Screention v0.12.0: Rock-Solid Wayland & X11 Capture, Offline OCR, and Expanded Hotkeys

We are thrilled to ship Screention v0.12.0! This release marks our most significant leap forward in reliability, cross-platform stability, and local-first productivity.

Whether you are capturing complex multi-monitor setups on Ubuntu Wayland, extracting error traces on an airplane without internet access, or setting your favorite Print Screen hotkey, v0.12.0 makes Screention feel instantaneous, dependable, and invisible when you don't need it.

Here is a full breakdown of what is new.

1. Native Wayland Capture + Multi-Tool Fallback

Modern Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Debian) default to Wayland compositors like GNOME Mutter, KDE KWin, Sway, and Hyprland. Because Wayland strictly separates window boundaries for security, traditional screenshot query mechanisms frequently fail or result in blank screens.

In v0.12.0, Screention introduces a resilient Linux capture engine:

• XDG Desktop Portal Integration: Built on native portal calls (ashpd), Screention communicates directly with your desktop environment's portal implementation to capture screens cleanly at full native resolution.
• Multi-Tool Fallback System: If portal services are missing, unconfigured, or denied on minimal window managers, Screention automatically falls back through standard system tools: grim, gnome-screenshot, scrot, or import.
• Zero Black Flashes: Wayland windows initialize immediately at full dimensions, eliminating the momentary black screen flicker that previously accompanied overlay creation.

2. 100% Offline OCR Text Extraction

Extracting text from screenshots—such as log traces, terminal outputs, or unselectable UI labels—is one of Screention's most popular capabilities.

Previously, optical character recognition relied on on-demand web workers downloading language models from remote CDNs. In v0.12.0, everything runs completely offline:

• Bundled Tesseract WASM: The WebAssembly SIMD/LSTM Tesseract runtime is packaged directly into the local application bundle.
• Bundled Language Models: High-accuracy English traineddata (eng.traineddata.gz) is stored locally.
• Zero Network Latency: Text extraction starts instantly, never transmits image pixels or recognized text across the network, and works with 100% fidelity even when disconnected from the internet.

Press Ctrl+E (or Cmd+E on macOS) after selecting any region to copy text straight to your clipboard.

3. High-Tolerance Barcode & QR Code Scanning

Scanning QR codes or barcodes from web pages or design mocks shouldn't require picking up a smartphone:

• Multi-Scale Image Analysis: Barcode recognition now applies multi-scale contrast and adaptive thresholding passes, allowing Screention to detect barcodes even with wide margins, subtle contrast, or small sizes.
• Auto-Trim Padding: The scanner intelligently extracts candidate areas and trims excess white or dark space to maximize scan accuracy.
• One-Touch Copy: Found payloads copy directly to the system clipboard, accompanied by centered visual status indicators that automatically dismiss when done.

Trigger scanning at any time with Ctrl+Q (or click the barcode icon on the capture toolbar).

4. Zero-Flash Capture with Double Paint Synchronization

Screen capture should feel seamless. In earlier versions, recapturing a screenshot or re-opening the overlay on X11 or Wayland could produce a momentary flicker or display an outdated frame before painting the new capture.

In v0.12.0:

• We implemented double requestAnimationFrame paint synchronization (onReadyToShow).
• The overlay window verifies the exact raster pixel buffer is fully drawn to the canvas before showing the window.
• The result: crystal-clear, instantaneous capture transitions with zero visual flashing.

5. Pause & Resume Capture with Annotation Preservation

Ever spent thirty seconds carefully framing and drawing arrows on a screenshot, only to realize you needed to click something underneath or check a hidden value?

Pressing Escape in v0.12.0 now puts the capture overlay into pause mode:

• Your drawn arrows, rectangles, blurs, and crop coordinates are safely preserved in memory.
• Trigger your capture hotkey (or click the tray icon) to immediately resume where you left off.
• If you want to discard your annotations and start over, simply click Clear All or copy/save your capture.

6. Expanded Hotkey Configuration

You asked for greater keyboard flexibility, and we delivered:

• Standalone Keys: In addition to modifier shortcuts (like Ctrl+Alt+A), you can now assign standalone keys:
  • Print Screen (PrintScreen)
  • Page Up (PageUp) & Page Down (PageDown)
  • Function Keys (F1 through F12)
• Conflict Warnings: The shortcut recorder warns you if your desired combination conflicts with common system shortcuts (such as window switching or terminal shortcuts).

7. X11 & Tray Stability Fixes

• X11 Startup Reliability: Fixed an edge-case startup freeze on X11 by verifying dev server reachability before creating the overlay window and sanitizing autostart desktop entries.
• Dashboard Self-Capture Prevention: The dashboard gallery window automatically hides before capturing on X11, preventing the app from accidentally screenshotting its own UI.
• Duplicate Tray Icon Fix: Prevented secondary instances or rapid shortcut presses from creating duplicate icons in the system tray.
• Tray Menu Closure: Taking a screenshot from the system tray menu ensures the menu is fully dismissed before the screen is grabbed.

How to Get v0.12.0

Screention will automatically notify you of the update if you already have it installed.

To download fresh installers or install via our 1-line script:

• Ubuntu/Debian (1-line script):

  curl -fsSL https://screention.gkernel.com/install.sh | bash
  

• Fedora/RHEL: Download the .rpm package from our Downloads page.
• Universal Linux: Grab the standalone .AppImage.
• Windows: Download the 64-bit installer (.exe or .msi).
• macOS: Download the Universal disk image (.dmg) for Apple Silicon (M1–M4) and Intel.

Thank you for using Screention! As always, your feedback shapes our releases. If you encounter any issues or have feature requests, please join our GitHub community.