rsnap

Pure-Rust menubar screenshot prototype (macOS-first).

Feature Highlights

• Menubar-only app (no Dock icon) on macOS.
• Global hotkey: Alt+X (macOS: Option+X).
• Transparent capture-session overlay that blocks desktop interaction.
• HUD near the cursor showing global x,y and rgb(r,g,b).
• Left click + drag freezes a selected region; a single left click freezes the hovered window or falls back to the active monitor fullscreen.
• In Frozen mode, a dragged-region capture can be dragged from inside the bright selection area to reposition it without resizing.
• In Frozen mode, Space copies the current frozen PNG to the clipboard and exits.
• In Frozen mode, Cmd+S (macOS) / Ctrl+S saves the current PNG to disk and exits.
• On macOS, Frozen mode can recognize text from the current capture and copy the result to the clipboard from the toolbar.
• After a dragged region freeze, press s or use the frozen toolbar Scroll Capture ↓ action to enter scroll capture.
• Scroll capture is currently implemented on macOS for dragged-region freezes and uses image-first downward stitching with a live side preview.
• Upward scrolling may be observed for rewind/reacquire, but it never appends stitched rows.
• Esc cancels capture; during scroll capture, Esc / Back returns to normal Frozen mode.
• Glass HUD with configurable blur, tint, and hue controls.
• Tab-triggered loupe sample and frozen-mode toolbar for quick action access.

Status

Prototype / in active development.

Capture platform support

• Live sampling path: macOS 12.3+ via ScreenCaptureKit. Live loupe/window sampling uses SCStream; downward scroll capture uses discrete SCScreenshotManager region screenshots plus pairwise registration.
• Live mode is stream-first and does not capture full display on cursor movement.
• Frozen capture and scroll-capture imagery on macOS use the native capture stack; docs/spec/capture-session.md is the current contract source of truth.
• Menubar and Dock are not included in live window-outline targeting.
• Windows support is planned (minimum Windows 10), but not implemented yet.

Usage

Installation

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/hack-ink/rsnap
cd rsnap

cargo build --workspace
cargo run -p rsnap

macOS permissions

rsnap currently relies on Screen Recording permission to capture other apps/windows.

• ScreenCaptureKit live sampling on macOS requires macOS 12.3+ and Screen Recording permission.
• Normal region/window/monitor capture does not require Accessibility or Input Monitoring.
• Scroll capture currently requires Accessibility because rsnap forwards scroll into the target app.
• Scroll capture currently requires Input Monitoring because rsnap listens for global scroll-wheel input via a native macOS listen-event tap.
• macOS may phrase the Input Monitoring prompt as receiving keystrokes from any application even though rsnap only listens for scroll-wheel input in this path.
• macOS may describe Screen Recording as Screen & System Audio Recording or as direct screen/audio access when rsnap bypasses the system picker.
• On startup, rsnap checks Screen Recording, Accessibility, and Input Monitoring together and opens its own Settings window if any of them are missing.
• In the app, the Permissions section shows Screen Recording, Accessibility, and Input Monitoring status. Each permission button can still issue the matching macOS request when the system allows it, then open the relevant macOS settings pane if access is still missing.
• Normal capture does not issue a just-in-time permission request or reopen Settings when Screen Recording is missing.
• Scroll capture does not issue a just-in-time permission request or show a HUD permission message when Accessibility or Input Monitoring is missing.
• You can reopen Permissions… from the tray or menubar menu at any time.
• Base capture path: System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Screen Recording.
• Scroll capture paths: System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Accessibility and Input Monitoring.
• Enable rsnap (the built .app), then retry capture. If macOS still keeps capture blocked after changing a permission, relaunch the app.

HUD settings behavior

• HUD controls are in Settings → Overlay:
  • Opacity (0..100, default 75)
  • Blur (0..100, default 25)
  • Tint (0..100, default 0)
  • Hue (0..360, system-blue default)
  • Toolbar placement (bottom / top, default bottom)
• Tint is applied as hue-shift intensity (0 = no tint, 100 = full tint), while Hue sets target color.
• Numeric entry accepts plain integers for percent/degree fields and updates immediately.
• Same HUD style settings are used by main HUD, loupe, and frozen toolbar.

Output (save-to-disk)

• In Frozen mode, use Cmd+S (macOS) / Ctrl+S to save a PNG to disk and exit.
• On macOS, use the frozen toolbar Recognize Text action to copy recognized text from the current frozen capture and exit.
• After entering scroll capture from a dragged region on macOS, downward scrolling may append newly proven rows into the side preview. Upward scrolling never appends. Returning to already-stitched content should not grow the export; only newly proven content may be added. The scroll-capture commit path uses discrete region screenshots plus pairwise image registration; clipboard and save must match the committed preview the user sees. Space copies the stitched image, Cmd+S (macOS) / Ctrl+S saves it, and Esc / Back returns to the original Frozen capture without exiting.
• Output is configured in settings.toml:
  • output_dir (default: Desktop)
  • output_filename_prefix (default: rsnap, sanitized to [A-Za-z0-9_-])
  • output_naming (timestamp (unix ms) or sequence (0001))

Development

cargo make fmt
cargo make lint
cargo make test

Scroll-capture verification now starts with deterministic replay instead of the old GUI smoke:

cargo make replay-scroll-capture
cargo make replay-scroll-capture-self-check

For semantic trace analysis (first bad frame, under-consumption, overshoot), use:

cargo make analyze-scroll-capture-trace

The remaining macOS GUI smoke harnesses are still available for live-loupe and desktop-session checks:

cargo make smoke-self-check-macos
cargo make smoke-macos

cargo make replay-scroll-capture and cargo make analyze-scroll-capture-trace now force the latest recorded live trace through the same worker-pairwise commit path that current macOS production scroll capture uses. They are trace-driven rather than scenario-driven, so they expect at least one recorded trace under ~/Library/Application Support/ink.hack.rsnap/scroll-capture-traces/ unless you pass --trace <manifest-path> directly to the example. Use the direct example without --force-worker-pairwise only when you intentionally want to compare the legacy recorded-source replay mode. cargo make replay-scroll-capture-self-check is the repo-local fallback when you want to verify the replay harness itself without relying on a user-recorded trace. cargo make smoke-self-check-macos and cargo make smoke-macos still drive the logged-in macOS live-loupe smoke path and require the expected Screen Recording / automation permissions.

For XY-185 style downward scroll-capture work, treat the verification order as:

1. deterministic tests and cargo make check
2. cargo make replay-scroll-capture
3. cargo make analyze-scroll-capture-trace
4. one fresh release live touchpad run with a newly recorded trace

Repo-native performance entrypoints are available for deterministic benches and dedicated smoke:

cargo make perf-local
cargo make perf-self-check-macos
cargo make perf-macos

Use cargo make perf-local for component-render and scroll-capture regressions that should stay comparable on a normal development machine. Use cargo make perf-self-check-macos to validate the dedicated macOS smoke environment, and cargo make perf-macos only on a logged-in desktop session when you need end-to-end GUI performance evidence. The durable runbook for command selection and baseline comparison lives at docs/runbook/performance-validation.md.

The capture-session contract lives at docs/spec/capture-session.md.

Support Me

If you find this project helpful and would like to support its development, you can buy me a coffee!

Your support is greatly appreciated and motivates me to keep improving this project.

• Fiat
  • Ko-fi
  • Afdian
• Crypto
  • Bitcoin
    • bc1pedlrf67ss52md29qqkzr2avma6ghyrt4jx9ecp9457qsl75x247sqcp43c
  • Ethereum
    • 0x3e25247CfF03F99a7D83b28F207112234feE73a6
  • Polkadot
    • 156HGo9setPcU2qhFMVWLkcmtCEGySLwNqa3DaEiYSWtte4Y

Thank you for your support!

Appreciation

We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the following projects and contributors:

• The Rust community for their continuous support and development of the Rust ecosystem.

Additional Acknowledgements

• TODO

License

^{Licensed under GPL-3.0.}