Jeffrey's Trackside Diner - August 2016 - Model Railroader Magazine

Hello Railfans!

Top of the morning to ya! Bright, sunny, hot day on tap here (like I get any other kind ). Hope everybody is doing ok, best wishes to those who are not. Happy Birthday (belated for those who've past) to those who survived another year on this rock.

In general - Heres a computer tip for those who may wish to know. Ken, above, asked how to post a picture of his JMRI screen. For those who wish to capture what you see on your screens.... heres a few ways to do this. (since i cant ever get any railroading done i might as well share what else i know).

There are a few ways to do this. Yourself, or with a program. Lets start with the easy stuff - yourself. BTW, this is for Windows users. Im not even sure Apple products can take pictures, much less display them (jab jab).

First, take a look at your keyboard. Look for a key that says "Print Screen" or "Prt Scr" or "Prt Scn" for short. Pressing this key will take an instant 'snapshot' of whats on your screen. But where does it go? Pressing the key gives no indication anything has happened. But indeed it has, so dont be fooled and keep pressing it.

The screenshot is being held on the 'clipboard' which is nothing more than a fancy word for 'in memory' (a place in your puter you cant see per se). This is a temporary area for data to be stored. And right now, thats all your screenshot is.... temporary data. It needs to be saved. If you press the key again before saving the first shot/keypress.... your first shot will be lost and essentially replaced with the next consecutive shot.

To save screenshots you must start any Windows program that has "paste" ability. Naturally since we are working with a picture you would want to start the Microsoft 'Paint' program. Though your screenshot could just as easily be pasted into Word, Excel, Corel, Adobe, and the list goes on.

By pasting into Paint, or other graphics program, you get the ability of working with the picture before you save it. IE:cropping, coloring, editing, textwork, etc.

Once you get the program of choice running, simply 'paste' your screenshot into the program. Then save. Voila, its that simple. So, if we use Ken as an example..... heres the steps to go from screenshot to MR post:

1) get subject matter on screen.

2) press 'print screen' key.

3) paste into program like MS 'Paint'.

4) save picture as you would a normal paint picture.

5) upload to your favorite host (photobucket, etc).

6) post picture into MR thread as youve always done.

Its that simple.

Other methods include "Right-Clicking" on a screen object (such as a picture or highlighted text) and a small pop up menu will appear. Select 'copy'. Now paste it into a program as listed above.

Third party programs can be used to also capture screenshots. These programs are simple to use, yet give you more choices than the above built in 'Prt Scn' feature. For example, some programs will let you select the area of the screen you want to take a snapshot of, so you dont have to edit the picture before saving. Prt Scr just takes the whole display.

Some programs will give you the choice of menu picture (snapshot of a selected menu only), the master window (the main window on your screen that is above all others), the work area (everything in picture BUT menus), and the list goes on.

There are some programs that will even take the snapshot for you, save it, and upload it all in one click. By uplaod I mean upload to disgracebook, twitts, or other social media site. NO ONE to this day has figured out MR is a viable social site. So dont expect to get a program that will load pics here automatically.

Thats pretty much it. Simple huh? You should know this does not work for video. It will only take a snapshot of the frame being displayed at that time, not the video itself. And ofcourse, no snapshot program takes snapshots of sound, lol, so dont ask.

To get good snapshots from videos, Windows users should have Video LAN, or "VLC" as its commonly called. This is probably the best video player software in the world. Its free, open sourced, coded by actual programmers, and decades old. Its proven. And it has snapshot features built in. Along with MANY other usable features! It is not a desktop picture snapper. Its for videos. Prt Scn is your desktop snapper.

Bare in mind one thing -  snapshotting is a powerful feature. It doesnt care what your taking a picture of. So, be mindful of copyrighted material. Website programmers have the ability to 'block' certain snapshot features like the 'right click' feature. They do this to protect their data. However, at all times.... the Prt Scr feature works no matter what. Its up to you to be respectful here.

Hope this helps those in need. Please tune in again next week for our installment on: Gas Powered Blenders and watermelon flavoured martinis, featuring guest host Gallegher.

Railroad front: Red signals.

Peace and Longevity

Douglas

PS: never heard of "trekker" in my 50 years of being a trekkie. Does this mean i have to use a certain bathroom now?