More On Shutter - Wizards Corner

[wizardfromoz]

BACKGROUND READING

David G.’s @KGIII ‘s article here

https://www.linux.org/threads/todays-article-has-you-taking-screenshots-with-shutter.38342/

which links to his website article here

https://linux-tips.us/take-edit-and-upload-screenshots-with-shutter/

PROBLEM

As David has said in his article, in part:

“I usually work with Lubuntu, and in the Ubuntu family. So, I’m just going to cover how to install it with Lubuntu, or any official Ubuntu flavor.”

...and that’s fine for the ‘buntus.

With Debian, there is a snag to this method.

Whether you are using

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shutter/ppa

or

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:linuxuprising/shutter

you will get a 404 error that prevents further progress, and a reference to ‘mantic’.

Mantic Minotaur is the upcoming point release for Ubuntu 23.10 and Debian will not allow it as a release file.

If you have tried using either of those PPAs, you will have to go into your File Manager and into

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/

and look for a file featuring ‘mantic’ or ‘shutter’ and ending with .list and delete it using privileges, or else any future attempts with

sudo apt update

will fail.

SOLUTION

We will perform a little voodoo using Debian Backports.

I performed this exercise from Q4OS ‘Bullseye’ KDE, but it will also work across all Debian 11 ‘Bullseye’, MX-21, AVL, antiX and so on.

STEP 1

Enable access to Debian Backports. In my Q4OS ‘Bullseye’ KDE, my etc/apt/sources.list.d/ looks as follows (YMMV):

SCREENSHOT 1

It features a file 30_debian_backports.list so I will look at that. Its contents are

### Debian backports


## origin deb.debian.org | o=Debian Backports,a=bullseye-backports,n=bullseye-backports,l=Debian Backports,c=[main|contrib|non-free],b=[amd64|i386|arm64|armhf]


##deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free


##deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free

STEP 2

I don’t need source content, so I just uncomment the first line featuring backports, and I also insert a comment on what I have done, should I wonder why later. The altered version looks like this

### Debian backports


## origin deb.debian.org | o=Debian Backports,a=bullseye-backports,n=bullseye-backports,l=Debian Backports,c=[main|contrib|non-free],b=[amd64|i386|arm64|armhf]


#below line uncommented 230527, to install Shutter and any dependencies


deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free


##deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free

Save the file and exit, then run

sudo apt update

STEP 3

We are going to need a package called

libgtk3-imageview-perl

as well as the Shutter package. Running

apt policy libgtk3-imageview-perl

indicates to me that I have one in the version 6’s in the repos, but from experience I have learned that I need one in the 10’s, and that is also available in backports.

STEP 4

Installing from Backports, we need to direct Linux to Backports with the apt install technique. So it is

sudo apt install libgtk3-imageview-perl/bullseye-backports

#AND

sudo apt install shutter/bullseye-backports

CONCLUSION

All things being equal, we should now have Shutter installed, available on our Menu, and I put it on my panel, and as well as screenshotting, I have access to the arrows that can be useful for The Viewers I help (red arrow by default but can be changed).

If you have any problems, let us know your GNU/Linux distro, version and DE (Desktop Environment) and we can look at it.

HTH and

Avagudweegend

Wizard

 

[KGIII]

...and that’s fine for the ‘buntus.

As I recall, perhaps a bit dimly as it was many articles ago, I looked at installing it in other distros and decided I wanted no part of that so I only covered Ubuntu. It should work the same in Ubuntu derivatives, like Mint, but that's not tested by me.

For the longest time, you also had to manually find a couple of libraries if you wanted to have the edit button function. Fortunately, that hasn't been the case in a while.

I think if it was that complicated in Debian that I'd consider just settling for Flameshot. I much prefer Shutter, but I think I might just procrastinate and keep Flameshot active.

 

[bob466]

When Mint announced some time ago Shutter would no longer be available I started using Flameshot works for me.

 

[KGIII]

When Mint announced some time ago Shutter would no longer be available I started using Flameshot works for me.

I can't fault Mint for that. Even though I like Shutter, it went unmaintained and kinda broken for a while - like a long while (meaning years). You'd have to add the PPA, install Shutter, and then install a pair of dependencies (from a kind of sketchy source) to make it "completely" work.

Even then, you could only export the pictures to a couple of servers. That part hasn't changed and has really gotten worse. They did add new servers you could upload to, but now only one of them (imgur) works properly. Well, it works as a guest. I haven't tried it with an account. Try as I might, I can't even make FTP work properly with it (and, trust me, I've tried).

So, it's definitely not a perfect application.

To me, it's a familiar application. I'm fond of the editing power, though you can do some of the same in Flameshot. There are things Shutter's editor does that (as far as I can tell) you can't do in Flameshot and some screenshot options that are made much easier with Shutter.

Flameshot is a perfectly acceptable alternative, but I can't figure out how to do things like customize the tools, like changing the size of the arrow drawing function.

Shutter is currently being at least maintained. I haven't had to deal with needing extra dependencies to make it work for a while, which is nice. I can live with just Flameshot, but Shutter is by far my preferred tool.

It's a bit like a pair of worn-in work boots. They're not perfect. They might let in a bit of water and the soles are wearing thin, but they sure are comfortable - comfortable enough to get a few more miles from them before you plunk down $300 for a new pair.

 

[wizardfromoz]

Yes, I like to have options, so in any distro I usually have GNOME Screenshot (or install it if not there), Flameshot and Shutter.

Wiz

 

[osprey]

All things being equal, we should now have Shutter installed, available on our Menu, and I put it on my panel, and as well as screenshotting, I have access to the arrows that can be useful for The Viewers I help (red arrow by default but can be changed).


Wizard

Just on the matter red arrows, since that was the only current interest for me, a brief look at sizes and dependencies I found revealing.

Here are the dependencies and installed size of shutter on debian:

[flip@flop ~]$ apt-cache show shutter
<snip>
Installed-Size: 11092 (~11MB)
<snip>
Depends:
gir1.2-ayatanaappindicator3-0.1,
gir1.2-wnck-3.0,
imagemagick,
libcarp-always-perl,
libfile-basedir-perl,
libfile-copy-recursive-perl,
libfile-which-perl,
libglib-object-introspection-perl,
libglib-perl,
libgoocanvas2-cairotypes-perl,
libgoocanvas2-perl,
libgtk3-imageview-perl (>= 10),
libgtk3-perl,
libimage-exiftool-perl,
libimage-magick-perl,
libjson-maybexs-perl,
libjson-perl,
liblocale-gettext-perl,
liblwp-protocol-https-perl,
libnet-dbus-perl,
libnet-dbus-glib-perl,
libnet-oauth-perl,
libnumber-bytes-human-perl,
libpango-perl,
libpath-class-perl,
libproc-processtable-perl,
libproc-simple-perl,
libreadonly-perl,
librsvg2-common,
libsort-naturally-perl,
libwww-mechanize-perl,
libwww-perl,
libx11-protocol-other-perl,
libx11-protocol-perl,
libxml-simple-perl,
procps,
xdg-utils
<snip>

Shutter has imagemagick as a dependency.

Here are the dependencies and installed size of imagemagick:

[flip@flop ~]$ apt-cache show imagemagick-6.q16
<snip>
Installed-Size: 611 (~611KB)
<snip>
Depends:
libc6 (>= 2.34),
libmagickcore-6.q16-6 (>= 8:6.9.10.2),
libmagickwand-6.q16-6 (>= 8:6.9.10.2),
hicolor-icon-theme

Here are the dependencies and installed size of the screenshot utility scrot:

[flip@flop ~]$ apt-cache show scrot
<snip>
Installed-Size: 129 (~129KB)
<snip>
Depends:
libbsd0 (>= 0.0),
libc6 (>= 2.34),
libimlib2 (>= 1.4.5),
libx11-6,
libxcomposite1 (>= 1:0.4.5),
libxext6,
libxfixes3,
libxinerama1 (>= 2:1.1.4)
<snip>

The upshot is that shutter, at 11MB is a lot of software just to be able to take screenshots and apply red arrows (or arrows of a number of other colours too) if that's all one wants to do . Just installing imagemagick and scrot is enough for the task at (611KB + 129 KB =) 740 KB. YMMV. Here's a recent shot:

 

[KGIII]

LOL @ complaining about 11 MB in 2023.

I kid... I kid... But, I not only use Shutter, I leave it running 24/7. 'Snot like I'm gonna run out of disk space or RAM.

Man, I leave a lot of stuff just running in the background. Though, I do use Shutter fairly frequently.

Let me see... I'll share what's currently going on. This might explain why I'm not worried about 11 MB of disk space.

Right now is fairly standard. This is what I have open...

1. 103 tabs in Chrome (which will be pared down when I get a minute).
2. Thunderbird (with 9 email accounts and a calendar with most every major automobile race loaded).
3. Chromium (this is being typed in Chromium, with 109 tabs which need to be paired down 'cause Chromium only shows 110 tabs).
4. GNOME terminal, idle.
5. Featherpad (with 25 open text documents that open automatically).
6. PaleMoon (with only 10 tabs open).
7. Terminator terminal, idle.
8. Nemo (a few open folders).
9. XFCE4 Terminal (SSH'ed to a laptop that I'm working on).
10. Nemo (a few open folders).
11 Nemo (a few open folders).

In the System Tray:

Temperature monitor.
Shutter icon.
CPU, RAM, Network, and Disk I/O monitor.
Mint's System Report thing (now closed).
Update monitor (all updated, of course).
Removable drives monitor.
Network monitor.
Volume monitor.
Clock.

That's pretty standard. I often have another browser open, but that browser is dedicated to a task I don't normally deal with during weekends. I often have a media player active, but not right now. Right now, one of those tabs is running a YouTube stream. (It's a cartoon I've never heard about until today, called "Fugget About It that's from north of the border, or America's hat.)

So, 11 MB isn't gonna matter a whole lot. Shutter is currently consuming a bit over 110 MB of RAM. That's just a drop in the bucket.

 

[osprey]

So, 11 MB isn't gonna matter a whole lot. Shutter is currently consuming a bit over 110 MB of RAM. That's just a drop in the bucket.

You got me! Playing around with minimalist Alpine at the moment, which probably explains the consciousness.

 

[KGIII]

You got me! Playing around with Alpine at the moment, which probably explains the consciousness.

I leave all sorts of things open, probably too many things. I seldom reboot, so it just sort of accumulates.

 

[camtaf]

Time to check out scrot, I think - https://manpages.org/scrot