Fbrab Daemon New Version


joyrider

Active Member
Joined
Mar 29, 2006
Messages
589
Age
43
Website
www.willemssoft.be
FBGrab Deamon Version
---------------------

What Is It ?
------------
Fbgrab is a program that lets you take screenshots from games and emulators.
I made the fbgrab program into a deamon so that it keeps running in the background and listens for a certain keypress (specified in the keyconfig file), if the key (combination)
has been pressed it will make a screenshot of whatever you are currently seeing on the Caanoo screen.

How To use ?
------------
first edit the keyconfig file to your liking, you can specify key combinations by just editing the current config file setting 1 if the key needs to be pressed or 0 if it doesn't.
for example this is the default keyconfig file where you'll have to press the "joystick click button" to make a screenshot and it's being saved with the date & time in the filename:

I=0
II=0
Y=0
A=0
B=0
X=0
L=0
R=0
HOME=0
JOYSTICK=1
USEDATETIME=1

Do not delete any of the "not used keys" and also do not change the order of the file, after you have chosen your configiration, copy the fbgrab directories and ini files to the apps directory on your sd
and start the program. You won't see anything come up on the screen so when using a menu you will be returned directly back to it after running fbgrab.dge. The deamon should be running
now and whenever you press the key combination you have choosen a new screenshot will be generated in your local directy named Screenshot1.png, Screenshot2.png, Screenshot3.png when USEDATETIME is set to 0
other wise it will generate filenames based on the date and time. This is done so it will never overwrite an existing screenshot ! The daemon saves the screenshots in in the /mnt/sd/photo/screenshotsXX
directory the XX is for the color depth which depends on the version you run (32/24/16 bit).


Notes:
------
The program will kill (using killall) any previous running FBGrab daemon so you don't have to reboot the caanoo when you accidently ran it twice or choose to change to another bitdepth version.
Only one instance of the daemon can be run at any time to prevent multiple screenshots being taken

DO NOT FORGET TO COPY THE KEYCONFIG FILE AND DO NOT SET ALL KEYS TO 0
failing to do so will make the deamon keep taking screenshots

if you changed the keyconfig file while the deamon was already running you'll have to restart the fbgrab deamon.

I couldn't figure out a way to let you (the user) know if they screenshot was succesfull or not (i tried audio and writing to the framebuffer but both were not a great option).
Anyway just test it out by using the default config and see if it creates your screenshots !

If your screenshots look garbled try using a diffrent bitdepth daemon, i only included 24 bit (which the default menu uses) and 16 bit version (which most games use i guess).

Certain games produce black screenshots, i haven't figured out why yet (propis is such a game).

Credits:
--------
Deamon version created by willems davy aka joyrider Http://www.willemssoft.be

Original version sources come from this website : http://hem.bredband.net/gmogmo/fbgrab/

Thanks to the guys #dingoonity (freenode) for helping with a few issues when i created the dingoo version (which this version is based upon).

What's new:
-----------
1) copy the deamon to /tmp and it's being run from there (done using script that starts it the gpe bin/sh file) (to not block usb mounting)
2) remember last screenshot number in a file (on /mnt/sd/photo/screenshotsXX)
3) create /mnt/sd/photo/screenshotsXX and save screenshots there now
4) support the joystick click button and make it the default key for taking screenshots (i don't think many games require you to use the joystick click button)
5) use diffrent binaries for games that uses 24 bit and 16 bitdepth's
6) fixed and array overflow bug (slipped in due to hasty porting)
7) fixed forgotten fclose(f) on the keyconfig file
8) Killall command to kill previous running instance
9) option to use time based filenames instead of just numbered ones
10) other small bits

Download:
---------
here, once it's updated by mods: http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/caanoo.cgi?0,0,0,0,115,675
 
already found a (new) bug in this (new) version. do not delete the screenshot folders when the daemon is running i did not check if the directory exists while writing the png files only at the start up of the daemon which means the daemon will crash if you take a screenshot and the screenshots folder has been deleted.

Furthermore tested with some other games and emulators that i had still on my system

these 16 bit work :
- GBA Emu
- The arcade emulators from gph
- SMS_SDL
- SQRX
- PicoDrive

these produced black screenshots :
- Quake
- propis
- kaitsen patsier
- probably some other fungp games (did not test just a guess).

Have no idea as to why they produce black, but i could have a look at the quake sources to see how they draw to the screen. Maybe if they draw directly to /dev/fb0 it will fail, will have to test this some more later on, the current version will suffice. An 8 bit daemon i also have to make. I do not think the caanoo can run 32 or 8 bit color depths but i guess most use 16 bit, it was only the menu itselve that uses 24 bit as far as i can tell
 
SiENcE said:
thx joyrider!

No problem, just to be sure, it seems the archive is still not updated with the new version. The new version contains 2 directories and 2 ini files in the zip file the old one only contained one. So we (you) still have to wait till someone "approves" my updated zip file. Either that or something went wrong with me uploading the file. Who handles the approvements anyway ? is it ed ?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It seems the archive still isn't updated, i will reupload it tonight and upload it to my website also so you guys at least have one mirror for it until the archive finally updates the entry

EDIT:
New version is availible from my website here : http://www.willemssoft.be/index.php?main=5&sub=40&action=productdetails&id=239 , the archive still wasn't updated so i reuploaded it there as well, in the hope it will get updated now. At least there is a mirror now on my website.
 
Back
Top