I recently had a feature request to add Direct-Paste to ScreenFloat. I had not idea what that meant, so I looked it up. It basically combines the copy-paste operations into one, immediately pasting the freshly copied content into the currently active, frontmost app’s active window. So instead of having to copy the shot and then pasting it into the active app using command-v (or your method of choice), it’s all done in one go.
Now, there is no way this is allowed in the Mac App Store: ScreenFloat would require the Accessibility sandbox entitlement for it (to emulate the command-v key press), and that’s a big no-no. Why? I have no idea – they do have an entire process of reviewing apps set up for this sort of thing, after all. But I digress.
With the recently released ScreenFloat v2.2, I introduced support for Application Scripts, where users can supply their own, custom-made AppleScripts, and ScreenFloat can run them with a copy of a double-clicked floating shot. With that, it’s possible to set up a direct-paste double-click workflow. Here’s how.
A floating shot being double-clicked, immediately copy-pasting it into the currently active app, TextEdit.
The AppleScript
The AppleScript is fairly simple, and I’ve prepared it for you to download here (.zip, ~4KB). It expects the shot already having been copied to the clipboard (doable within the same double-click workflow), and then emulates a command-v key press to paste it into the active, frontmost app’s active window.
After you download and unzip the script, place it into this folder on your Mac: /Users/yourname/Library/Application Scripts/at.EternalStorms.ScreenFloat-[appstore|trial]/
Now it’s accessible from within ScreenFloat for the Run AppleScript double-click action.
Creating the Double-Click Workflow
Your double-click workflow will consist of two actions:
Copy Shot copies the double-clicked shot as a file path, or as image data (png, tiff, etc)
Run AppleScript runs the selected AppleScript
To set it up, open ScreenFloat’s Settings, select the Floating Shots tab, and under Double-clicking:, click with the mouse-button and modifier keys of your choice (you can set up multiple double-click workflows for different mouse buttons, with different modifier keys).
Press the + button below and select Copy Shot > Filepath | PNG | TIFF | etc Press the + button again and select Run AppleScript > Direct-Paste Double-Clicked Shot into Active App
Now, when you double-click a shot with your specified mouse button and modifier keys, the shot will be copied to your clipboard, and then the AppleScript will be executed, pasting the clipboard’s contents (your shot) to the active app’s active window.
That’s it. You can now easily copy-paste floating shots into the active app, without having to do the copy and pasting manually.
Minor Caveat If you set up the double-click workflow for a mouse button with a bunch of modifier keys, be sure to release the modifier keys as soon as you finish the double-click, otherwise the AppleScript will not send command-v to the active app, but [your pressed modifiers] – v, possibly resulting in a beep. That’s why I implemented a slight delay into the script (0.5 seconds), which you can adjust yourself by just changing that number, giving you more leeway for releasing the modifier keys you set up for the double-click workflow.
Let’s take a tour through ScreenFloat and see how it can power up your screenshots, too.
ScreenFloat for Mac – Your Screen Capture Power Tool All-Rounder
ScreenFloat powers up your screenshots by allowing you to take screenshots and recordings that float above everything else, keeping certain information always in sight. Its Shots Browser stores your shots and helps you organize, name, tag, rate, favorite and find them. Everything syncs across your Macs. Extract, view and copy detected text, faces and barcodes. Edit, annotate, markup and redact your shots effortlessly and non-destructively. Pick colors any time. And more.
Drag and dropping shots to other apps is quite frankly the easiest and most straightforward way to get a file from A to B. Here’s how to do it:
Drag and Drop from a Floating Shot
We already talked about this in Part III: Float, but it bears repeating, because it’s absolutely crucial.
Share by dragging the document icon, or by long-press-dragging the image, or from the on-the-fly sharing options panel
When you drag a file from the floating shot’s document icon or by long-press-dragging the image, it is exported as-is, as a PNG file (or MOV file for videos). If you need more fine-tuned control, click the document icon, and you’ll be presented with a couple of useful options:
Here, you can:
Change the default file format (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PDF, HEIC), or drag out/copy/open with/share a specific file format
Reduce the resolution (from 144+ “retina” dpi to 72 dpi)
Resize the image (by longest/shortest side, or width/height)
Add a border around the image to prevent “bleeding” *
Enable whether markup and annotations should be included in the dragged file, or the image should be shared without any markup
Randomize the filename Instead of the filename as it appears in the Shots Browser, the file name will become “ScreenFloat Shot <RANDOM12CHARSTRING>”
Enable whether notes and tags should be included as EXIF and Finder metadata
* “Add border” adds a slim border around the image to prevent bleeding into document or website backgrounds, if the colors are similar. It’s best explained in a short video:
Drag and Drop from the Shots Browser
You can drag multiple shots from the Shots Browser to other apps. Select them, and drag them out:
Furthermore, you can drag entire folders out of the Shots Browser:
Export
If you require more advanced options for your files, consider using ScreenFloat’s Export functionality, which allows you to export multiple screenshots and recordings in one fell swoop.
Naming For exporting, you have the same file naming options available as for storing shots in the Shots Browser (discussed in a future installment of this series). Namely, those are:
<Shot Title>: The Shot title, as it appears in the Shots Browser
<App Name>: The name of the captured app
<Shot Kind>: Like “Image Shot” or “Video Shot”
<Capture Date>: The date the shot was captured
<Capture Time>: The time the shot was captured
<Year>, <Month>, <Day>, <Minute>, <Second>: The components of the capture date/time
<Unix Timestamp>: A unix timestamp representation of the capture date and time
<File Size>: The file size of the shot (before the export), like “320KB”
<Dimensions>: The dimensions of the shot, like “640×480”
<Width>, <Height>: The components of the dimensions of the shot, like “640”, or “480”
<Duration>: For recordings, the duration of the video, like “1m22s”
<Random>: A random, 12-character string
<Sequential Number>: The running count of the exported file
Include notes, tags as metadata With this selected, ScreenFloat writes notes and tags you specified for a shot into the shot’s file metadata. In the case of an image format (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, HEIC), it uses the appropriate IPTC fields. In the case of a PDF, it’s written into the PDF’s subject and keywords fields. If it’s a screen recording, it’s a custom metadata field.
Images
Include annotations With this selected, the image is exported with its annotations, markups and redactions. If this is not selected, the plain image will be exported.
Format
PNG
JPEG
Offers Quality setting
TIFF
PDF
Offers PDF permission settings
HEIC
Offers Quality setting
Size Restrict the exported image’s size by longest or shortest side, width or height.
Alpha Whether the exported image file has an alpha channel. Available for PNG, TIFF and HEIC.
Reduce resolution (72 dpi) When screenshots are taken on a retina display, they usually have a high resolution, like 144 dpi. With this selected, all high-dpi-images’ resolution will be reduced to 72 dpi, resulting in a smaller file size, but also reduced quality.
Recordings
Remove all audio For screen recordings. Will remove all audio tracks from the resulting video file.
Size Restrict the exported image’s size by longest or shortest side, width or height.
Create GIFs from Recordings
Easily create GIFs from your recordings, with the following quality, sizing, cropping and trimming options: – Frame Rate: Choose between 30fps, 24fps, 15fps, 12fps, 10fps and 6fps – Size: Scale the GIF from 100% (original size) to 10%. – Color Quality: Adjust the color representation of the GIF (to reduce the file size) – Crop button: Select an area within the video to create the GIF from – Time Range: Select a portion of the video you’d like to create the GIF of – Quality Slider: Change the picture quality of the GIF (to reduce the file size)
The live preview shows you what your GIF will look like with your current settings. The Estimated File Size shows you ScreenFloat’s best guess at the resulting file size (not 100% accurate due to different factors during rendering).
Export to Folder, Share with a Double-Click Action
We’ll talk about double-click workflows in more detail in a future installment of this series, but I’d still like to mention this here, because it is, after all, another way to export shots. ScreenFloat provides a Double-Click Action to export double-clicked shots directly into a folder of your choice:
Set it up in ScreenFloat’s Settings > Floating Shots > Double-clicking.
There are other Double-Click Actions available, like opening the Share menu right away, copying the shot as a file path or image data, open with a specific app, and more!
Link Sharing
If you want to share multiple shots, or a large screen recording, it might be easier for you and the recipient to share a download link instead of the actual files. You’d like to display a screenshot on a website, or embed it in a Markdown document? Link Sharing allows you to do that.
iCloud Link Sharing
Sharing multiple or large shots as a download link can be easily done with iCloud Link Sharing. Right-click the shot(s) and select Share > Copy iCloud Link…, and the files will be uploaded to iCloud and a link to it copied to your clipboard:
Links created with iCloud are be valid for up to 30 days, after which they will no longer be accessible. They can’t be manually invalidated.
In Settings > iCloud > Set up Link Copy…, you can change:
Link Style
Landing Page (default): When you open the link in your browser, you see a landing page with a prompt to download the files
Direct File Link: When you open the link in your browser, the file is downloaded right away. This is also embeddable, but keep in mind that a link created with iCloud is only valid for up to 30 days
Include validity info
Whether or not the copied link should include the expiration date, i.e.: https://linktofile.com (expires on <date>)
ImageKit.io and Cloudinary.com Link Sharing
Permanent, non-expiring links to screenshots and recordings can be created with ScreenFloat’s inclusion of ImageKit.io and Cloudinary.com, so you can embed them in websites, or Markdown documents, for example.
It works just the same as iCloud Link Sharing, but requires you to (1) create a (free) account with the service you’d like to use, and (2) enter your account’s information into ScreenFloat.
Settings for ImageKit.io and Cloudinary.com integration
Each service’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy applies.
ScreenFloat does not offer any other integration with these services, other than uploading them and copying the link. However, you can access ImageKit.io’s Media Library and Cloudinary.com’s Media Explorer from these settings, allowing you to manage (and delete) your uploaded files in your browser.
This can also be triggered with a Double-Click Action.
Printing
The settings for printing are pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll just leave you with two screenshots of ScreenFloat’s print dialog:
While I’m here, a tip: MacStories.net and ScreenCastsONLINE have teamed up to give you a 50% discount on the first year of an annual SCO subscription. That’s a really good deal!
Let’s take a tour through ScreenFloat and see how it can power up your screenshots, too.
ScreenFloat for Mac – Your Screen Capture Power Tool All-Rounder
ScreenFloat powers up your screenshots by allowing you to take screenshots and recordings that float above everything else, keeping certain information always in sight. Its Shots Browser stores your shots and helps you organize, name, tag, rate, favorite and find them. Everything syncs across your Macs. Extract, view and copy detected text, faces and barcodes. Edit, annotate, markup and redact your shots effortlessly and non-destructively. Pick colors any time. And more.
Part VII – Widgets, Siri Shortcuts, AppleScript, Workflows, Spotlight
ScreenFloat integrates perfectly with macOS, so you can easily and comfortably capture and access your shots any way you want to. Read on to learn how.
ScreenFloat offers you a number of widgets, ranging from quick access to capturing your screen and managing your floating shots, over quickly accessing your shots, to folders and picked colors.
Command and Control
These widgets allow you to control all aspects of ScreenFloat – capture new shots and recordings, manage your floating shots and open the Shots- and Tags Browser. These might be especially useful placed on your Desktop, if you’re on macOS 14 Sonoma or newer.
Quick Access to Shots
With “Shot”-family of widgets, you get quick access to:
Favorite Shots
Recently Captured Shots
Shots in a specific folder
Recently closed floating shots
Shots tagged with a specific tag
Clicking a shot will reveal it in the Shots Browser.
Tags and Colors
And lastly, you can have quick access to your favorite tags, and recently picked colors. Clicking a tag in the Favorite Tags widget will reveal it in the Tags Browser. The color widget allows you to copy a color’s hex-, rgb-, float- or hsl values, or a sample color image.
Siri Shortcuts
To integrate capturing your screen into a Shortcut, ScreenFloat comes with a couple of useful Shortcuts to help you do that.
Here are ScreenFloat’s shortcuts available to you:
Capture Shot Allows you to automate capturing a screenshot, timed screenshot, or screen recording.
Options include:
Float shot whether to float the new shot after capture or not
Title
Notes
Tags
Recapture previous area if, instead of starting a new capture, the last known screen area should be preselected for the capture
Add to Folder select a folder to add the newly created shot to
After Capture what should happen right after capture. Current options are: do nothing, Annotate Shot, Crop Shot, Resize Shot, Reduce resolution, Trim Recording, Cut Recording, Create iCloud Link, Create ImageKit Link, Create Cloudinary Link
New Shot from Clipboard Create a new shot from the contents of your clipboard: images, videos, or text.
Import Files Import specific image or video files into ScreenFloat, with the same options as Capture Shot.
Hide / Unhide Floating Shots, Close All Floating Shots Manage your floating shots’ visibility.
URL Scheme
ScreenFloat’s URL scheme gives you access to all of ScreenFloat’s capturing functionality from the comfort of a URL, allowing you to automate captures in your own style.
For all the available options and instructions, please click here.
AppleScript
ScreenFloat allows you to run Application Scripts (AppleScripts that reside in a special folder on your Mac) as a double-click workflow, passing in a copy of the double-clicked shot, along with a couple of other parameters. For all the details and instructions, click here.
This opens up a wide possibility of options to you, like creating your own Link Share service, uploading the shot to your server and copying a link to it to your clipboard, or direct-pasting shots into the active app’s window.
As coincidence has it, here are, coincidentally, two sample scripts that allow you to do exactly that.
Sample AppleScript to upload the double-clicked Shot to FTP server and copy link to pasteboard (direct download) Uses the passed-in fileURL and uploads it to your FTP server, copying the link to it to your clipboard afterwards
Sample AppleScript to direct-paste the double-clicked Shot into the active app’s active window (direct download) Emulates a command-v keypress for the active app. Best used together with a Copy Shot double-click action so you don’t have to copy the fileURL in the script.
You can also run Shortcuts with your shots as a double-click action. Read on for more information on both AppleScripts and Shortcuts as Double-Click actions.
Double-Click Workflows
From time to time, you’ll find yourself doing something over and over again, like resize an image before you send it in an email, or crop an image before you annotate it, or duplicate a screen recording before you remove its audio tracks. ScreenFloat speeds that up by providing customizable double-click workflows for your floating shots.
Setting up Double-Click Workflows
Double-Click workflows are set up in ScreenFloat’s settings. You can reach them by clicking on ScreenFloat’s menu bar icon in the right portion of your menu bar; or by right-clicking any floating shot; or by pressing command (⌘) – , in the Shots Browser. Select Floating Shots, and you’ll be ready to get going:
You can set up double-click workflows for different mouse buttons, and different modifier keys on your keyboard (command (⌘), option (⌥), control (^), shift (⇧) and fn). For instance, you can set up workflows for your left mouse button with no modifier keys pressed (a simple double-click onto the floating shot), or your middle mouse button with command (⌘) and shift (⇧) pressed. This allows you to set up not just one, but multiple double-click workflows, tailored to different situations or requirements.
To add a double-click action to a workflow, hold down the modifier keys of your choice (or none) and press the mouse button area at the top of the list with the desired mouse button. Then press the + button at the bottom of the list to select actions you’d like to perform on the floating shot you double-click.
Switching through a couple of double-click actions for different mouse buttons and modifier keys.
The – button allows you to remove selected actions from the current workflow, remove all actions from the current workflow, or completely reset all your double-click workflows.
Available Actions
Actions in a workflow are performed in the order they appear in the list when you add them. This order is more or less pre-defined and cannot be changed: for instance, the Duplicate Shot action is always added to the top of the list, and thus, performed first when the double-click workflow runs. On the other hand, Copy as File is performed last, so you can have a double-click workflow where you crop, resize and annotate a shot, and after that, that newly edited shot is copied.
Here, we set up a workflow for when we double-click a shot with the middle mouse button and the option modifier key pressed. It will duplicate the shot first, then allow for cropping and annotation, then copies the resulting image file.
Let’s go over the list of available actions.
Some of these actions are only available when image shots are double-clicked: – Reduce image resolution – Annotate Shot while others are only available for screen recordings: – Copy Still Image from Video – Create GIF from Video – Trim Video – Cut Video – Remove Audio (All, System, Mic)
Let’s go over them:
Copy Shot Copy the shot as a file path, or as data (in the case of images)
Copy Clicked Text (Additive) When you double-click a text line in a shot with this active, that text line gets copied. Double-click another in the same shot, and it gets added to the previous copy.
Copy Still Image from Video Copies the currently displayed frame in a floating video shot.
Open Copy With Allows you to specify two apps: one for image shots, and one for video shots.
Export to Folder Lets you select a folder on your disk to save the double-clicked shot to in its native PNG format right away.
Run AppleScript Run an AppleScript with a copy of the double-clicked shot. Read instructions here.
Run Shortcut Run a Siri Shortcut with a copy of the double-clicked shot.
Resize Shot Allows you to specify a percentage to resize to (25%, 50%, 75%, 125%, 150%, 175%, 200%), or to resize it manually.
Rotate Rotate the shot clockwise, or counterclockwise.
Mark up with Adds the selected symbol (checkmark, xmark, or smart numbered list) to the shot at the clicked location.
Redact Redacts the clicked information, text, barcode or face.
Rate Shot Specify a rating to give the shot when double-clicking it (from no rating to 1-5 stars).
Add to Folder Specify a folder the shot should be added to, or let the double-click show the folders menu so you can select one on the fly.
Add Tag Specify a tag to tag the double-clicked shot with, or show the Tags menu to select one on the fly.
Toggle Opacity Between 100% and Select an opacity level all the way down to 40% to toggle between with a double-click.
Ignore Mouse Clicks Makes the double-clicked shot ignore mouse clicks until reverted.
Toggle Visibility Between Everywhere and Select “Current Space” or “Currently Active App” as an option. Double-click to set it to, say, Currently Active App, then double-click it again to toggle it back to Everywhere.
Resize Floating Shot Window Allows you to resize the floating shot window down or up in increments, or reset it to 100%.
Some actions are mutually exclusive. For instance, you can’t have both Copy All Detected Text and Copy Clicked Text in one and the same action, because one would override the other, and only the last operation would “take”.
Running a double-click workflow on a floating image shot that automatically reduces the shot’s resolution to 72 dpi, then asks me to resize it, then to crop/fold it, and then shows the Share menu.
Spotlight
ScreenFloat optionally indexes your shots and their metadata with Spotlight, so you can find them system-wide.
ScreenFloat Shot search results in Spotlight
The neat thing about this is that it not only allows you to search by shots’ metadata (title, notes, tags), but also their detected text/barcode content, as well as any text annotations you have made.
Selecting a search result reveals it in your Shots Browser, where a double-click onto it, or the enter/return key on your keyboard will float it right away if you like.
Application Services
ScreenFloat comes with a couple of system services that make it easier to import and float image or video files, even text, or extract still images from videos.
Float Image/Video File from Finder
To float an image or video file in ScreenFloat (and import it along the way), select the file(s) in Finder, then select Finder > Services > Create Shot From Selected Image and Video Files in your menu bar.
Create a Floating Shot from Selected Text
Quickly make a floating note of some text with ScreenFloat – select the text and select Services > Create Shot from Selected Text in the application’s app menu. (By the way, you can also do this for text copied to your clipboard from ScreenFloat’s menu bar icon.)
Extract Still Images from Movies playing in QuickTime Player
It’s easy enough to just take a screenshot of the player window with ScreenFloat to capture a still image of the playing video, but it’s even easier with ScreenFloat’s service. Select QuickTime Player > Services > Extract Still Image From QuickTime Player Movie and ScreenFloat will create a still image of the playing movie at the current playback position.
Capture menus and submenus
Capturing a menu and its submenus on its own has become increasingly difficult – perhaps even impossible – with the more recent versions of macOS. It’s very tricky to capture the menu itself without its host window. ScreenFloat offers a system-wide service that allows you to capture a menu and its submenus in its entirety, or just specific submenus, when you don’t need the entire hierarchy.
Note on how it works: After you select the service “Capture Contextual menu…”, ScreenFloat will wait 10 seconds for a menu to appear (if there’s no menu after 10 seconds, ScreenFloat will cancel the capture). Once a menu appears, you have 3 seconds to navigate to the next submenu, and then again 3 seconds to navigate to the next submenu, and so on. After 3 seconds of no change in menus, the capture will be made.
That’s a Wrap
Whew, what a journey. Congratulations, you now know everything there is to know about ScreenFloat – you can now get the most out of it, I’m sure! Consider these posts living documents that I’ll keep up-to-date with the changes made to the app, so you’ll always know where to go if something’s unclear. Speaking of unclear, if you have any feedback or questions, please do not hesitate to write me – I’d love to hear from you.
