Scratch is a vampire!!!

[Blain Brown]

Now that I'm getting comfortable with Scratch, I want to use it to create some demonstration videos about simple image manipulation for use in my film school classes. I like Scratch for this as it has the image, the controls (such as curves) and a waveform monitor on the same screen; better than Resolve for my purposes (I don't care for the multicolored waveform monitor in Resolve, too difficult to read.)

The problem is that when it comes to screen capture software, Scratch is a vampire! Litteraly. It is invisible in a mirror (actually in screen capture). I start the screen capture and you can see the image fine, but once I do anything, such as play the timeline or make an adjustment to the image: the screen capture either goes blank (although you can still see the mouse pointer moving) or the image freezes: nothing changes on screen (even if the timeline is playing) but again you can still see the mouse pointer moving, just as it did in Scratch.

I've tried four different screen capture apps; both on Windows 7 and on Windows 7 running in Parallels on a Mac Pro. Some either record a blank screen (although the initial Scratch screen is always there until I change something and it disappears) or the first screen "freezes" although the mouse still moves.

The reason I am asking here is clearly there must be something about how Scratch operates; how it displays. Anybody know how it is different. For example, I have no trouble at all recording screen capture videos of Resolve or other software. Any way I can get Scratch to operate differently or perhaps some type of screen capture software I can use? I've tried Camtasia, Camstudio, and a couple of others. Microsoft Expression Encoder came closest.

Any ideas are welcome.

[Marc Wielage]

I've seen this kind of behavior before, usually when a piece of software is using a display card in a non-standard, proprietary way (sometimes for a good reason).

Assuming you're in North America, my advice would be to contact Assimilate and talk to the support guys:

Assimilate, Inc.
3375 Scott Boulevard - Suite 300
Santa Clara, CA 95054
(408) 484-9001
http://www.assimilateinc.com/

[Mark Noland]

Try the "Print Screen" key on your keyboard.
If it does not copy your screen to the clipboard then follow the instructions below.
The following is from Assimilate's online help.

Best
Mark

Use the SConfig.txt File




Starting with Build 492 of SCRATCH, a new file named SConfig.txt is created as part of the installation.This file is used to configure the many Environment Variables that activate certain functions and behaviors within SCRATCH. The SConfig.txt file is located at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Assimilator\Settings and can be edited using any basic text editing program, such as Notepad.
Simply open the file in the text editor, find the Environment Variable you would like to activate, remove the pound sign [#] from the beginning of the line and fill in a value for the variable.


For example, when SCRATCH runs it takes over the PRINT SCREEN button on the keyboard and uses it to save snapshots from the SCRATCH View Port. However, there is an Environment Variable which will disable this feature and allow the PRINT SCREEN button to function as a normal screen grab of the entire interface.


To begin, exit SCRATCH and make a backup copy of the SConfig.txt file.
Now open the SConfig.txt file in a text editing program like Notepad.
Scroll down through the file about halfway until you find the following lines:


; Don't use 'Print Screen' key for snapshot functionality
#AS_NO_SNAPSHOT =




To enable this function, remove the pound sign at the beginning and add a 1 after the equals sign.
Your modified entry should look like this:


; Don't use 'Print Screen' key for snapshot functionality
AS_NO_SNAPSHOT = 1




Now, save the file and run SCRATCH.
The PRINT SCREEN key will now take a snapshot of the entire screen and place it in the copy buffer for pasting into other programs.