Update 10/08/09:

I read the latest issue of Full Circle Magazine, and there was an article on “Top 5 Screenshot Tools”. Desktop Data Manager was mentioned. Hopeful that the previous bugs that stopped me using it had been fixed, I installed from the .deb on SourceForge.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed again. The application is unusable, it crashes on opening the application. Various other users have reported exactly the same bug on SourceForge. Try again this time next year I guess!

In the meantime, I’ll have a look at Shutter, and I am happily using Screengrab! (a Firefox addon to capture web page screenshots).

While I was studying for some exams, and typing up exam notes and trying to insert screenshots of lecture slides into my revision notes, I found myself wishing for the type of functionality provided by software such as Microsoft’s OneNote.The default GNOME screenshot application is useful under very particular circumstances, but if you just want to copy a screenshot to the clipboard, you’re SOL.

OneNote has an applet running in the system tray, and on pressing the keyboard shortcut, allows the user to select any area on screen and copy it to the clipboard. This image can then be pasted into word processor documents, image editing programs etc etc.

Just a couple of minutes searching located Desktop Data Manager, a program that can do this, and more. Functionality includes;

• clipboard history
• converts HTML / FTP links to images that can be pasted into any app
• customisable keyboard shortcuts
• take screenshots of windows, subwindows, or user-selected area

It really is very useful and far better than the horrible little GNOME app that you get with the default desktop. It seems to have ongoing development, and there are pre-built debs and rpms or you can build from source. There is even a 64-bit deb. Very cool.

Download Desktop Data Manager here.

Update: After using it for a few days, I found it has some issues. It causes repeatable crashes when cutting / pasting files in Nautilus. Also, it crashes repeatedly whenever opening the Desktop Data Download app. I can’t really recommend it any more with these basic bugs, it needs more work.