Bug 387721

Summary:	"screenshotArea" dbus API needs a "selectArea" method or similar
Product:	[Plasma] kwin	Reporter:	Jehan <jehan>
Component:	effects-various	Assignee:	KWin default assignee <kwin-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	anakin.cs, bugseforuns, kde, Luc.Lalonde, nate, postix
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Jehan 2017-12-08 23:23:31 UTC

I have implemented screenshot through KWin API in GIMP. It is working fine except for the rectangular area screenshot.

"org.kde.kwin.Screenshot" provides a "screenshotArea" method, but it requires to get coordinates. While this could be done in X11, in Wayland, this can only be done through an API.

Here is for instance GNOME API for screenshots: https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-shell/tree/data/org.gnome.Shell.Screenshot.xml
As you can see it provides a "SelectArea" method which allows to select a rectangular area interactively and returns coordinates and width/length.

Could KDE implement something similar?

It looks like you could also make good usage of it. In Spectacle code, I see that grabRectangularRegion() shows an "// unsupported", so I assume it doesn't work in your own screenshot application (untested, just assumption! :P):
https://cgit.kde.org/spectacle.git/tree/src/PlatformBackends/KWinWaylandImageGrabber.cpp

Anyway thanks!

Comment 1 Martin Flöser 2017-12-09 11:13:50 UTC

Yes, the area call is from X11 times and currently unsupported on Wayland. It would raise a dbus error.

Comment 2 Luc Lalonde 2019-09-26 15:00:22 UTC

Would this error message be related to this problem:

Execution error for 'Screenshot':
GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownObject: No such object path '/Screenshot'

Here's my version:

gimp-2.10.12-3.module_f30+6174+bc22f659.x86_64

I'm running X11... not Wayland.

Comment 3 Luc Lalonde 2019-09-26 15:03:28 UTC

If I launch Gimp using 'dbus-launch' I do not get this error.

Comment 4 David Edmundson 2023-05-11 08:56:43 UTC

For it to be useful, this needs to be in the xdg-portal. We will support all features there.