Overview
SnapNDrag is a screen capture utility. It gives you ability to capture your entire screen, a single window, or a selected region of your screen. You can also get a screen capture after a delay. Once the capture is made, it is shown in a thumbnail preview and can be saved simply by dragging the thumbnail from the SnapNDrag window to the desktop. It can also be dragged into another application, such as Mail, Preview, Appleworks, and others.

Requirements
Requires Mac OS 10.2 or higher.

Setup
The program downloads as a disk image that mounts to your desktop. To install, you simply drag the application to your hard drive.

In Use
SnapNDrag is simple to use, as it should be. After starting the application, you simply select one of the 4 modes of capture from the SnapNDrag dialog window you want. Your captured image appears as a thumbnail in the dialog for you to drag wherever you like. The dialog window also lets you select a file format (JPEG, PNG, and TIFF). When using JPEG, you can specify a quality level (5-100) which affects quality and file size. There is also a size selection on the dialog for scaling captured images, but it is only functional in SnapNDrag Pro, which is a $5 upgrade.

SnapNDrag interface

The available capture modes are described below.

• Selection

This capture mode gives you crosshairs that allow you to select any rectangular region of your screen. You click to begin the selection, drag the cursor until you have everything you want to capture in the selection box, then release the mouse. The selection is captured and visible in the SnapNDrag dialog.

• Window

Selecting window mode changes your cursor to a camera. As you move the camera over various windows on your screen, they are highlighted so that you can tell which window will be captured. Click the mouse in the desired window to capture it.

• Screen

Screen mode simply captures your entire screen.

• Timed

This mode is screen mode with a multiple second delay. The delay is specified on the SnapNDrag dialog window. When you select Timed, you see a count down in the middle of your screen until the capture is taken.

Through the applications preferences you can have SnapNDrag automatically start when you log in. This is a nice feature because it allows me to take a screen capture at any time. The timed delay gives you the chance to locate the cursor where you want. The SnapNDrag preferences provides a couple of options for what the cursor will look like. Timed mode also lets you capture pop-up menus that would normally be dismissed when you moved the cursor to the SnapNDrag window.

The Pro version of SnapNDrag can be set up to remain hidden (not shown in the dock or on the desktop) and capture images using user definable hotkeys. This is my favorite feature. Using the hotkeys with the application hidden makes it appear to be part of the OS (similar to Apple's screen capture, but with more options).

The interface is well done. It looks and feels like an OS X application. The process of capturing an image and dragging it into a document or email is intuitive and easy. It is also integrated with some of the developers other applications (EasyFrame and EasyCrop). This is a quality application.

The only problem I could find with the SnapNDrag is when the application is in hidden mode, you don't have access to the menu bar items. This means you don't have the the "Save As" option, leaving dragging the capture to a destination as the only method of saving.

Summary
SnapNDrag is a screen capture utility for Mac OS X. It has an intuitive interface and simple, elegant operation. It lets you capture a screen selection, an individual window or the entire screen in JPEG, PNG, or TIFF format. You can also take delayed screen captures giving you access to cursor states and popup menus. The global hot key function is only available for a $5 upgrade, but if you take screen captures often, it's well worth it.

Pros

• Four useful capture modes
• Intuitive interface
• Ability to drag thumbnail of captured images
• Three image formats

Cons

• No access to menu items in hidden mode

Overall Rating

4 1/2 out of 5 Mice