Friday, April 29, 2011

UPDATE: Samsung Fascinate tip #1: Froyo Screen Capture

written by: Nick Kosmides

So, you've had your Fascinate for as long as I have and have muscled through the hell that was Android 2.1.  You've made it this far and didn't give in to your lame friends promoting their iPhones as better than your phone because it can take a screen capture of itself.  Well now that you have Froyo that is not the case anymore.

Not sure if this is something that Verizon or Samsung threw in there, because I haven't been able to pull anything up online other than using the SDK.  But the Samsung Fascinate is now equipped with the ability to capture an image of the screen.  To take a pic ,simply hold the Back button and simultaneously press the Power button.  If enabled you'll hear a sound effect and a text notification will pop at the bottom of the screen informing you that the screen capture was taken.  That's it!

The system saves it in a new folder found on the root called "ScreenCapture".  The images are saved as PNG files, or Portable Network Graphics, and the file name structure should appear as "SC[year][month][day]-[time]"


You can easy see all your screen shots by going into the Gallery.  Above is a screen shot of my home screen.  Some apps may make it difficult to capture an image depending on the Back button functionality.  Basic rule of thumb is -- if the Back button can be held without affecting the app, then you can take a pic.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Upon sniffing around the innards of the device, I found the "com.sec.android.app.screencapture" application that most likely allows us to capture our favorite on screen moments.

UPDATE #2: If you are visiting this page from a Google search or whatever, please use the comments below to let me know if this was helpful or is missing some information you may have been searching for.