Screenshots in Sphinx docs

Tue Dec 15 17:04:27 EST 2015

> To: python-list at python.org
> From: tjreedy at udel.edu
> Subject: Re: Screenshots in Sphinx docs
> Date: 2015年12月14日 14:01:03 -0500
>> On 12/14/2015 11:31 AM, Albert-Jan Roskam wrote:
>> > I'd like to include up-to-date screenshots (of a tkinter app)
> > into my Sphinx documentation.
>> If you manually take screenshots with *any* screen grabber and save in 
> an appropriate format, this is apparently trivial -- use the ..image 
> directive. From the below, it appears that what you want is to have a 
> literally up-to-date screenshot taken automatically during the doc build.
>> This requires that one be able to automate getting the application into 
> the exact display state one wants to capture. You can probably do that 
> with a tkinter app if you write it with that possibility in mind. In 
> particular, you must keep a Python reference to every widget you want to 
> manipulate, even if not needed for normal program operation.
>> There is also an issue with grabbing the whole screen versus only a 
> program-specific window.

I need only a few screens. I think I will call my tkinter app with subprocess.Popen, wait until it's loaded,
grab the image, then kill it. Then I indeed wanted to use the ..image directive.
> > This looks ok:
> > https://pypi.python.org/pypi/sphinxcontrib-programscreenshot
>> This (automatically) takes 'screenshots' on a no-screen (headless) *nix 
> system (during doc build) by redirecting X-windows output to a 
> pseudo-screen program. Rather clever, and system-specific.
>> > BUT I need something that works on Windows (Python 2.7).
> > Can any recommend an approach? I thought about using PIL:
>> Get the pillow fork/upgrade on pypi.

Thanks for the tip! So good ol' PIL is no longer maintained?

> > http://www.varesano.net/blog/fabio/capturing%20screen%20image%20python%20and%20pil%20windows
>> Or look into Windows screen grabber programs, of which there are many.
>> -- 
> Terry Jan Reedy
>> -- 
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list