Design choices for the next Plugin of the Month

I’m currently thinking about using the code from this previous post as a basis for November’s Plugin of the Month.

This simple AutoCAD application would provide three main capabilities:

1. Take a screenshot of the entire AutoCAD application window
2. Take a screenshot of the current drawing window
3. Take a screenshot of a user-specified section of the current drawing

Each of these options would result in a bitmap being either saved to file or placed on the clipboard.

The thing I’m chewing on, right now, is how best to design the command interface for these operations. It occurred to me that this would make a fun topic for a blog post: why not throw it out there and gather some options? An experiment in crowdsourced product design. :-)

So, here are the options I’m considering:

• A single command (perhaps called CAPTURE or SCREENSHOT)
• Prompts:
1. Select first point of capture window or [Document/Application]
• If point selected…
• Select second point of capture window:
2. Save to file or place on the clipboard [File/Clipboard]:
• If “File” selected, file dialog appears, with various image format options:
• Select image location
• Pros
• Simplicity: a single command is easier to remember
• Cons
• Somewhat cumbersome, especially if regularly using only one of “copy to clipboard” and “save to file”
• Two commands (example names below)
• CAPTURECLIP [saves the results of the capture operation to the clipboard]
1. Select first point of capture window or [Document/Application]
• If point selected…
• Select second point of capture window:
• CAPTUREFILE [saves the results of the capture operation to a file]
1. Select first point of capture window or [Document/Application]
• If point selected…
• Select second point of capture window:
2. File dialog appears, with various image format options:
• Select image location
• Pros
• Streamlined for regular use
• Cons
• Double the commands: twice as complex for the user (OK, perhaps that’s not such a big deal… :-)

Overall I’m more in favour of the second choice, right now, as it feels like it’d be better suited for regular use.

Another option would be to have all 3 commands: the general command, CAPTURE, would probably be better for novices, and the specific commands, CAPTURECLIP & CAPTUREFILE, would probably be better for power-users. But that adds testing/coding/documentation complexity, which may well be unnecessary.

There are other options I haven’t listed, such as using some kind of application setting (like a system variable) to decide whether to save the captured image to file or copy it to the clipboard. I’d probably rather not go down that particular path, as it adds complexity and feels a little  less intuitive, but it’s certainly an option.

Does anyone out there have an opinion they’d like to share? If you suggest something compelling that leads to a change in the design of the plugin, I’ll be sure to give you credit in the supporting documentation. :-)