April 1st is a big day for the Ubuntu Manual Project, with their beta released and an announcement of a new audio book edition. The fun doesn’t stop yet as the team have just unleashed a usable alpha version of their screenshotting superhero app Quickshot.
Quickshot is a python application designed to make it easy for all users to capture translated screenshots using an intuitive and semi-automated step-by-step process. Its principal use is with the Ubuntu Manual Project but it will also support configuration and customization for other projects in the near future.
In a little under two months, Quickshot has gone from conception and hand-drawn sketches into a functional application designed to serve a specific purpose.
Some features:
- Auto crops screenshots
- Sets screen resolution automatically
- Compare your screenshots to an example before uploading
- Works with all languages
- Custom Quickshot Live CD for easy use
- Server-side screenshot database with descriptions
- Automatic locale recognition and appropriate naming conventions
Quickshot will revolutionize how translated screenshots are captured in a consistent and efficient manner by simplifying the process a great deal and ensuring documentation projects get quality localized screenshots in a short amount of time.
Not only have the Quickshot developers managed to create this application from scratch in a small amount of time, but an interesting addition is the Quickshot Live CD which contains the Ubuntu 10.04 core operating system, all language packs and Quickshot itself. You can literally just pop the CD in your drive and start taking screenshots with the default Ubuntu desktop!
How you can help
The Ubuntu Manual Team need to capture around 2500 screenshots in 50 different languages in three weeks. They need your help!
If you are not using Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04), the easiest, and recommended way to use Quickshot is to download the Quickshot Live CD by clicking the big green button below and boot into that to take screenshots.
Already using Ubuntu 10.04? Add our PPA by running these commands in a terminal:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:quickshotdevs/quickshot-release
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install quickshot
Using Quickshot
It’s really quite simple and you should have no trouble following the instructions in the application itself. Here’s the general order of business:
1. Open Quickshot (Applications ’ Accessories â’ Quickshot)
2. Create a Quickshot user and login
3. Let Quickshot set your screen resolution
4. Download the list of screenshots
5. Choose a screenshot
6. Set your desktop up
7. Capture, Compare and Upload!
Remember that the team doesn’t just want screenshots in English. The whole point of Quickshot is to get screenshots in dozens of languages – so please don’t be afraid to change your language and take some more!
Please note that this software is still very young and hasn’t been fully tested, so if you come across bugs we want to hear from you!