Change The Creator Type Of A Screen Capture
by Michael Coyle, 12-01-1997
Marc Robichaud wrote to suggest this week's hack, "I was wondering if you may be interested in doing a hack to have screen captures make Photoshop files instead of Simple Text files."
Excellent Idea! For those of you who don't know, you can take a picture of the whole screen by pressing the Command-Shift-3 keys. Under Mac OS 8, you can also take a snapshot of any portion of the screen with Command-Shift-4.
I happen to know that these little snippets of code that capture screen shots (like the ones I use on DM), are stored in the System Suitcase in the FKEY resource. It gets a little confusing because these have nothing to do with the Function Keys on a keyboard, also sometimes called F-Keys!
How do we tell the System to save our snapshot as a Photoshop file?
Start by opening Photoshop (or your favorite graphic program) in ResEdit, and from the File menu select the "Get Info on..." command.
Notice the creator code for Photoshop is 8BIM. Jot it down and close the Photoshop windows.
Next, open a copy of your System Suitcase in ResEdit and scroll around until you happen upon the FKEY resource.
Open it up with a double click.
Under systems prior to 8, you will only have an ID 3 resource. If you're running OS 8, you will have both 3 and 4. I will outline the procedure for ID3, but it's identical for ID 4.
Open ID3 with a double-click.
Once the resource is open, perform an "ASCII Find" on text by hitting Command-G.
This will bring up the Find window pictured above.
Simpletext has the creator code of ttxt that we wish to change, so type it and "Find Next".
If all has gone well, you will have found it. Notice how the phrase ttxt is followed by PICT. This will reassure you that you're in the right spot!
Highlight ttxt and type in the four letter creator of your favorite graphics application, replacing ttxt letter for letter.
When finished, close ID3 and repeat the edit on ID4.
Close and save the modified system; replace the old system; and restart your computer. Take a few snapshots to test it out and you're all set!
