If I have a goal, how do I know what I'll need?

[gravanoc]

I have read through the documentation here a couple times and looked through several scripts done by others. I understand the concept of external libraries needing to be accessed to get more complex tasks accomplished. Sometimes, though, I don't know what to Google for, and even if I do, the results are from Stack Exchange where it seems rare to find a beginner-friendly answer (and asking beginner questions is... very bad.).

So, a short-term goal of mine is to make an enhanced Snipping Tool where I can adjust the area to snip before committing to the screenshot. Besides AHK I am pretty familiar with C#, so what else should I spend my time learning?

I saw that in a Screen Magnifier script the author used dll call function to access a DC function from the gdi32.dll library on Microsoft shared Library System. I figure what I'm looking for would be similar, but there's a lot to wade through there.

Thanks, and I can provide more info if needed. Just looking for a starting point pretty much.

[swagfag]

Barring having already done something similar before, having experience or being familiar enough with the language to conjure something up yourself, short answer is: you don't. You ask around.

On the topic of your project, make an always on top, titlebarless, resizable gui overlay. Grab its position and dimensions and pass them to Gdip_BitmapFromScreen, then save the bitmap.

[gravanoc]

Thank you. Yeah that's what I thought the answer might be. I'll let you know how it comes along. I'm just making it to get experience mostly.

[guest3456]

try it and see how you do. then you can compare your solution to other existing ones

from google "ahk screenshot tool":

https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/1120 ... k-library/
https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/9139 ... izeexport/

[jeeswg]

- From Gdip_All: Gdip_BitmapFromScreen and Gdip_SaveBitmapToFile.
- And also this, or a similar script. Cheers.
selection rectangle: use mouse to select screen region - AutoHotkey Community
https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=42810