Select an area to capture using the mouse

Question

I'm making a Java based screen shot application, and I want to make it so when you push a combination of keys on your keyboard something like this video happens where you select and area on your screen, and it takes a screen shot of the selected area.

How to select an area to capture using the mouse?

Answer 1

Start with something like this.

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import javax.swing.*;

/** Getting a Rectangle of interest on the screen.
Requires the MotivatedEndUser API - sold separately. */
public class ScreenCaptureRectangle {

    Rectangle captureRect;

    ScreenCaptureRectangle(final BufferedImage screen) {
        final BufferedImage screenCopy = new BufferedImage(
                screen.getWidth(),
                screen.getHeight(),
                screen.getType());
        final JLabel screenLabel = new JLabel(new ImageIcon(screenCopy));
        JScrollPane screenScroll = new JScrollPane(screenLabel);

        screenScroll.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(
                (int)(screen.getWidth()/3),
                (int)(screen.getHeight()/3)));

        JPanel panel = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
        panel.add(screenScroll, BorderLayout.CENTER);

        final JLabel selectionLabel = new JLabel(
                "Drag a rectangle in the screen shot!");
        panel.add(selectionLabel, BorderLayout.SOUTH);

        repaint(screen, screenCopy);
        screenLabel.repaint();

        screenLabel.addMouseMotionListener(new MouseMotionAdapter() {

            Point start = new Point();

            @Override
            public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent me) {
                start = me.getPoint();
                repaint(screen, screenCopy);
                selectionLabel.setText("Start Point: " + start);
                screenLabel.repaint();
            }

            @Override
            public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent me) {
                Point end = me.getPoint();
                captureRect = new Rectangle(start,
                        new Dimension(end.x-start.x, end.y-start.y));
                repaint(screen, screenCopy);
                screenLabel.repaint();
                selectionLabel.setText("Rectangle: " + captureRect);
            }
        });

        JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, panel);

        System.out.println("Rectangle of interest: " + captureRect);
    }

    public void repaint(BufferedImage orig, BufferedImage copy) {
        Graphics2D g = copy.createGraphics();
        g.drawImage(orig,0,0, null);
        if (captureRect!=null) {
            g.setColor(Color.RED);
            g.draw(captureRect);
            g.setColor(new Color(255,255,255,150));
            g.fill(captureRect);
        }
        g.dispose();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Robot robot = new Robot();
        final Dimension screenSize = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().
                getScreenSize();
        final BufferedImage screen = robot.createScreenCapture(
                new Rectangle(screenSize));

        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                new ScreenCaptureRectangle(screen);
            }
        });
    }
}