Bug 501210

Summary:	Screenshot should include annotations outside the crop area
Product:	[Applications] Spectacle	Reporter:	Jin Liu <ad.liu.jin>
Component:	General	Assignee:	Noah Davis <noahadvs>
Status:	REPORTED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	kde, nate
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	git-master
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Arch Linux
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	step expected actual

Description Jin Liu 2025-03-08 02:36:47 UTC

SUMMARY

I usually want to crop a screen area and annotate outside it. But currently, only annotations inside the crop area are saved. So I have to add annotations later in Gwenview.

(Gwenview allows annotating outside the picture, while Spectacle's "viewer" doesn't.)

It would be good if:

a) The screenshot would automatically resize to include all annotations, including those outside the crop area.
b) And/or, a second bounds box is available, so the user can manually resize the screenshot to include annotations.

Problems:
What would be the background color for margins outside the crop area? Maybe a new option?

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2025-03-11 21:49:36 UTC

Hmm, can you clarify exactly what you're doing here? Maybe with steps to reproduce?

Comment 2 Jin Liu 2025-03-12 01:07:27 UTC

Created attachment 179325 [details]
step

Comment 3 Jin Liu 2025-03-12 01:07:45 UTC

Created attachment 179326 [details]
expected

Comment 4 Jin Liu 2025-03-12 01:08:02 UTC

Created attachment 179327 [details]
actual

Comment 5 Jin Liu 2025-03-12 01:12:46 UTC

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> Hmm, can you clarify exactly what you're doing here? Maybe with steps to
> reproduce?

See the attachment "step" for what I did: selected a window, annotated outside, and pressed "Save".

See the attachment "expected" for what I expected (which I actually made a snapshot first, then annotated in Gwenview, which allows me to annotate outside the image).

See the attachment "actual" for what Spectacle actually saved: I don't expect my annotations to be cropped out.

Comment 6 Nate Graham 2025-03-12 17:58:01 UTC

I see now, thanks. But if you want the entire annotation to be included in the resulting image, why not crop differently so that it's included? That's what I do when I have this use case.

Comment 7 Noah Davis 2025-03-12 18:29:05 UTC

FWIW, pre-23.04 Spectacle did have the ability to expand the final image to contain annotations. The area outside the screenshot was just a blank canvas. The new version doesn't because it was a bit too much work to implement along with the rest of the changes.