Take Screenshot on Gnome without Prompt

[borgmanJeremy]

Feature Description

This issue is to track updating Flameshot to use the new permission store that was merged into to xdg-desktop-portal: flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal#649 (comment)

This will allow users to take a screenshot without hitting the share button each time.

[GeorgesStavracas]

That portal change has been merged, and is part of the 1.15.0 release, and GNOME 43 will support that. The KDE portal implementation already skips the sharing dialog anyway, so it's not relevant. Requesting the screenshot permission happens the first time when using the GUI, and after that permission is granted, subsequent non-interactive screenshots should happen automatically. Taking screenshots from the CLI won't work without the permission.

[GeorgesStavracas]

I sent the comment too early, sorry. Some more thoughts.

Taking screenshots from the CLI won't work without the permission.

GNOME rejects permission requests from apps that are not the currently focused window, but xdg-desktop-portal only requests such permission if it's unset. If the user grants (or denies) the permission, it'll be stored and xdg-desktop-portal won't request it again. So if someone tries to take a screenshot using CLI, and it's the first time using the app, the permission request will fail. But in GNOME, people can go to Settings and manually grant Flameshot this permission using the Applications panel:

I'm still considering whether or not this case should be covered, and how to do so, but keep this in mind for now.

[GeorgesStavracas]

To be abundantly clear, Flameshot won't have to do anything other than using the Screenshot portal, and pass interactive=false. Everything else will be handled internally by xdg-desktop-portal and GNOME.

[borgmanJeremy]

Thanks for the additional info! I’ll try to get the change merged into Flameshot this weekend.

[mmahmoudian]

@GeorgesStavracas thanks for the detailed explanation, and thanks for the PR you did for the xdg-desktop-portal. I will try to update our documentation on our website. Do you kind if I ask you later to review the updates in case I've missed or misunderstood something?

[GeorgesStavracas]

Sure, just @ me and I can give it a read

[uacode]

How I can resubmit request for the permission?

Flameshot v12.1.0 (-)
https://ibb.co/1dTFj0t
https://ibb.co/VNc5RJ9

[jerzy-dudzic]

Hi guys,
I was going to add my 2 cents on how it doesn't work for me, but then I experimented a bit more and it started working.

OS: Fedora 37, Wayland, Gnome 43, Flameshot: 12.1.0 installed using dnf, xdg-desktop-portal-1.15.0-1.fc37

What I did to make it work:

1. Run flameshot
2. Open flameshot's settings window(I also maximized the window to lower the chances of loosing focus of that window - probably not needed)
3. Take a screenshot using flameshot - I clicked the tray icon that came from a gnome extension
4. Permissions question should appear - grant it
5. It should now work fine without asking for permissions next time you take a screenshot

The same can be done for flameshot run from the terminal, or triggered by a keyboard shortcut. You need to run flameshot in the terminal instead of using gnome launcher, and repeat the above steps. In this case I don't know if it's the flameshot settings window that needs to be actively focused to trigger the permissions prompt. But it's one of those.

In summary, I can now run flameshot from the tray icon, from terminal, from the ALT+F2(gnome's run command tool) and it takes screenshots without asking for permissions.

[f1lipe]

Hi guys, I was going to add my 2 cents on how it doesn't work for me, but then I experimented a bit more and it started working.

OS: Fedora 37, Wayland, Gnome 43, Flameshot: 12.1.0 installed using dnf, xdg-desktop-portal-1.15.0-1.fc37

What I did to make it work:

1. Run flameshot

2. Open flameshot's settings window(I also maximized the window to lower the chances of loosing focus of that window - probably not needed)

3. Take a screenshot using flameshot - I clicked the tray icon that came from a gnome extension

4. Permissions question should appear - grant it

5. It should now work fine without asking for permissions next time you take a screenshot

The same can be done for flameshot run from the terminal, or triggered by a keyboard shortcut. You need to run flameshot in the terminal instead of using gnome launcher, and repeat the above steps. In this case I don't know if it's the flameshot settings window that needs to be actively focused to trigger the permissions prompt. But it's one of those.

In summary, I can now run flameshot from the tray icon, from terminal, from the ALT+F2(gnome's run command tool) and it takes screenshots without asking for permissions.

Hi @jerzy-dudzic. Thanks for your 2 cents. I'm running the same version as you and I was able to grant permission running flameshot from its .desktop gnome menu. But when I try to run it from terminal it doesn't work (never asks for permission). Besides just 'flameshot' I also try running the same .desktop file (gtk4-launch org.flameshot.Flameshot.desktop) but same result:
flameshot: error: Unable to capture screen

Could you provide more details on how you achieved to run flameshot from terminal? Or do you have any idea about what I am missing here.

Thanks.

[uacode]

How to request permissions?

[jerzy-dudzic]

I just tested this on a second computer with Fedora 37. What worked for me is simply running flameshot command in the terminal(gnome-terminal as terminal, fish as shell). Terminal was the only window I had on the whole screen. Flameshot created a tray icon, I clicked on it and I chose to take a screenshot. Permissions prompt showed up. The tray extension I'm using is "AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support".

I believe that for this to work the terminal window must not lose focus. It's just a guess but I suspect you might be able to set the keyboard shortcut to flameshot screen for example, and then use that shortcut while having a terminal window with flameshot running and focused.

This theory is based on the quote of @GeorgesStavracas, although it's a bit counter-intuitive that it's the terminal window must be focused instead of flameshot. However maybe it's the terminal or even a shell that must be granted permissions for taking screenshots from the terminal. I don't know how to check those permissions. The quote is:

GNOME rejects permission requests from apps that are not the currently focused window

If anyone knows how to clear those permissions please let me know and I'll do some more tests.