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Format Code Reference - IcyScreen Help/Documentation
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    * Format Code Reference

Using Format Codes
IcyScreen includes a powerful feature that makes keeping track of your screenshots so much easier: the detection and conversion of format codes in the screenshot file name and directory. You can insert these codes anywhere in the file name and directory you have configured for your save/upload method, and each time a screenshot is taken, they'll be converted on the fly to something else more useful -- thus providing an extremely powerful way to dynamically configure where your screenshots are saved to, and how they are named.

Let's say, for example, we wanted to group our screenshots into a directory by the user who was logged-in when the screenshot was taken, as well as by the year, month, and day that the screenshot was taken on. If we were saving our screenshots to disk, we might set the save directory path (in the Disk tab) to C:\screenshots\$(USERNAME)\%Y\%m\%d. If today were June 21, 2009, and the username of the user currently logged-in was Johnny, this string would be converted by IcyScreen -- automatically -- to C:\screenshots\Johnny\2009\06\21, and each screenshot would be saved to that folder. Of course, if the user Bob was logged in, or the month, day, or year were different, that string would be slightly different.

Say also that we wanted to know exactly when a screenshot was taken -- down to the second. We could set the screenshot file name to screenshot_%I_%M_%S%p, and if it were 10:00AM, five seconds past, and a screenshot was taken, this would be converted by IcyScreen, and a screenshot would be saved under the name screenshot_10_00_05AM.

Below is a list of each code recognized by IcyScreen, and a description of what it will be converted to.

Recognized Format Codes / Conversion Descriptions:

Percent Sign (%)

  • %% - Percent sign. Always use this wherever you'd like a single % character to appear in the file name/directory.

Timestamp Codes

  • %a - Abbreviated weekday name (Sun, Mon, Tue, ...)
  • %A - Full weekday name (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, ...)
  • %b - Abbreviated month name (Jan, Feb, Mar, ...)
  • %B - Full month name (January, February, March, ...)
  • %d - Day of month as decimal number (01 – 31). Use %#d to remove any leading zeros.
  • %H - Hour in 24-hour format (00 – 23). Use %#H to remove any leading zeros.
  • %I - Hour in 12-hour format (01 – 12). Use %#I to remove any leading zeros.
  • %j - Day of year as decimal number (001 – 366). Use %#j to remove any leading zeros.
  • %m - Month as decimal number (01 – 12). Use %#m to remove any leading zeros.
  • %M - Minute as decimal number (00 – 59). Use %#M to remove any leading zeros.
  • %n - Milliseconds passed since the seconds value changed (000-999)
  • %p - Current locale’s A.M./P.M. indicator for 12-hour clock
  • %S - Second as decimal number (00 – 59). Use %#S to remove any leading zeros.
  • %U - Week of year as decimal number, with Sunday as first day of week (00 – 53). Use %#U to remove any leading zeros.
  • %w - Weekday as decimal number (0 – 6; Sunday is 0). Use %#w to remove any leading zeros.
  • %W - Week of year as decimal number, with Monday as first day of week (00 – 53). Use %#W to remove any leading zeros.
  • %X - Time representation for current locale (example: 4:16:29 PM)
  • %y - Year without century, as decimal number (00 – 99). Use %#y to remove any leading zeros.
  • %Y - Year with century, as decimal number (2009, 2105, 1995, ...). Use %#Y to remove any leading zeros.
  • %z, %Z - Time-zone name or abbreviation; no characters if time zone is unknown

General Codes

  • %(USERNAME) - The username of the currently-logged in user. (example, Johnny, Bob, Tony, ...)
  • %(WINTITLE) - The title of the application that is active when the screenshot is taken. The application title is the text that you see in the active window's title bar.

    Note that Windows does not allow the following characters within a file name: " * : < > ? \ / |. If any of these characters are present within the window title, they will automatically be converted to spaces for you.
  • %(INC_X) - The numeric value of IcyScreen's internal "success" counter, added to X. X should be a numeric value (1, 15, 300, etc). This code allows you to save screenshots with a name that reflects the order in which they were saved (using a file name of shot_%(INC_1) would produce shot_1 on the first save, shot_2 on the second save...).

    Each time a screenshot is successfully saved (if using this code in the Disk file details), uploaded (if using this code in the FTP or ImageShack file details), or e-mailed (if using this code in the E-mail attachment details), the internal "success" counter specific to the save/upload method will be incremented by 1. So if a screenshot is saved to disk without any errors, the "success" counter for disk save will be incremented by 1; if a screenshot is uploaded via FTP without any errors, the "success" counter for FTP upload will be incremented by 1, and so on.

    Note that the "success" counter is incremented after a screenshot is successfully saved, uploaded, or e-mailed.

    The "success" counter is set to 0 whenever the respective file name/directory details are modified, CTRL + ALT + F8 is pressed while the respective setting tab is open, and also when IcyScreen first starts.

    So as an example, if you were to set the disk file name to screenshot_%(INC_0), then the first screenshot successfully saved to disk will be saved as screenshot_0 (0 + 0), the eighth will be saved as screenshot_7 (0 + 7), and so on. If you set the disk file name to screenshot_%(INC_11), the "success" counter will be reset to 0 (because the file name was modified), and the first screenshot successfully saved to disk will be saved as screenshot_11 (11 + 0), the second screenshot successfully saved to disk will be saved as screenshot_12 (11 + 1), etc.

    Tip: If you're using this code, the Example formatted file path display in the respective setting tab will show in real time what your %(INC_X) format code will convert to when the next screenshot is saved/uploaded/e-mailed.
Have an idea for a format code that you think would be useful? E-mail us and we'll consider adding it in the next release.