While browsing Ubuntu Software Center, have you ever wondered:
- how it displays screenshots?
- who uploads the screenshots?
- why some of the screenshots are totally outdated?
Ubuntu Software Center pulls these screenshots from screenshots.debian.net. Anyone can upload screenshots to this site.
Keeping up with software that changes in almost every release is not an easy task. Often new screenshots are not uploaded, hence the outdated screenshots.
Want to help fix this?
Fire up your favorite application, and take a screenshot of it in action. (Screenshots must be in PNG format.) If necessary, crop the image to display only the program. Then upload it. (No login or e-mail address is required, no strings attached!)
Once uploaded, wait for the wonderful Debian admins to review your screenshots and publish it for the whole world to enjoy.
What about fonts?
There are over 200 font packages available, but hardly any of them have screenshots. You can do the same as above for each font package, too.
Or you could even write a script that generates a screenshot for every font package. Anyone up for the challenge?
“Or you could even write a script that generates a screenshot for every font package. Anyone up for the challenge?”
Yeah, if I find some free time I might write a small GTK+ application. Shouldn’t be too hard to do ;)
Thanks for this useful piece of information. I will see what i can do about it! Will try to help as much as possible.
What if the package is not packaged in Debian but is only available in Ubuntu or in a PPA? Is it fine to let USC show an ugly screenshot not available image for these apps?
Any alternatives?
alt + print captures only the active window. So there’s no need for cropping.
Yes, but alt+print screen don’t capture the window decoration. So I suggest use shutter.
Couldn’t screenshot be collected by an automatic tool?
You already have BAMF for matching apps to .desktop files. Open an application via the .desktop file, take a screenshot and add it to USC (or to a review queue so somebody can check it).
Iirc it is not possible to upload screen shots for packages that are not in Debian. I experienced such a problem which my Ubuntu specific package pq, that is in the Multiverse and thus not accepted into Debian.
screenshots.d.n allows packages in Debian main and Ubuntu main/universe. Stuff in Debian non-free and Ubuntu multiverse is not allowed because screenshots are under the same license as the program and we may not have permission to create screenshots and distribute them. PPAs or random other repositories aren’t included, best get your package into Debian and get it synced to Ubuntu :)
There are also quality requirements for screenshots. We get a lot of not very good screenshots, especially from Ubuntu users. Please please please read the guidelines before uploading. If you make an automatic screenshot creation tool, please manually review them before uploading to make sure they fit the guidelines.
> Or you could even write a script that
> generates a screenshot for every font
> package. Anyone up for the challenge?
Been there, done that (or rather, someone else has): http://fonts.debian.net/
Awesome tip, already submitted screenshot of Virtualbox-OSE, I will see if I can do more.
Why isn’t there a sitelike: screenshots.ubuntu.net???
Because I think that in the USC all Apps should have a screenshot that is made on an Ubuntu System. All screenshots should look the same.
I don’t think, that screenshots.debian.net acccepts screenshots which are already good, just because now they were taken under Ubuntu.
Why should they???
This would look much better…..
Samat Jain, Thanks for the tip! It’s been added to the Unresolved issues:
SC devs are looking into it.
This is great. I’ve added a few myself that were missing screenshots in the Software Centre, and I’ll add a few more tomorrow from work. If we all chip in ….
Evening. I’m the creator of screenshots.debian.net and would like to thank for the advertising. :) Recently we get a lot of new screenshots online every day thanks to many anonymous uploaders.
An Andrew (last name unknown) once created a software to automatically create screenshots and upload them to screenshots.debian.net automatically. If anyone likes to step up – his repository is here:
http://git.logfish.net/?p=font_screenshots.git;a=summary
And by the way it doesn’t matter if the package is only in Ubuntu and not in Debian. Despite the name screenshots.DEBIAN.net the service treats Ubuntu and Debian equally well and uses both distributions’ package sources. I believe a year ago we talked about customizing the layout of screenshots.debian.net for Ubuntu but so far I haven’t heard from the Ubuntu design team. :)
Guideline-wise we are pretty tolerant in what screenshots we accept. Even sometimes screenshots in non-english languages until we get something in english.
Okay, no time, need to improve on screenshots.debian.net. Relaunch coming soon. :) Have a nice day.
Christoph
P.S.: Thanks to Paul Wise for helping me moderate the uploads and Michael Vogt for adding to the codebase for Ubuntu’s software center.
I have a python-gd script to generate font previews. Email me if you’d like it.
Why not add a button to every ubuntu application ‘upload screenshot’ which shows automatically once the user is logged in to ubuntu-one. The users can upload screenshots with a single click.
I was up for the task, and wrote Christoph about it, and there’s another problem ttf-junicode is 404 on screenshots.d.n… however no replies…
I was up for the task, and wrote Christoph about it, and there’s another problem ttf-junicode is 404 on screenshots.d.n… however no replies…
Font screenshots and more info:
http://embraceubuntu.com/2007/05/21/300-easily-installed-free-fonts-for-ubuntu/
@Gurkan: ttf-junicode has a role::app-data debtag. I’m making heavy use of debtags to filter out packages that likely don’t have useful screenshots like libraries. I think it should be classified as role::data instead.
I just have written a small script that generates screenshots from fonts using Fontforge’s fontimage application.
The script can be found here: http://sidenote.hu/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/fontscreenshot.tar.gz
@christoph ah thanks for the hint, pity i just read it right now. i’ll try to fix that first then… i was wondering what it could have been, but now that you say i understand why it didn’t work.