[enhancement] Should be possible to take a screen shot on the phone from the phone itself

[Rick Spencer]

Currently, the only way to take a screenshot is to attach the phone to a computer via USB and use phablet-screenshot.

There should be a way to take a screenshot from the phone. Otherwise, it will be hard for people to share how great their phone is on social media, as well as other functions.

--------------------------------------------
Proposed design:
- For triggering: Volume Up + Volume Down
- For indicating the user: White layer opacity animation shown in attached video + shutter sound

[Cemil Azizoglu (cemil-azizoglu)]

Adding unity8 where this can be implemented.

Screenshot plumbing already exists in Mir.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

We could do it in the outer server too (unity-system-compositor). Although there's the problem of where to store the image file. It makes more sense to to it in the inner server (unity8) so we have a user account and directories to write the screenshot to.

[Alberto Aguirre (albaguirre)]

I agree that it makes more sense to do it in the unity8 server.

However, the screencast plumbing cannot be used as is as qtmir implements Compositor not DisplayBufferCompositor. The screenshots obtained would be recomposed using our default compositor which wouldn't match qtmir compositor output.

Since the screenshotting will be done in unity8 shell on the server side, I think its easier to just implement the required functionality in qtmir (i.e. dumping it's display buffer) directly instead of trying to adapt the screencast plumbing.

Adapting it would require qtmir to at least implement DisplayBufferCompositor and DisplayBufferCompositorFactory.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I suggest some simple glReadPixels is sufficient :)

Mir's current screen{shot,cast} infrastructure is a bit complicated and designed on the assumption that rendering everything twice is faster than rendering everything once with a glReadPixels in the loop. I think that assumption may yet be proven false. So a simple glReadPixels could work (even from inside QtMir).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Gerry Boland (gerboland)]

I'd like to point you to:
https://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5/qquickwindow.html#grabWindow

QtMir exposes a Mir display as a QWindow, so this method will generate the image you want.

I suspect this would be better implemented in unity8

[Alberto Aguirre (albaguirre)]

@Gerry,

Yes, that's what I'm using - however grabwindow needs to be implemented by the platform in qtmir which I've done.

[Alberto Aguirre (albaguirre)]

@Gerry,

Actually I'm using QScreen::grabWindow which is what needs the platform implementation.

[Alberto Aguirre (albaguirre)]

@Gerry,

Ok QQuickWindow::grabWindow does the job and is much less intrusive :) Thanks!

[Michael Zanetti (mzanetti)]

Adding design to decide on how to trigger this.

[Albert Astals Cid (aacid)]

Also getting some info on how to notify the user from deisgn would be good, current implementation is a fading rectangle, maybe a simple notification would do?

[Vesa Rautiainen (vesar)]

I very much favor this enhancement!

iOS: Power button + Home button
Android: Power button + Volume Down
Windows: Power button + Volume Up

So there is no unified convention across different platforms.
So let's say Power button + Volume Down it is.

Is this kind of key combination something we can implement?

[Alberto Aguirre (albaguirre)]

@Vesa,

Volume Up + Volume Down is what's implemented as that's the least intrusive code change, since power turns on/off the screen (needs more code changes to our unity-system-compositor).

Is Volume Up + Volume Down ok?

[Alberto Aguirre (albaguirre)]

@Vesa,

What about notifying the user the screenshot was taken? Currently it's a white fade in-fade out (I'll record a video in a bit).

[Vesa Rautiainen (vesar)]

I reckon Volume Up + Volume Down is as fine. Not a big deal imo.

[Albert Astals Cid (aacid)]

Ping on what's the way to notify the user and if what we do at the moment is sufficient.

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

I would skip a notification, but I will add something to the notification center ("screenshot taken, tap to open gallery...")

[Andrea Cimitan (cimi)]

will/would

[Alberto Aguirre (albaguirre)]

Screengrabbing opacity animation

[Vesa Rautiainen (vesar)]

We definitely need some immediate visual feedback of the screen capture. I like the simple animation in the video as it's very fast and not very intrusive for the user. Adding shutter release sound that we use in Camera application would be a plus.

Maybe adding an item to the notification center as Cimi suggested might be quite nice idea for the future. At least there would be a direct link to the photo available conveniently.

[Michał Sawicz (saviq)]

This bug was fixed in the package unity8 - 8.01+15.04.20141104-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity8 (8.01+15.04.20141104-0ubuntu1) vivid; urgency=low

  [ Sebastien Bacher ]
  * Drop workaround, it's not needed and create issues for desktop-next
    (LP: #1387671)

  [ Albert Astals ]
  * Do not append integer to char *
  * Remove unused end() function
  * Update build.sh
  * Fix i18n

  [ Michael Zanetti ]
  * rework launcher quicklist visuals to fit new design (LP: #1368660)
  * Fix DBusVariant conversion for launcher emblems (LP: #1387261)
  * Fix desktop file encoding in launcher (LP: #1387083)
  * Add a hinting animation to indicate changes in the backend (LP:
    #1376707)

  [ Alberto Aguirre ]
  * Add audioRole to QtMultimedia mock
  * Add a plugin to take screenshots on vol up + vol down

  [ CI bot ]
  * Fix relative time formatter when using non-UTC timezone. (LP:
    #1378821)

  [ Leo Arias ]
  * Removed the tests for the alternate paths of the autopilot helpers.

  [ Nick Dedekind ]
  * Fix relative time formatter when using non-UTC timezone. (LP:
    #1378821)
  * Reset current item selection on deleted. (LP: #1378462)
  * Added timer to re-assert server value after indicator menu item
    activation. (LP: #1336715)

  [ Mirco Müller ]
  * Added dedicated swipe-to-act button for snap-decisions, which avoids
    accidental taps/button-presses. (LP: #1358343)

  [ Chris Gagnon ]
  * add missing unity-scope-click dependancy to unity8-autopilot package
    (LP: #1336276)

  [ Michael Terry ]
  * Don't lock phone if user tries to switch back to an active call.
    (LP: #1388156)

  [ Daniel d'Andrada ]
  * DirectionalDragArea: Update TODO comment in light of new events
  * TouchDispatcher: synthesize MouseButtonDblClick events

  [ Leonardo Arias Fonseca ]
  * Removed the tests for the alternate paths of the autopilot helpers.
 -- Ubuntu daily release <email address hidden> Tue, 04 Nov 2014 12:56:08 +0000