ScreenshotScribbler (scrscr)

A command line tool scrscr and a library that creates a new image with same dimensions as a given screenshot, adds a background, reduces the size of the original screenshot, places it nicely and scribbles a caption next to it.

Setup

The scrscr command can be easily installed via Homebrew, or by cloning the repository and using the Makefile or by building everything manually.

Homebrew

Tap this repository:

$ brew tap goeldner/formulae

Install the package:

$ brew install scrscr

Make

If you want to use make, there is a Makefile defined for this project. Clone the repository, change into the folder, then execute following to install the scrscr command to your /usr/local/bin folder:

$ make clean install

Build

You can also build and install manually. Clone the repository, change into the folder, then execute:

$ swift build --configuration release
$ cp -f .build/release/scrscr /usr/local/bin/scrscr

Usage

By default, the tool places the caption on top and the screenshot on bottom of the image. It uses a white background, black caption and a subtle shadow behind the screenshot.

Following example uses the default settings:

$ scrscr --caption "Scribble this caption" --screenshot example-input.png --output example-output.png

The layout may be customized by using several command line options. Display the help about all available commands and options:

$ scrscr --help
$ scrscr help decorate

Following example defines all basic options including their default values:

$ scrscr decorate \
    --caption "Example output with default options and long caption" \
    --screenshot example-input.png \
    --output example-output-default.png \
    --layout "caption-before-screenshot" \
    --background-color "#FFFFFF" \
    --background-image-scaling "stretch-fill" \
    --background-image-alignment "middle center" \
    --caption-size-factor 0.25 \
    --caption-alignment "center" \
    --caption-color "#000000" \
    --caption-font-name "SF Compact" \
    --caption-font-style "Bold" \
    --caption-font-size 32 \
    --screenshot-size-factor 0.85 \
    --screenshot-corner-radius 5 \
    --screenshot-shadow-size 5 \
    --screenshot-shadow-color "#000000" \
    --screenshot-border-size 0 \
    --screenshot-border-color "#000000" \
    --verbose

Please also have a look at the examples.sh script and Examples folder for more usage scenarios.

Layout types

There are four different layout types available, which can be defined using the --layout option:

• caption-before-screenshot (default)
• caption-after-screenshot
• caption-between-screenshots
• screenshot-only

All layouts can be customized further, i.e. the options --caption-size-factor and --screenshot-size-factor enable more variations.

Examples of the four different layout types:

     

Colors and gradients

Defining colors on the command line is inspired by a subset of the widely known CSS syntax.

A single color may be defined in hexadecimal syntax as follows, where each two digits define the red, green and blue part of the color:

--background-color "#0099FF"

Some options also support gradients, i.e. the --caption-color, --background-color and --screenshot-border-color. For gradients, at least two colors have to be defined. The colors are rendered from top to bottom by default.

Linear gradients:

--background-color "linear-gradient(#FF0000, #FFA500, #FFFF00, #00FF00, #0000FF, #FF00FF)"

Radial gradients:

--background-color "radial-gradient(#FF0000, #0000FF)"

Specify gradient directions by using an optional direction argument before the list of color arguments. This is “to-bottom” by default but can be a horizontal direction (i.e. “to-right” or “to-left”), a vertical direction (i.e. “to-bottom” or “to-top”) or a diagonal direction (i.e. “to-bottom-right”, “to-bottom-left”, “to-top-right” or “to-top-left”):

--background-color "linear-gradient(to-bottom-right, #FFFFFF, #000000)"

More specialized backgrounds are possible by defining a background image that is rendered behind the screenshot, for example with following options:

--background-image Examples/example-background.jpg
--background-image-scaling "aspect-fill"
--background-image-alignment "bottom"    

Examples of background gradients and images:

   

Config file

It is possible to load all options from a JSON file instead of defining them on command line. Specify a path to a JSON file using the --config option. The settings from the file are applied first and can be overridden by settings from command line.

All settings have the same names as on command line, but written in camel case. Partial JSON files are supported, so it is possible to define only a small set of options inside the file. All missing options are supplied with default values.

Following example defines all options and their default values in JSON:

{
  "layout" : {
    "layoutType" : "caption-before-screenshot"
  },
  "screenshot" : {
    "screenshotBorderColor" : "#000000",
    "screenshotBorderSize" : 0,
    "screenshotCornerRadius" : 5,
    "screenshotShadowColor" : "#000000",
    "screenshotShadowSize" : 5,
    "screenshotSizeFactor" : 0.85
  },
  "background" : {
    "backgroundColor" : "#FFFFFF",
    "backgroundImageAlignment" : "middle center",
    "backgroundImageScaling" : "stretch-fill"
  },
  "caption" : {
    "captionAlignment" : "center",
    "captionColor" : "#000000",
    "captionFontName" : "SF Compact",
    "captionFontSize" : 32,
    "captionFontStyle" : "Bold",
    "captionSizeFactor" : 0.25
  }
}

About

I started developing this tool as a side project, because I did not want to use fastlane for any reason, which provides something similar with its frameit plugin. I wanted to have a simple command line tool, which I just can call in my scripts (that already generate screenshots automatically) in order to beautify them for the App Store.

This project uses pure CoreGraphics and CoreText APIs for layouting (no AppKit or UIKit), so it should be quite portable.

There will be updates and new features from time to time and I try to keep working on it, as long as I use it myself.

Coffee

If you like this project, you could buy me a coffee or become my GitHub Sponsor: