OpenCapture 📸

An ultra-lightweight, blazing-fast screen capture & annotation tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Built with Rust and Tauri v2.

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✨ Features

• 🪶 Ultra Lightweight: Consumes only ~25MB - 35MB of RAM (compared to 300MB+ in typical Electron capture apps).
• ⚡ Instant Screen Capture: High-performance multi-monitor capture using native OS display APIs (xcap crate) in under 30ms.
• 🎯 Precise Area Selection: Smooth interactive crosshair snipping with 8-point resize handles and real-time pixel dimensions.
• 🔍 Pixel Loupe / Magnifier: Zoom in on individual pixels with coordinate and RGB/Hex color inspector before selecting.
• 🎨 Rich Annotation Suite:
  • Pen / Brush: Freehand smooth drawing.
  • Rectangle Frame: Solid or outlined bounding boxes.
  • Circle / Ellipse: Highlight rounded UI elements and buttons.
  • Arrow Pointer: Directional vector arrows with customizable stroke.
  • Text Annotations: Crisp text placement with high-contrast shadow.
  • Color Palette: Curated quick-select colors + custom Hex color picker.
  • Stroke Widths: 2px (Thin), 4px (Medium), 8px (Thick).
• 📋 Seamless Clipboard & File Export:
  • One-click Copy (Ctrl+C): Writes raw RGBA image data directly into OS clipboard via arboard for instant pasting into Discord, Slack, Telegram, Photoshop, Word, etc.
  • One-click Save (Ctrl+S): Saves high-resolution PNG to custom folder.
• 🚀 Quick Capture Mode:
  • Global shortcut (default: Ctrl+Shift+A).
  • Automatically captures and saves to a user-defined directory (Screenshot_YYYYMMDD_HHmmss.png).
  • Automatically syncs to clipboard simultaneously.
• ⌨️ Interactive Shortcut Recorder: Customize global capture shortcuts directly in the Settings window.
• 🔔 System Tray Integration: Background daemon with right-click menu to quickly trigger captures or configure options.

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⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action	Scope
Ctrl + Shift + S / Cmd + Shift + S	Capture Area (Snipping Overlay)	Global
Ctrl + Shift + A / Cmd + Shift + A	Quick Capture (Direct auto-save & copy)	Global
Ctrl + C / Cmd + C	Copy to Clipboard	Snipping Overlay
Ctrl + S / Cmd + S	Save Screenshot to File	Snipping Overlay
Ctrl + Z / Cmd + Z	Undo Last Annotation	Snipping Overlay
Esc	Cancel / Close Capture	Snipping Overlay

(All shortcuts are fully customizable via the Settings interface)

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🏗️ Architecture & Technology Stack

graph TD
    subgraph Rust Core Backend
        OS[OS Display API] -->|xcap crate| CaptureEngine[Capture Engine]
        CaptureEngine -->|Fast Encoding| ImageBuffer[RGBA / PNG Buffer]
        Clipboard[arboard crate] -->|Raw RGBA Image| SysClipboard[OS Clipboard]
        Shortcuts[tauri-plugin-global-shortcut] -->|Global Hooks| Controller[Capture Controller]
        Tray[Tauri System Tray] --> Controller
    end

    subgraph Frontend - Canvas & UI
        Controller -->|Open Overlay| Overlay[Fullscreen Transparent Window]
        Overlay --> Canvas[HTML5 2D Canvas Editor]
        Canvas --> Tools[Pen / Box / Circle / Arrow / Text / Color]
        Canvas --> Export[Copy to Clipboard / Save File]
        Controller --> Settings[Settings & Dashboard Window]
    end

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• Core Engine: Rust 1.94+
• Desktop Framework: Tauri v2
• Screen Capture: xcap 0.9 (supports DirectX/GDI on Windows, ScreenCaptureKit on macOS, X11/Wayland on Linux)
• Clipboard: arboard 3.4 (native platform pasteboards)
• Frontend: Vite + TypeScript + HTML5 2D Canvas (Zero bulky UI frameworks, instantaneous startup)

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🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

1. Rust: Install Rust (1.90+ recommended).
2. Node.js: Install Node.js (v18+ or v22+).
3. pnpm (or npm / yarn):

   npm install -g pnpm

Installation & Development

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/maiductuan/open-capture-screen.git
   cd open-capture-screen

2. Install Node dependencies:

   pnpm install

3. Run in development mode:

   pnpm tauri dev

Building for Production

To create a standalone, optimized installer for your current platform:

pnpm tauri build

The compiled binaries will be output to:

• Windows: src-tauri/target/release/bundle/msi/ or bundle/nsis/ (.exe, .msi)
• macOS: src-tauri/target/release/bundle/dmg/ (.dmg, .app)
• Linux: src-tauri/target/release/bundle/deb/ or bundle/appimage/ (.deb, .AppImage)

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🐧 Linux Dependencies

For Linux builds (Ubuntu / Debian), install required WebKit & indicator libraries:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y \
  libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev \
  build-essential \
  curl \
  wget \
  file \
  libxdo-dev \
  libssl-dev \
  libayatana-appindicator3-dev \
  librsvg2-dev \
  libx11-dev \
  libxcb1-dev \
  libxcb-randr0-dev \
  libxcb-shm0-dev \
  libxcb-xfixes0-dev \
  libxcb-shape0-dev \
  libxcb-render0-dev \
  libxfixes-dev \
  libpipewire-0.3-dev \
  libspa-0.2-dev \
  libdrm-dev \
  clang \
  libclang-dev

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome! Feel free to check issues page.

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.