Python MSS

An attempt to create a full functionnal cross-platform multi-screen shot module in pure python using ctypes.

Very basic, it will grab one screen shot by monitor or a screen shot of all monitors and save it to an optimised/progressive PNG/JPEG file.

MSS is for Multi-Screen Shot.

Dependancies & requirements

Python. And that is all :) MSS is writen in pure python, it uses ctypes. ctypes has been introduced in Python 2.5, before it will need ctypes modules to be installed separately.

Support

	GNU/linux	Windows	Mac OS X
python 3.3	YES	YES	?
python 3.2	yes	yes	?
python 3.1	yes	yes	?
python 3.0	yes	yes	?
python 2.7	YES	YES	YES
python 2.6	yes	yes	yes

Feel free to try MSS on a system we had not tested, and let report us by creating an issue.

Usage

If you just want to try MSS on your system:

$ python mss.py

If you want to use MSS on your project, just call a new instance of MSS*() and then save(). You can pass oneshot=True to create one screen shot of all monitors.

You can determine automatically which class to use:

from platform import system
from mss import *

systems = {
    'Darwin' : MSSMac,
    'Linux'  : MSSLinux,
    'Windows': MSSWindows
}
try:
    MSS = systems[system()]
except KeyError:
    err = 'System "{0}" not implemented.'.format(system())
    raise NotImplementedError(err)

Or simply import the good class:

from mss import MSSLinux as MSS

Then, it is quite simple:

try:
    mss = MSS(debug=False)

    # One screen shot per monitor
    for filename in mss.save():
        print('File "{0}" created.'.format(filename))

    # A shot to grab them all :)
    for filename in mss.save(oneshot=True):
        print('File "{0}" created.'.format(filename))
except Exception as ex:
    print(ex)
    raise

Bonus

Just for fun ... Show us your screen shot with all monitors in one file, we will update the gallery ;)

Errors

If you access a computer using SSH, do not forget to enable X11 forwarding, option -X. Else you will end on a segfault.