How to make Shutter as the default screenshot tool?

Question

I have shutter 0.90 on my Ubuntu 12.04 machine (installed via PPA). I would like to use it as my default screenshot tool with the Print shortcut key. But I can't find the option in Shutter. It should be in Preferences -> Keyboard, but I don't see the Keyboard option there. I also tried to make a shortcut in Ubuntu with shutter -f. It doesn't work too.

What can I do to use shutter when I press the Print key?

Answer 1

We need to install CompizConfig Settings Manager (CCSM) to bind Print and Alt + Print to Shutter. Follow these steps:

1. Install compizconfig-settings-manager .

2. Open Dash (press Super) and query for ccsm and hit Enter to run CompizConfig Settings Manager.

   

3. Under the General Category, you would find the option called Gnome Compatibility. Click on it (not the Checkbox beside it, ie; keep the checkmark activated).

   

4. Now switch to the Commands Tab and modify the text fields as shown in the following image.

   

5. Explanation of previous step. You can run man shutter in terminal to see what are the different CAPTURE MODE OPTIONS available.

   • Screenshot command line: shutter -f - This captures the entire screen. Activated when you press Print.
   • Window screenshot command line: shutter -a - This captures the current active window. Activated when you press Alt + Print.

Enjoy taking screenshots with Shutter!!

Answer 2

Ubuntu 14.04: for some reason neither "CompizConfig ⇒ Gnome Compatibility" nor "All Settings ⇒ Keyboard ⇒ Screenshots" worked for me. One thing that helped me was to define custom global shortcuts. I went to "All Settings ⇒ Keyboard ⇒ Screenshots" and removed all conflicting bindings on a "Print" key, which I was going to use.

Then in the same window I opened a "Custom Shortcuts" section and created two custom shortcuts for Shutter.

• Full screen with Shutter – shutter -f
• Take a screenshot of an area with Shutter – shutter -s

Answer 3

Without installing anything other than shutter, go into system settings, then keyboard, click the shortcuts tab, click custom shortcuts, then the + button to add for example, the following custom command :

. . name = shutter -f  
. . command = shutter -f -e -o 'Desktop/%name_%T.png'  

and click the apply button. Now click that new line in the list of custom commands and hit the print screen key. This will reassign the key to take a snapshot using shutter.

To see the shutter options, type man shutter into a terminal screen. My example takes a full screen screenshot and saves it to the desktop with no other user interaction needed.

Other useful options are to replace the -f with -a for the active window, and with -s for a selectable rectangular portion of the screen.

Having taken some screenshots you can use them directly from the desktop (or wherever you saved them to) or annotate them etc by opening the shutter program itself, in which they appear.

Answer 4

I am not using Ubuntu 15.10 Unity Distro. So the the Gnome Compatibility tool of compiz just didn't worked for me. So I used Michael's method (above). Go to All Settings -> Keyboard -> Screenshots.

Then at first disable the "Take a Screenshot", "Take a screenshot of a window" and "Take a screenshot of an area" options by clicking on the options and pressing backspace.

And then go to "Custom Shortcuts" option and click on the plus button to add a new shortcut. To create screenshot for the whole desktop write the command "shutter-f" and and to take a particular area screenshot write the command "shutter-s".

Now after creating two Custom Shortcuts you have to assign the key to these Custom Shortcuts. Click on the "Disabled" area and press the key that you want to assign to this function. I recommend to use "Print" Key for full screen captor and "Shift+Print" for an area to captor.

Close the window, and then you are good to go...

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Similarly you can even use gnome-screenshot tool. Just use "gnome-screenshot" command for full screen shot and use "gnome-screenshot -a" command for using the tool for an area. You can also use"gnome-screenshot -w" command for capturing a specific window.

I actually use gnome-screenshot tool because I it is way more fast and light weight. But it has less feature.

Answer 5

Ubuntu 14.04 has a screenshot section now. Doesn't answer your question, but it's a simple alternative.