Hide borders

Hi,
 
I do not own Hypersnap nor any other screen capture because it seems there is no program out there that can do what I describe below in the original forum post. After I created that post I continued my Google searches and The closest program I could find is.
http://download.cnet.com/...0-2192_4-10660661.html
However It turns out that although the above program can (hide the borders and show multiple images on the two monitors) the individual images it is showing in its multiple occurances of itself can not be brought to the front by a keystroke control program (I am assuming this is because it is not yet windows complient - It has no install process and no registry entry records). The other problem with it is I can not issue a command like this 
Dim MyAppID, ReturnValue
MyAppID = Shell("C:\WINDOWS\system32\mspaint.exe " & strPath, vbMaximizedFocus)
to get at the image and the program for the external control program that will later bring the individual selected images to the front of the screen. I can bring up the images with it only by opening the program over and over and doing a file open process (way too slow to make it practical).
 
What is all this for. It is to create a market trading training screen which can control these snapshots (multiple snapshots) of anything. So it is not a simple slideshow but rather all sorts of images being controlled by the control program but they must not have borders. In other words the images must look exactly like the original program looked like which was used to create the screen shot.
 
Someone may be tempered so suggest a video capture of the screen but this is not realistic because the images (situations)  are hypothetical creations.
 
So the question is "will hypersnap have this ability soon and if not might there be a program that does which I could not find with my several hours of google searching?"
 
Thanks,
John
 
 
Original request on another forum.
=========================================================
 
Is there any program that can display a snapshot image of a screen which is in file format (bmp or png or jpg or any file type) such that there is no border that can be seen (such that it looks exactly like the screen that was the source of the snapshot). For example a snapshot image of IB’s TWS.

In addition to the above it needs to be able to;

**size it to the exact original size (better if this can be done after the border is removed so that it is easier to get the correct size)

**to be able to grab it and move it anywhere on the screen (better if this can be done after the border is removed)

**to be able to have more than one of these snapshots showing such that it looks exactly like a real trading setup in a multi monitor setup.

**The snapshot images can be overlayed on top of each other at times (an external program will control which one moves to the front).

**Lastly it must be possible to edit the file (if need be with a different program).


Programs that can NOT do this include MS-paint brush, MS photo editor, MS Picture and Fax viewer. MS-paintbrush is the best but still shows the border. 
 

Hi John,
it's hard for me to understand what you exactly mean. Some kind of graphical illustration of the end effect would be needed to understand it better.
HyperSnap can capture the whole monitor or a fragment of it. You could e.g. capture the entire Widows desktop, then display it in full screen mode, so that what you captured looks like the desktop itself as it was at the time of the capture, spread over the enitre monitor, and without any borders. On top of this you could paste smaller captures (e.g. individual windows or regions - rectangular or other shape, and move them around as you wish. But is this what you need?
 
Look at the 2 attached PNG images. I captured empty desktop from my laptop, then two fragments of your post above, and moved them around. All of this was displayed on my laptop's monitore at the full size and without any frames. It can be also saved as .dhs file, re-opened and you may after such re-opening move the fragments again, add more or delete them. Don't know if this is what you need or not?
 
Greg

Attached Image(s)

Hi Greg,
 
Thanks for your response. I am not sure I can create an image but I can describe it better I think.
 
Maybe HyperSnap can do what I want. It may just be a terminology problem. I use the word "border" and you I think are using the word "frame".  If might be that I need to try the software again and figure out how to remove the frame when I open the .dhs file such that the snapshot looks exactly the same (in size) as it did when the snapshot was taken. I say this because of your quote below.
 
"then two fragments of your post above, and moved them around. All of this was displayed on my laptop's monitore at the full size and without any frames. It can be also saved as .dhs file, re-opened and you may after such re-opening move the fragments again, add more or delete them. "
 
Here is what I want to do. I have a trading screen (2 monitors or 3 monitors). I want to recreate a simulation of a trading setup such that it looks almost 100% real for training purposes. During simulation the person will see a few programs that are actually running (the charting program, Winamp, etc). However the execution software (and one other software) will be screen capture snapshots rather than real. Both of these softwares (which are screen captures rather than real) with have from 2 to 8 or so screen capture snapshots and they will all be stacked/located perfectly in the same location on the monitor (exactly where the real program would appear during a live trading day). Each snapshot of the execution software will be a mockup of what it will look like during the trade cycle. So to run the simulation a database program (what one might call the simulation control program) will issue commands to MS-Windows to either activate a software or activate one of the snapshot images bringing it to the front so it is the one the person sees. To bring an image to the front so the image is visible to the user the Hypersnap instance that is displaying the image needs to have a taskbar name which contains the file name of the image that it opened. For example "ExecutionBeforeTradeEntry.dhs" or "ExecutionAfterTradeEntry.dhs" or "ExecutionAfterTradeTargetIsReached.dhs". The exact visual basic command that is issued by the control program is AppActivate("ExecutionAfterTradeEntry.dhs") or AppActivate("ExecutionAfterTradeTargetIsReached.dhs"). This visual basic AppActivate command searchs the windows taskbar and finds this name (it must be unique) then makes that program active. So as I said every image that Hypersnap is displaying must have a unique name in the taskbar. So in order for this to appear very real to the user the instances of HyperSnap need to only show the snapshot (no border/frame) around the snapshot. So in other words, no Hypersnap commands are visible, no blue grab and move area at the top such as appears in MS-paint-brush. Absolutely everything from Hypersnap itself must be 100% hidden even though an instance of hypersnap is running in order to display this screen snapshot on the monitor. In other words, the user of the simulation has no way of immediately knowing if they are seeing an image of the software or the actual software running and only by studying the numbers and noticing that they are not moving and they do not match the chart can they tell.[/style] The software "CaputureScreen" does this by making the commands appear only when you right click on the image.

The other thing that Hypersnap must be able to do is to be callable from the "database simulation control program" via a command line as shown in the first post. For example, if three images were taken for the simulation the three "visual basic" calls to Hypersnap may look like this.
MyAppID = Shell("C:\WINDOWS\system32\Hypersnap.exe C:\ExecutionBeforeTradeEntry.dhs", vbMaximizedFocus)
MyAppID = Shell("C:\WINDOWS\system32\Hypersnap.exe C:\ExecutionAfterTradeEntry.dhs", vbMaximizedFocus)
MyAppID = Shell("C:\WINDOWS\system32\Hypersnap.exe C:\ExecutionAfterTradeTargetIsReached.dhs", vbMaximizedFocus)
Note, I use vbMaximizedFocus but I may need to change this (not sure). When I open these images in MS-paintbrush they appear the size of the image as I last saved it and I have to resize to make the image fit exactly where the software normally runs on the screen during the live trading day. I will have to play around with that part.  It is during these opens of the snapshot images that Hypersnap needs to assign a unique name to each taskbar entry.
 
I am hoping that it is possible for Hypersnap to be set to default to not showing the border/frame when an image is opened after it has been saved in .dhs format. It would be fairly time consuming to have to change all 12+ images to hide the frame. However the visual basic  control program can issue key stroke commands to a program after it activates it (only if it is windows compliant). So if Hypersnap is MS-Windows compliant and if it has a string of keystrokes that can be issued to control hiding the border/frame then the control program can issue the keys automatically. A program like MacroExpress may be able to issue a right mouse click even (not sure about this).
 
I think that describes it fairly well (I hope).

Update:
I re-installed HyperSnap and I can see no way to get Hypersnap to display this image exactly as it looked when I took a snapshot of it (and set it up to do this just by clicking on the file name). I looked at something called "presentation mode" in the help but I do not see the button it talks about. I will say that "slide show" will be of no value if it hogs a whole screen of one of the two monitors since the charting software spans most of the two monitors and must be seen at all times by the user of the simulation. I did notice that the saved image in .dhs format does open in the taskbar with a unique name (that is one down). I suspect that MacroExpress can grab a program and size the program on the monitor so if HyperSnap can not remember to open the image each time in the exact size that it was snapped at maybe MacroExpress can speed things up a bit. However I do not have MacroExpress at the moment (on my todo list for some future date)

Thanks again,
John
 
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<message edited by bowlesj on Tuesday, December 27, 2011 10:39 AM>

Hi John,
sorry about this, this is a very complex and very specific thing you want to do, probably would require custom programming to do all of this. You should probably hire a programmer to write this software specifically to your needs.
 
Greg

Hi Greg, 
 
I actually am a programmer (have been for 30 years since age 26 and have programmed in 11 languages in total although never C). Currently I program VBA and MultiCharts so I should say now I am a trader and a programmer (maybe opening a trading school). The control program I talk about above is already up and running (I wrote it). The reason I know of "appActivate" and "Shell" command is I have used them probably 100,00 times so far over the last 20 years of VBA prgoramming I have done. All I need to do is to get Hypersnap (or some other software) to display a snapshot without the boarders and I thought from what I saw in your pictures that you actually did that. It sounds like I misinterpreted your pictures (maybe what I saw was a small snapshot inserted inside a big snapshot and the whole thing was set to slideshow thus blocking out all the other programs running behind it - not good for me). I know a user named Martin who may be able to answer the question about how to hide the borders/frames. He was the one who suggested HyperSnap. 
 
If not, no matter. I have about 5 or so other software companies I have emailed too so far. The first one that can 
1/ Hide borders (not sure if Hypersnap can do this) (CaptureScreen does this very well).
2/ Open files with the file name in the task bar (Hypersnap does this)
3/ Open files with a shell command (Martin says Hypersnap does this).
will get the sale (I don't have the need to compare them).
 
That is about it. 3 things it needs to do and Hypersnap has 2 of them down pat from what I gather. Unfortunately it is not a 3 strikes and you are out situation (only 1 strike). I have no need for all the other features so they pull no weight.
To be honest, I am very surprised that all the softwares (without exception in any of them) can not do a snap image and re-display in original size without borders as a par for the course operation. But then again this is coming from a programmer so what can I say. Surely the CaptureScreen author is not the only bright person in the lot of bright people who has thought of this. However maybe I am wrong.

Anyway, thanks again for your help.
John
 
 
 

Hi John,
just a hint for you to test more of HS capabilities. The presentation mode is "hidden" in the MORE department of the capture tab. It is intended to show the captured image without the program gui around it. You can additionally invoke the drawing tools. They will be floating above the image and can be used as desired, but can also be hidden, so only the image is visible.
Also in the More...-dept: Virtual desktop. Activated, HS will capture a complete screen, even if it is displayed on two screens.
In the capture settings, you can have HS change to presentation mode automatically after capturing.
Have fun testing.
Thomas
Lesser Admin
 

Hi Tom,
 
Thanks for the response.
 
I tried turning on and off the presentation mode and it does not seem to hide the menu at the top and all the other GUI around it (maybe it does not work in the demo although it did show a red and not red border when I clicked on the little icon). Your program has a lot of features. Is seems that this is more of a bad thing for me than a good thing because unfortunately I do not have a lot of time to test it.  I will give it a run on the weekend. Currently I have everything running with MS-Paint-Brush and all is well except the borders (GUI commands) are showing. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to work with the CaptureScreen program (and it is very strange in that it runs without registering with windows which through me for a bit at first but I figured it out). It is different, it runs without the GUI showing. To be honest, I am not really sure if it warrants all this time. I can probably rewrite my program such that it tricks the user into thinking the image is exactly the same as live trading day by the order in which I overlap the images/programs (hiding the MS-Paint-Border and GUI from user sight). That may take me less time. I estimate maybe an hour or two at the most do do that once I take the 30 minutes required to screw my thinking cap on nice and tight :-).  So is it worth spending $50 on your software to save me 2 hours of work. Questionable.
 
Thanks again, It is quite the program and I am sure lots of people like its features. It is just with me I have only one very simple use (to me it seems simple).
John
 

Since the program appears not to hide the GUI (at least in the demo) I put out the 1 hour of work last night to hide the boarders of the MS-Paint-Brush snapshot images by overlaying (activating) other programs just after MS-Paint-Brush was activated such that they covered the borders of MS-Paint-Brush. So the Simulation looks 100% just like the trading day. So what is a bad thing in the end was a good thing and I saved some money and actually a heck of a lot of time for that matter since I would have had to redo a lot of stuff using HyperSnap.
 
Thanks again anyways for your help guys. If I ever need a program as powerful as HyperSnap I know a lot more than I did before this adventure and I know where to look.
 
Have a great New Years,
John
 
 

Hi John,
can't help to ask you to do another test.
If you capture an image and THEN try to activate presentation mode, nothing happens. But if you go to capture settings - capture - switch to presentation mode after capturing, HS automatically displays the captured image on the full screen. Depending on the size, anything around the image is displayed in the chosen background for the workspace - not to be confused with the background color of the image itself.
The drawing tools will be floating above the image and in the lower row you find an icon to toggle back to the usual gui.
Another option is to activate the drawing tools in the configuraton / settings ribbon. Just click on drawing tools. The image displayed in the workspace will then be switched to presentation mode.
And no, the feature is not disabled in trial version.
Good luck.
Thomas
Lesser Admin
 

Hi Tom,
 
Something is amiss in the version I am getting on download. I do not have the option "switch to presentation mode after capturing". 
version is  7.11.01  

What I have is this;
Include cursor image (checked on)
Turn off front smoothing for capture (unchecked)
Play sound when making the snapshot (checked on)
Hide Hypersnap window before capturing screen (checked on)
Restore HyperSnap window to front after a capture (checked on)
Enter full screen presentation mode after a capture (unchecked)
Do automatic paste, print or save only if a new capture is different from the previous one (unchecked)
Clear transparency for Window capture under Vista (this one is disabled from use)
Mark new captures as "modified" (no prompt for saving) (this is checked on)
 
Here is the name of the file I am setting up from "HS7Setup.exe". version is  7.11.01  
 
One Concern:
Assuming I do get the correct download, I read the rest of your response and I am not sure exactly what you mean by
"HS automatically displays the captured image on the full screen". The words "full screen" to be more specific. If this means, the captured image will hog a whole monitor of the two monitor's I have[/style][/style][/style][/style][/style][/style], then this is of no value to me because it will block all my other software that I want to see during the simulation (not good). In order for your software to be of value to me I have to be able to set it up so I can either double click on the image file (the .DHS) or shell from my database program to open that image file using Hypersnap as the program that opens the image of course (see shell command above), and when it opens that image it must look exactly like the original program that I took the snapshot of (exact size, exact color, exact everything - so exact that a person looking at it can not tell it is not the actual program running - I am snap shotting the Broker's Order Execution Software) and nothing that has anything to do with Hypersnap controls at all is showing (The CaptureScreen software does this by default). I am not an expert on this software as you know but it just amazes me that they are not all able to do this (however, Like I said, I think like a programmer and good programmers will think of these types of things). I suspect that the author of CaptureScreen is just a single very sharp guy who just does not have the resources to make his software windows compliant yet. His software would be 100% perfect except I can not activate individual images from the task bar because they all have exactly the same name (I have captured about 8 images of the brokers software which show various stages of a Trade cycle so I have to be able to specifically pull one of them to the front under the control of my database program using the "AppActivate" command to do this.). The other problem with his software is I do not think I can open the images from the shell command.
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Something is wrong with your forum software when I add a color. Anyway, in CaptureScreen when the image is open I can left click and drag the image anywhere I want. This is also critical. To get at the commands I just right click on the image and they all appear and stay there. Very easy to use and his software has a perfect user rating on download.com[/style]  Unfortunately I can not use his software until he puts in the features I wrote to him about (if he does).
 
Thanks,
John
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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<message edited by bowlesj on Wednesday, December 28, 2011 12:35 PM>

I guess it is better to start a new message since the prior one got screwed up when I tried to color part of it.
 
An other feature of value would be for Hypersnap to be able to remember where the image was last located when it was closed down. Now, here is the catch. I will be going from a 2 monitor trading setup to a 3 monitor trading setup soon. I am not sure how such a feature would work there if the images were all taken while I had only 2 monitors.
 
What about the other direction, it would not be good if the images were opened and hidden of on a 3rd monitor and the user can not get them within viewing area to properly place them for the new 2 monitor setup.  I say this because I have had winamp vanish on me at times and I had to figure out how to use the Windows controls (keystroke controls) to find it and move it to within sight. I had to document this so I could get it back quickly because Winamp does this a fair bit.
 
If it could remember the exact size of the image when the snapshot was taken this would save a user having to resize it to try and get it to match the original snapshot size (but still have the ability to resize it if needed I suppose). I personally have no need to resize it if Hypersnap can remember the original size.

I guess I should have included the version. It is 7.11.01

Hi John,
the option I am talking about is:
Enter full screen presentation mode after a capture (unchecked) - This one must be checked. As I use the German version, I did not have the exact phrase in my head.
But it is - as you assumed - of no use, as HS simply uses all of the one monitor, the program itself runs on. In presentation mode, nothing apart from the captured image is visible. So it's a no to your request.
But at least I now know what you mean. HS should use a, well let's say, presentation mode that is exactly as big as the captured image.
And it should adjust its size whenever a new image is called from command line.
Wow. That's a first. We never had that request before, if I remember right.
HS captures and displays an image and normally changes nothing about size, color and so on. Sometimes results may vary because of differences between screen display and the information HS gets.
Look to the right at the ribbon. You'll see a magnifying glass and a dropdown.
It toggles between adjusting to HS workspace and original size of the capture.
Display of an image in presentation mode always shows its actual size.
Exception - and therefore a thumbs down for you: Multimonitor captures (called Virtual Desktop) will only display on ONE monitor, thus reducing the size of the capture.
And one thing about sharp programmers. They are always as sharp as their imagination or experience runs. And in more than ten years of HyperSnap, the request of displaying a captured image without the workspace did - to my knowledge - never come up. Apparently the author of CaptureScreen needed different things, while developing his program.
Thomas
Lesser Admin

Hi Thomas,
 
RE:And it should adjust its size whenever a new image is called from command line. 
that is a good idea.
 
RE: Wow. That's a first. We never had that request before, if I remember right.
I guess someone somewhere else needed it for the CaptureScreen software to have been developed (probably more than one).
From a pure logic standpoint It makes a lot of sense with today's multi screen monitors or the very large monitors these days.
I know of traders using 4 monitors and very large ones too. I have a 20" and 27.5 inch. I wish I had three 27.5 monitors. It would be better if they were just one monitor.
 
I think you may find CaptureScreen interesting. It simply has an .exe and there is no install process (it extracts to a directory of your choice from a .zip file). I thought something was wrong with it because when you click the .exe after extracting the files this transparent screen comes up and nothing more and I saw no commands. So eventually I decided to try and right click on it and sure enough all the commands appeared. So I just moved the (semi) transparent screen over the image and I think there was a capture button or something and then the rest is straight forward. It does not have anywhere near as many features as your software. For me however it would be fine except for the few shortcomings I need such as the ability to bring any specific image to the front. So I found a workaround and it is fine. I am assuming that studying other software is a great way to get ideas for enhancing your own software.
 
Regards,
John
 
 

Here is something to think about if not consider. If your company buys or makes a deal with the CaptureScreen person such that you can bring his product up to spec for windows compliance then I will test it for you in return for the first free copy before you start selling it. After that, unless it takes huge amounts of time on my part, I will keep running new tests of my usage in return for constant free upgrades.