In today’s tutorial, we’re going to explore the process of capturing screenshots in Python, saving them with filenames that include a timestamp using the pyautogui and tkinter libraries. So, without further ado let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
- Necessary Libraries
- Importing Libraries
- Screenshot App Class
- Canvas and Widgets
- Creating Widgets
- Taking a Screenshot
- Displaying Messages
- Main Execution
- Example
- Full Code
Necessary Libraries
Make sure to install the tkinter and pyautogui libraries via your terminal or command prompt for the code to function properly.
$ pip install tk
$ pip install pyautogui
Importing Libraries
import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import filedialog
import pyautogui
from datetime import datetime
As you can see we start by importing tkinter, which creates a graphical user interface (GUI) rendering it easy to use for the user, then we import filedialog module, this module allows the user to choose the save location.
After that, we import pyautogui library, which we’ll use for taking screenshots, and lastly, datetime which helps in getting the current date and time.
Screenshot App Class
class ScreenshotApp:
def __init__(self, root):
self.root = root
self.root.title("Screenshot App - The Pycodes")
Next, we create a class called screenshotApp to make the code more organized, so first we start with the _init_ method which is like the setup phase for our screenshot app. It initializes the main window (root) and then makes a title for it.
Canvas and Widgets
self.canvas = tk.Canvas(root, width=300, height=200)
self.canvas.pack()
self.create_widgets()
Following that, we create a canvas within the main window and then call the create_widgets method to create the GUI elements, in summary, what we did here is prepare the initial state and structure of the graphical user interface for the screenshot application.
Creating Widgets
def create_widgets(self):
self.screenshot_button = tk.Button(
text="Take Screenshot", command=self.take_screenshot, bg="blue", fg="white"
)
self.canvas.create_window(150, 100, window=self.screenshot_button)
Here, we created a button labeled “Take Screenshot” with a blue background and white text, when this button is clicked it executes the take_screenshot command.
Taking a Screenshot
def take_screenshot(self):
try:
# Hide the window to capture only the desktop
self.root.iconify()
# Capture screenshot
screenshot = pyautogui.screenshot()
# Show the window again
self.root.deiconify()
# Ask user for file path
file_path = filedialog.asksaveasfilename(
defaultextension=".png",
filetypes=[("PNG files", "*.png"), ("All files", "*.*")],
)
# Save screenshot with a timestamp in the filename
timestamp = datetime.now().strftime("%Y%m%d%H%M%S")
file_path_with_timestamp = f"{file_path}_{timestamp}.png"
screenshot.save(file_path_with_timestamp)
# Inform the user about the successful capture
self.show_message("Screenshot captured successfully!")
except Exception as e:
# Inform the user if an error occurs
self.show_message(f"Error: {e}")
The code presented here hides the window so that only the desktop is captured, then by using the pyautogui library the screenshot is taken, and once that’s done the window reappears so that the user can save the screenshot in a file path with a filename containing a timestamp while specifying the success or failure of the capture by message.
Displaying Messages
def show_message(self, message):
# Display a message to the user
popup = tk.Toplevel(self.root)
popup.title("Message")
label = tk.Label(popup, text=message)
label.pack(padx=10, pady=10)
ok_button = tk.Button(popup, text="OK", command=popup.destroy)
ok_button.pack(pady=10)
The above code displays a popup window with an “OK” button once clicked the popup window disappears.
Main Execution
if __name__ == "__main__":
root = tk.Tk()
app = ScreenshotApp(root)
root.mainloop()
Finally, we create the main window and the ScreenshotApp is initialized starting the GUI loop event.
Example
Full Code
import tkinter as tk
from tkinter import filedialog
import pyautogui
from datetime import datetime
class ScreenshotApp:
def __init__(self, root):
self.root = root
self.root.title("Screenshot App - The Pycodes")
self.canvas = tk.Canvas(root, width=300, height=200)
self.canvas.pack()
self.create_widgets()
def create_widgets(self):
self.screenshot_button = tk.Button(
text="Take Screenshot", command=self.take_screenshot, bg="blue", fg="white"
)
self.canvas.create_window(150, 100, window=self.screenshot_button)
def take_screenshot(self):
try:
# Hide the window to capture only the desktop
self.root.iconify()
# Capture screenshot
screenshot = pyautogui.screenshot()
# Show the window again
self.root.deiconify()
# Ask user for file path
file_path = filedialog.asksaveasfilename(
defaultextension=".png",
filetypes=[("PNG files", "*.png"), ("All files", "*.*")],
)
# Save screenshot with a timestamp in the filename
timestamp = datetime.now().strftime("%Y%m%d%H%M%S")
file_path_with_timestamp = f"{file_path}_{timestamp}.png"
screenshot.save(file_path_with_timestamp)
# Inform the user about the successful capture
self.show_message("Screenshot captured successfully!")
except Exception as e:
# Inform the user if an error occurs
self.show_message(f"Error: {e}")
def show_message(self, message):
# Display a message to the user
popup = tk.Toplevel(self.root)
popup.title("Message")
label = tk.Label(popup, text=message)
label.pack(padx=10, pady=10)
ok_button = tk.Button(popup, text="OK", command=popup.destroy)
ok_button.pack(pady=10)
if __name__ == "__main__":
root = tk.Tk()
app = ScreenshotApp(root)
root.mainloop()
Happy Coding!
Subscribe for Top Free Python Tutorials!
Receive the best directly. Elevate Your Coding Journey!
