I installed and consequently registered SnagIt 8.0 from Techsmith today. I've been a huge fan of SnagIt for sometime and Version 8.0 brings a smoother user interface to the strong capture and image markup features.

I like SnagIt so much that I integrated it with Help Builder through its COM interface, which although clunky, makes it possible to add this functionality to any application as long as your user have it installed. Among developers SnagIt usage tends to be high <g>.

Unfortunately Version 8.0 also introduces a bug. If you use the COM interface to capture with a capture time delay the Preview window for some reason does not allow you to 'finish' or 'cancel' the capture operation. Normally the Finish operation prompts for a file to save to and then writes out the file returning through the COM interface the result filename on OK, or nothing on a cancel. This allows your client code to check for a result.

Unfortunately, in 8.0 when you use a capture delay that doesn't work.

Here's some FoxPro code that demonstrates this:

DO CaptureImageWithSnagIt

RETURN

Function CaptureImageWithSnagIt

LOCAL oSnag as SnagIt.ImageCapture.1, lcFile

oSnag = CREATEOBJECT("SnagIt.ImageCapture")

oSnag.EnablePreviewWindow = .t.

oSnag.Input = 10 && Object

oSnag.Output= 2  && sioFile

oSnag.OutputImageFile.Filename = "captured_Image.png"

oSnag.OutputImageFile.FileType= 5  && siftPNG

oSnag.OutputImageFile.Directory = "c:\temp"

oSnag.OutputImageFile.FileType= 5  && siftPNG

oSnag.DelayOptions.DelaySeconds = 3

oSnag.DelayOptions.EnableCountDownWindow = .t.

oSnag.DelayOptions.EnableDelayedCapture = .t.

oSnag.Capture()

DO WHILE .t.

   if oSnag.IsCaptureDone()

      EXIT

   ENDIF

   DOEVENTS

   WAIT WINDOW "" TIMEOUT .01

ENDDO

lcFile = LOWER(oSnag.LastFileWritten)

IF EMPTY(lcFile)

   RETURN

ENDIF

oSnag = .F.

? lcFile

RETURN

If you comment out the DelayOptions the Preview works just fine and you see the OK and Cancel buttons. Leave them in and those options are not enabled. This looks like a bug unless I'm missing something obvious.

It's really nice that Techsmith has a COM interface to automate SnagIt, but it really bites that they didn't bother to document this API. You basically have to dig out your TLB browser and look at what's there. The interface is not exactly complicated – exact for the funky Async way to do captures. It sure would be nice if the interface could natively provide a synchronous capture mode instead of having to poll IsCaptureDone().

Techsmith is also one of those companies that constantly revs their products and requires fairly steep upgrade prices compared to the base product prices. With SnagIt I've been pretty happily upgrading because first off I use the product so much and there have been a fair amount of improvements and the pricing is pretty low in the first place. The new UI in 8.0 is just a lot more usable even though there's not that much more functionality that I will end up using, but it's worth the upgrade.

But then there's CamTasia – another fine product I use although not quite as frequently. This product is not quite so cheap and the upgrades over time have not exactly brought ground breaking improvements. I understand companies have to rev their products but sometimes I really wonder where to draw the line on the upgrade tread mill.

I figure rev'ing a full version requires some sort of major feature addition – something that actually warrants an upgrade. In the case of these two products I think that neither really warrants an upgrade since most of the functionality is just been smoothed out rather than providing some 'must have' new feature. UI improvements can make a big difference but I always find it hard to justify to pay for an upgrade. So for Camtasia I'm still sitting on my hands so to say.

Anybody using the latest version of CamTasia and finding something that is much better than in the previous version?