You haven’t heard from us for a long time, so it’s high time we gave you an update.
tl;dr: We are struggling with a lack of time, but are gradually trying to pick up speed again.
You may have noticed that the activity in this project has decreased a lot recently: the last release was a while ago, tickets remain unanswered for a long time, etc. Occasionally people have asked whether the project has been abandoned or whether (and when) a new release is coming.
You probably know that this project is run by a few people entirely in their spare time, that’s the little time we have left beneath our full-time jobs, families, homes, etc. At the moment, our capacities are more limited than ever before. Of course, this is clearly noticeable in our communication with you, and our internal communication is also affected by this, which slows some things down even more.
In addition, we are currently not in a position to publish signed releases. This is due to organizational issues that we need to clarify. Our goal is to get all the issues sorted out bit by bit so that we can hopefully provide a stable release again soon.
For everyone who can’t wait: there are also unstable releases available. „Unstable“ means that the releases are not signed (Windows probably displays a warning before installation - make sure to always get Greenshot from getgreenshot.org). „Unstable“ also means that the releases have not been thoroughly tested, so unexpected behavior can occur. But „unstable“ also means that the release contains bleeding edge features, and some quite interesting things have been developed since the last stable release.
So, please bear with us. We’re doing our best to get everything running again, but it will take some time.
]]>we hope you’re doing well during the corona crisis and you all stay healthy!
While many of you are working from home at the moment we noticed an increase of downloads escpacially of the mac version of Greenshot and so we finally managed to put out a new release of Greenshot. It mainly fixes some issues with Catalina.
As you might have noticed, Catalina introduced some major changes regarding security and so every app requiring screen recording needs permission by the user. When you started Greenshot on Catalina for the first time, you got a popup window telling you so, but you might have ignored it (don’t we all do this?). If so, all your screenshots will only have your desktop background image and nothing else. To fix this, go to “System Preferences -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy -> Screen Recording” and activate Greenshot.
We are very sorry for not being able to release for such a long time but we all really had so much going on in our private lives that it just wasn’t manageable for us. I hope, this is going to change in the near future. Anyway, we are still very excited about developing Greenshot and have great plans for the future to keep Greenshot a big part of the productivity ecosystem.
Have fun, stay safe and wash your hands! ;-)
]]>TL;DR: always get greenshot from getgreenshot.org
Recently we have been contacted by a user who reported that he got a malware warning on an installer that he had downloaded from what he thought was our website. It did not take us long to sort out what the actual problem was: he had openend a browser, typed “greenshot” and appended a top-level-domain that is commonly being used for free and open source software, assuming that this URL would bring him to Greenshot’s official website. The site does not look very professional, but it clearly describes Greenshot’s features and has prominent download buttons for Windows and Mac. So what could possibly go wrong?
Well, unfortunatey that domain is not (and has never been) under our control. In fact, the domain had already been registered when Greenshot’s website was still living on a subdomain on sourceforge.net, ages ago. When we first noticed it, the page could have been (euphemistically) classified as fan page. It offered some information and screenshots of our software, had download links to our binaries on Sourceforge, and had multiple advertisements, particularly but not exclusively for an well-known commercial screenshot tool. Questionable, but tolerable. Obviously not profitable, though. So at some point they have started serving modified binaries, presumably installing unwanted toolbars in the user’s browser.
According to the privacy policy, the website is operated by a French company called “Data Access Sarl”, while the responsible editor of the content is “In Profit Limited” from Hong Kong. A short research on the web revealed that this pair is running dozens of similar websites for other well-known open-source projects, including 7-Zip, KeePass, Paint.NET, Gimp, Inkscape and many others. We probably only saw the tip of the iceberg, but the vast amount of registered domains named after open-source projects is a clear sign that deliberatly misleading users is merely a business case for them.
Honestly, we don’t know. We are software engineers, not lawyers. You probably know that Greenshot is (and has always been) developed by few guys in the little spare time they have beneath their full-time jobs and families, so we cannot afford both time and money to pursue this legally. If you can, feel free to get in touch with us.
Take care everybody, and remember: always get greenshot from getgreenshot.org :)
]]>Although we didn’t release any new versions of Greenshot for some time now, a lot has happened!
What most people don’t realize is that Greenshot in its current form would still work with .NET Framework 2.0, which is technology from 2002! With that in mind, you might understand that Greenshot desperately needs an overhaul! Not only we use old, maybe even obsolete, technologies but most parts of the program grew into something which is hard to maintain and it didn’t really invite other developers to assist us.
Last year I started updating Greenshot so it works on and uses the most recent version of the .NET Framework. Using current technologies help to reduce the amount of code, get fixes a lot quicker and have new features available. To make this all possible I created a couple of new open source projects and moved generic parts of Greenshot in there:
These projects help to build a base for any .NET Windows application, and allows us to quickly add new features and fix existing. After going through Greenshot with a vacuum cleaner and a high pressure washer it should now also be easier for new developers to get acquainted to Greenshot and quickly learn to add new functionality. As soon as things get stable, there will be some documentation about writing your own add-ons.
Although the dotnet core technology, version 1.0 saw the light in June 2016, is pretty much platform agnostic like Java, it has not been possible to use existing Windows UI technologies with it. In May 2018, while I was working hard on getting things working with the latest .NET Framework version, Microsoft presented an interesting announcement during Build 2018 which you can read about here or watch in the video here.
The announcement was just what I was waiting for! Microsoft demonstrated that with dotnet core 3.0 it will be possible to use the UI technologies that Greenshot is already using! Why is this so exiting? Although most reasons are explained in a second blog about dotnet core 3.0 which can be read here I will try to translate this for our users.
One of the challenges with Greenshot was picking the version of the .NET Framework to run on, actually we were way to conservative and this limited our possibilities. The problem with the .NET Framework is that there can be only one version installed on a Windows PC! So if we want to use the newest version, we force a lot of people to update and a lot of companies might not be able to do so without extensively testing their other applications. The Greenshot installer needed to start the .NET Framework installer if this wasn’t available, managing this added another complexity. With dotnet core this is a thing of the past, every application can provide their own version of dotnet core and multiple versions run side by side!
Although Greenshot is open source it currently needs the .NET Framework to run, but this isn’t open source! The .NET Foundation, which is an independent organization which supports many open source .NET projects, is also taking good care of dotnet core. As soon as Greenshot is released for dotnet core, the complete stack is running with open source technologies!
Edit: On the 4th of December, “coincidentally” only hours after my blog post was made available, Microsoft announced on the Microsoft Connect(); 2018 event the following: NET Core 3 Preview 1 and Open Sourcing Windows Desktop Frameworks. This shows that Microsoft is really serious about its open source commitment, and that going towards dotnet core is the right thing to do for Greenshot! With this announcement the full stack of Greenshot on dotnet core, including the UI components, is build with open source technologies!
Another interesting fact is that the .NET Framework is used by billions of applications, this makes it very hard to maintain backwards compatibility while adding new features or fixes. With dotnet core, which doesn’t have all the legacy applications, a different approach is possible. By releasing more often and not having the need to support years of backwards compatibility, it’s finally possible to introduce new features and maybe sometimes even make breaking changes. One thing where this shows is that dotnet core has many performance enhancements, which will also be noticeable in Greenshot.
After the first major steps towards a new Greenshot, which I described before, I had the wish “making Greenshot dotnet core compatible”. In May 2018 there wasn’t much information on the topic so I tried to reach out to Microsoft. In June 2018 I managed to get a contact interested in working together, and we decided to try to use Greenshot as an early adopter of dotnet core 3.0.
I had the great pleasure to talk to many fine Microsoft employees about how and what of the .NET Framework is used by Greenshot, and what challenges we face providing Greenshot to our users. We discussed many use cases, some of them are probably still being worked on. At the same time I started the first work of making all the non UI parts dotnet core or netstandard compatible. And then in September 2018 it finally happened, the first alpha/preview build of dotnet core 3.0 was available.
With this available I worked for the last 3 months to get the whole of Greenshot and the backing projects running with dotnet core 3.0, which while it being very early would have been quite hard, so I am really grateful for the support I got from my contacts. While it was a lot of work to make Greenshot dotnet core compatible, the UI part of the application actually was a case of “it just works”, which is really amazing! And when one or the other bug showed up, the turn around time for fixes are usually one or two days.
At the time I am writing this the current state is that Greenshot is running on .NET Framework 4.7.1 and dotnet core 3.0 side by side! Having things work side by side is very convenient, we can stay on the “stable” .NET Framework and release from there, but as soon as dotnet core 3.0 is available for the general audience we can also release for this. I would say that the dotnet core implementation has around 95% of the functionality which .NET Framework has, and the only reason for this is time. There are currently no show stoppers why the dotnet core 3.0 version of Greenshot would have less functionality, in fact I expect that it will be the other way around.
I expect that the first release candidate of dotnet core 3.0 is available before I finish all the open ends on Greenshot, but we might be able to start releasing alpha builds at the end of the first quarter of 2019. Around that time I will also write a blog post about the coming features, I still need to see what else is possible in this new world of dotnet core, and give a bit more information on the release timeline.
P.S. I again want to thank the people at Microsoft who supported me and Greenshot. Thank you Rich, Daniel and all your colleagues, especially for staying professional while handling my annoying questions. I hope to be able to work with you again in the near future!
What is left for now: we wish all our users happy times and enjoy the coming holidays!
Robin and the rest of the Greenshot team!
Version 1.2.6 is out now for download. Below is a list of the added features:
By the way: Greenshot for Mac is ready for High Sierra. It’s already fully tested and you should have no issues with Greenshot when updating.
Have fun using Greenshot and keep writing the good reviews!
We also appreciate it a lot when people post their issues in our bugtracker, so please keep doing that! https://greenshot.atlassian.net/projects/MAC/
]]>One of the biggest reasons for the current release needs to be explained.
It was about a year ago that we introduced the first version of Greenshot which was signed. Due to that change, when you start the installer, you will see “Verified publisher: Open Source developer, Robin Krom”. This means your download of Greenshot is the real thing, an unmodified version without bloatware or malware of Greenshot exactly as we made it. If starting your download does not show the publisher, it most likely is not the real thing and might be “infected” (intentionally or by accident) with something which should not be in there.
(By the way, if you want to make sure you are using the original version, you should never download Greenshot from anywhere else than from our website. Just keep in mind: always get Greenshot from getgreenshot.org)
To make signing possible we had to buy something what is called a code signing certificate, which is usually valid for one year. So a few weeks ago, almost a year later, we got a nice info mail and later a reminder, that the certificate will expire. Although Greenshot is free, meaning investing money could be considered a bad idea, we did buy a renewal to make it possible to continue to bring Greenshot securely to the masses. Unfortunately we found out that some smart people, responsible for the rules behind code signing, have introduced the need for a smart-card (hardware) for the code signing process in Februar 2017.
Although we now have bought the right to renew the certificate, our certificate provider has unfortunately made this renewal process extremely hard (and it wasn’t easy in the first place). Even today we still didn’t manage to do so, mainly due us having incompatible hardware. The introduction of the new rules, now needing special hardware, adds additional costs and complexity, which a lot of open source projects can’t afford.
Even when we manage to renew the certificate, the changed demands for using a certificate will most likely cause some headache to implement. We probably will find a solution some day, but I hope it doesn’t cost us additional money and more weeks of discussions and trying. It would be nice if a company can assist us, and other open source developers, by providing the needed knowledge or maybe even provide a free solution. (Our email-address is in the “impressum”.)
This version of Greenshot mainly contains bugfixes, the development was stopped one day before the certificate expired so we could still bring you an signed version of Greenshot.
We hope this release fixes some of the issues you were having, the release notes follow below.
Happy screenshottinggreenshotting,
Your Greenshot team
Release notes for Greenshot 1.2.10.6-c2414cf RELEASE
List of changes:
Ticket | Description |
---|---|
BUG-2235 | Imgur authentication issues due to imgur api change |
BUG-2227 | NullReferenceException when accessing the Imgur History |
BUG-2225 | NullReferenceException when changing the color of text |
BUG-2219 | Korean is spelled incorrectly in the installer |
BUG-2213 | NullReferenceException in the Freehand tool |
BUG-2203 | ArgumentNullException in the Freehand tool |
BUG-2141 | Imgur authentication issues due to old embedded IE |
BUG-2172 | NullReferenceException when using the speech bubble |
BUG-2246 | Login issues with the Atlassian Jira Cloud |
FEATURE-1064 | Added CTRL+Backspace & CTRL+A to the text tool |
Published on:
]]>Below you find a list of the features added in this version.
Release Notes 1.2.5
Jira Issue-IDs fixed: MAC-15, MAC-24, MAC-23, MAC-9
Again, a big thanks to all of our users who have filed bugs and feature requests in our bug tracker. We know, that it’s annoying to encounter unexpected behaviour but we only can fix it if you tell us.
Please keep up the good work. Together we can make Greenshot the best screenshot tool for Mac! https://greenshot.atlassian.net/projects/MAC/
]]>In the current release you will also find some new options in the preferences window for automatic storing of your screenshots in the clipboard or saving them under ~/Pictures/Greenshot. Unfortunateley you cannot select a custom folder for the auto-save feature because of Apple’s restrictions with sandboxed apps. Maybe we will find a way around this in the future, but for now, if you need the files elsewhere, you can use custom folder actions with automator to copy or move the pictures to some other place.
A big thanks to all of our users who have filed bugs and feature requests in our bug tracker. We know, that it’s annoying to encounter unexpected behaviour but we only can fix it if you tell us.
]]>Thanks to all of our users, you’re awesome! We got a lot of great feedback and as it seems, there are just a few minor flaws at the moment. That’s a great start.
Please keep writing those nice AppStore reviews. We’re reading every single one of them!
When you want to report an error or have a feature request, please file it in our bug tracker. That way you can be sure the issue will be taken care of and also you’ll get noticed when we work on it.
Some of you guys already had a few feature requests and we’re doing them one by one.
In the current version we added some of them and also fixed some bugs:
Today we present you the result of our January Greenshot Bug Bash, Greenshot 1.2.9.129! During this bug bash we fixed 24 bugs, to make this possible we worked around 18 “after work evenings” and three weekends (in 28 days). We would like to thank all people for taking time to report bugs, without we wouldn’t be able to know about them. Especially the people who reported bugs and were available for questions & testing have our utmost gratitude, without them we would not haven been able to fix this amount of bugs in such a short time.
You can find the complete list of all changes below.
Some special notes for people coming from Greenshot 1.2.8 (or older):
A special note for people coming from Greenshot 1.2.9.104 or 1.2.9.112:
With this version we added another translation, and reached a total of 37 languages with our latest addition: Taqbaylit
P.S. In case you missed it, we now also have an OSX version of Greenshot.
Happy screenshottinggreenshotting,
Your Greenshot team
Release notes for Greenshot 1.2.9.129-569de71 RELEASE
List of bugs fixed:
Ticket | Description |
---|---|
BUG-2051 | Scroll-lock button not usable as hotkey |
BUG-2056 | Cannot export to external command Paint.NET if .greenshot format is used |
BUG-2081 | Canvas resize (Ctrl + / Ctrl -) only works via numpad keys |
BUG-2093 | Shadow effects not rendering correctly on Windows 10 |
BUG-2095 | ‘Save as’ doesn’t remember last saved directory (after restart) |
BUG-2097 | Window border is not captured on Windows 10 |
BUG-2102 | InvalidOperationException when selecting a color |
BUG-2104 | Speechbubble can’t be used after copy/paste |
BUG-2105 | Window border is not captured on Windows 10 |
BUG-2108 | Capture last region doesn’t work |
BUG-2109 | Double-click on textbox causes NullReferenceException |
BUG-2111 | Drag and Drop image file on editor doesn’t work |
BUG-2114 | Storage location reset to default if not available during start |
BUG-2115 | Error while trying to upload screen shot to Jira |
BUG-2116 | MemberAccessException when opening the color dialog |
BUG-2119 | Crash on editing (dragged line) |
BUG-2120 | Greenshot Editor Canvas Changed to White Screen |
BUG-2121 | NullReferenceException when moving text |
BUG-2122 | Jira Plugin: Crash when uploading to Jira |
BUG-2124 | Flickr plugin generates wrong image link |
BUG-2125 | Send to OneNote does not work |
BUG-2126 | MemberAccessException during un-DropShadow of Ellipse |
FEATURE-992 | When reusing the editor, it is not brought to the front (fix) |
FEATURE-998 | Opening last capture in explorer should select/jump to the file (fix) |
Changes: