😦 but don’t worry, it’s pretty easy!

Compilation

The compilation requires Qt version 5.3 or higher and GCC 4.9.2 or higher.

Debian

Compilation Dependencies:

apt install -y git g++ build-essential qt5-qmake qt5-default qttools5-dev-tools

Compilation: run qmake && make in the main directory.

Fedora

Compilation Dependencies:

dnf install -y qt5-devel gcc-c++ git qt5-qtbase-devel qt5-linguist

Compilation: run qmake-qt5 && make in the main directory.

Arch

Compilation Dependencies:

pacman -S git qt5-base base-devel qt5-tools

Compilation: run qmake && make in the main directory.

Install

Simply use make install with privileges.

Packaging

In order to generate the makefile installing in /usr instead of in /usr/local you can use the packaging option to generate the proper makefile (qmake CONFIG+=packaging instead of just qmake).

If you want to install in a custom directory you can define the BASEDIR variable.

Example: You whant to install Flameshot in ~/myBuilds/test. You would execute the following to do so: qmake CONFIG+=packaging BASEDIR=~/myBuilds/test && make install

Runtime Dependencies

Debian:

libqt5dbus5, libqt5network5, libqt5core5a, libqt5widgets5, libqt5gui5

Optional:

openssl, ca-certificates

Fedora:

qt5-qtbase

Optional:

openssl, ca-certificates

Arch:

qt5-base

Optional:

openssl, ca-certificates

License

Info: If I take code from your project and that implies a relicense to GPLv3, you can reuse my changes with the original previous license of your project applied.

Acknowledgment

I really appreciate those who have shown interest in the develpment process:

  • Cosmo.
  • ismatori.
  • The members of the Sugus GNU/Linux association.

Flameshot on Github

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