There are two types of screenshots: graphical and textual. The philosophy on using these two types is rely on text over graphics. This means, if you can say it in text instead of showing a graphic, do so. A graphical screenshot of a GUI can create a good setting of objects to then describe textually, but you don't want to create a screenshot for each graphical step.
The main reason for this preference is that a block of text can usually convey more meaning than the same physical space of graphics. This is highly dependent on the graphic; obviously, a photographic image of a scene can convey more than 1000 words can. A GUI screenshot is usually full of blank space with a few elements that can just as easily be described or listed.
The steps for taking a graphical screenshot illustrate how using text to describe a procedure is more concise than a series of screenshots.
Set the theme to Bluecurve defaults. This gives a look that is familiar to most readers, and makes Fedora Documentation Project documents consistent. From the panel menu, choose Preferences, Theme and select Bluecurve from the theme list.
Set fonts to Bluecurve defaults as well. From the panel menu, choose Preferences, Fonts. Set the Application font and the Desktop font to Sans Regular 10. Set the Window Title font to Sans Bold 10. Set the Terminal font to Monospace Regular 10.
Before taking the screenshot, try to resize the targeted GUI element(s) to the smallest possible size they can be. Your target is an image of 500 pixels or less. If you are doing a screenshot of more than one GUI element, you may need to resize the screenshot in a following step.
To take the screenshot, select the GUI element with your mouse, bringing it to the forefront, or otherwise arranging the elements. Press Alt-Print Screen to capture a single GUI window. For capturing the entire desktop use Print Screen. If you are taking a shot of multiple elements and have grouped them closely together, you can crop the resulting image in The GIMP. The image will be in the PNG format.
If you need to, you can resize using The GIMP. With the image open, right-click on it and choose Image -> Scale Image.... With the chain symbol intact, set the New Width to 500 px, and click OK. Be sure to Ctrl-s to save your changes to your PNG before converting to EPS.
With the image open in The GIMP, right-click on the image, selecting File -> Save As.... Under Determine File Type:, select PostScript, then click OK. Allow flattening of the image by clicking Export.
In the Save as PostScript window, select Encapsulated PostScript, and click OK.
For more information about calling the images from the XML, refer
to Section 6.12, “figure”.
Textual screen information is also useful for readers. If you
use a graphical screenshot to illustrate a function, and the
textual mode has identical functions, you should not include
both, unless omitting either would make your description
unclear. You should make your information generic over specific.
Omit the username and machine information, and separate what the
user types from sample command output. Also, in
screen tags, what the user types should be in
userinput tags, and what the user is shown as
output should be in computeroutput tags.
For example, the usage in
Example 2.1, “Incorrect Textual Screenshot” should look like Example 2.2, “Correct Textual Screenshot”.
ps ax | grep ssh2564 ? S 0:23 /usr/sbin/sshd 3092 ? S 0:00 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients 8235 ? S 0:00 ssh -Nf rocky@philadelphia.net -L 6667:localhost 17223 pts/0 S 0:00 ssh rbalboa@core-router7 17227 pts/2 S 0:10 ssh rbalboa@smbshare2 21113 pts/7 S 1:19 ssh rocky@xxx.private
Example 2.1. Incorrect Textual Screenshot
To find all the currently active ssh sessions, execute the following command:
ps ax | grep ssh
The output will appear similar to:
2564 ? S 0:23 /usr/sbin/sshd
3092 ? S 0:00 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients
8032 pts/0 S 0:00 ssh user@host.example.com
8032 pts/1 S 0:00 ssh root@backup.example.com
Example 2.2. Correct Textual Screenshot
For more information about using screen, refer to Section 6.22, “screen”.