[X Newbies] Screenshots

[Norman Cohen]

Think about it. If you are using a service that is going to insert 
something (such as grab, which inserts an image), your active 
application has to be in a mode where it can accept the insertion of an 
image. Thus the grab service works in a Mail message body, a TextEdit 
window, etc. It won't work in Safari, because there's no capability to 
insert the image into a web page.

When a program makes a service available to other programs, it 
advertises what sort of data will result from the service or what sort 
of data the service operates upon. Not all services insert things. Some 
will take selected text and do something, like opening the selected 
text in a web browser. In this case the service assumes that the text 
is a URL. It it isn't, your browser will try to open the text and will 
then give you an error message when it realizes that the text is not a 
valid URL. Also, if no text is selected in the active application, lo 
and behold, the services that operate on text aren't available. This is 
the same principle as with Grab. If there's no place to put the image, 
the service isn't available.

Thus, I disagree that Grab is poorly implemented. I just think that 
many people don't understand these fundamental concepts about services. 
Apple needs to do a better job explaining them, and that's a different 
issue entirely.

Norm
On Wednesday, May 7, 2003, at 11:57  PM, George H-S wrote:

> Since this inquiring mind wanted to know I did extensive 
> opening/closing of
> forty applications looking at Services>Grab in all of them. I found 
> that of
> the forty applications I looked at only three seemed to ever have the 
> three
> choices of Services>Grab>Screen/Selection/Timed Screen usable: Mail,
> Stickies, Text Edit.  It only works on these when the cursor is in the 
> main
> body area of the window.  It will then do a screencopy and place it 
> inside
> the text area.  In Mail it is an option for a new message when the 
> cursor is
> in the BODY: area, not if it is in the TO: or SUBJECT:If I was outside 
> that
> area the choices were gray and not selectable.  If any of these 
> applications
> are opened but not out front it doesn't work either.  Shift-Cmd-3/4 
> always
> works for me.  Grab seems to be a weak application IMHO.
>
>
Norman Cohen
nacohen at mac.com