RapidShot Version 1.4
Author: Mark Schilberg
Platforms: Win98/ME/XP/NT/2K
Support email: rapidshot@sympatico.ca
Website: Here
Shareware: Click here for registration info. You may also select Help/Register in RapidShot.
What is RapidShot?
RapidShot is an easy to use screenshot utility that helps you take, organize and view screenshots. It waits for you to press the Print Screen key while you're using other applications and games. It then converts the screenshot to JPG (jpeg) or BMP (bitmap) format and outputs the files into the categories of your creation and choosing. This enables you to take a set of screenshots in rapid succession simply by repeatedly pressing the Print Screen Key. You can then use RapidShot's integrated image, thumbnail and file viewers to select, view, rename and delete screenshots. The file viewer also provides easy access for pulling the images into your favorite image editing tools.
RapidShot also has a "Low Resource" mode of operation whereby it unloads most of its user interface since the UI isn't needed while you're using other applications. This reduces the amount of memory that RapidShot would otherwise be taking up. Select the "Minimize" button to activate this mode.
How are the screenshots organized?
A Windows directory (folder) called "RapidShots" (created in the RapidShot installation directory) may contain a number of "Category" directories. Each category directory can have a number of "Image Set" directories which contain the image files themselves. RapidShot was designed to easily navigate this structure and you can easily create and delete category and image sets from within it by selecting the "New" and "Del" buttons beside the respective dropdown selection boxes.
You can also quickly open Windows Explorer to the RapidShots directory by selecting the "Explore" button. If you'd like, you can rename, move or remove directories and files with Windows Explorer but make sure you select the "Refresh" button within RapidShot right afterward. This tells RapidShot to refresh its view of the structure.
NOTE: You need to have a Category and Image Set selected prior to taking screenshots because RapidShot needs to know where to place the image files. Since this is the case, you need to have at least one Category and one Image Set defined. You can make the categorization as complex as you want.
How are the screenshots viewed?
The main "Image Viewer" window shows the currently selected image. Here you can select the next and previous image if there are more than one in the set (clicking the image will also show the next). You can also designate the first image to be shown for the Image Set by selecting "Intro Image". Hovering over an image will show you the filename. You can also select images to be shown by clicking on the filenames in the main window.
To resize the Image Viewer, drag the the left or right side of the window horizontally. The image window will then automatically scale itself vertically giving you the correct proportion. After you resize the image window, all subsequent images will be proportioned correctly.
Also included in RapidShot is a "thumbnail" viewer which shows you a set of small images of either the image sets in a particular category or the images within a particular image set. From there, you can quickly pull up image sets and images in the main view.
Can I move image files to different Categories and Image Sets?
Yes. Just select the filename(s) in the "Image Files" view and press the Spacebar on your keyboard, select the Category and Image Set to move the files to and press OK.
Is there any more help than this?
RapidShot was designed to be as easy to use as possible and everything else is pretty self explanitory. You can hover over most things in RapidShot to see a tooltip if you're unsure what it's function is. Hovering over images will show you their names. If you have any other questions, please forward them to the support email address above.
OK, but what about that camera sound that plays when I take a screenshot?
If you don't like the sound, you can change it to whatever you'd like. The file is RapidShot.wav in the RapidShot install directory. Just replace it by renaming your own wav file to RapidShot.wav and placing it in this directory. You can also rename or remove the file if you'd rather not have a sound played.
Author's Note:
If you like this software and you're into Flight Simulation, you may like a couple of my other projects. Check them out here ...