Take screenshots at random intervals with Python?

Solution 1:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import gtk.gdk
import time
import random

while 1 :
    # generate a random time between 120 and 300 sec
    random_time = random.randrange(120,300)

    # wait between 120 and 300 seconds (or between 2 and 5 minutes)
    print "Next picture in: %.2f minutes" % (float(random_time) / 60)
    time.sleep(random_time)

    w = gtk.gdk.get_default_root_window()
    sz = w.get_size()
    print "The size of the window is %d x %d" % sz
    pb = gtk.gdk.Pixbuf(gtk.gdk.COLORSPACE_RGB,False,8,sz[0],sz[1])
    pb = pb.get_from_drawable(w,w.get_colormap(),0,0,0,0,sz[0],sz[1])

    ts = time.time()
    filename = "screenshot"
    filename += str(ts)
    filename += ".png"

    if (pb != None):
        pb.save(filename,"png")
        print "Screenshot saved to "+filename
    else:
        print "Unable to get the screenshot."

Solution 2:

I would be tempted to farm this out to an external library like PyScreenshot.

Let it handle the heavy lifting (like working out which DM and screen API it needs), leaving you with a PIL image that you can either save to disk or stream out as an upload.

There are a bevy of answers doing this manually on Stack Overflow though, if you're determined to DIY.

As for the interval, does this have to be threaded? Can the script not just run on its own and then after it's taken a snapshot, sleep for a random period (between 120 and 300 seconds)?

import random
import time

time.sleep(random.randrange(120, 300))