screenie

Working in the terminal made me increasingly reluctant to reach for the mouse for small repetitive tasks. Screenie is a keyboard-driven screenshot tool for Hyprland: it freezes a frame, then lets me select, inspect, edit and extract from it using a consistent set of commands.

the selection

A scripted screenie session, 41 keyframes: the box starts on the active window, jumps between windows, widens and narrows its scope, is halved and refined corner by corner, then a loupe picks a pixel, a rectangle, a numbered callout and an arrow lock into one layer and a censor into a second, and Enter copies the 440 × 280 box to the clipboard.

data

step	stage	keys	what happens	box (x, y, w × h)
1	invoke	print	the frame freezes; the box starts on the active window	960, 10, 950 × 620
2	select	ctrl+h	the window to the left	10, 10, 940 × 1060
3	select	ctrl+l	back to the browser	960, 10, 950 × 620
4	select	+	widen the scope to the monitor	0, 0, 1920 × 1080
5	select	-	back to the window	960, 10, 950 × 620
6	refine	alt+k	keep the top half	960, 10, 950 × 310
7	refine	alt+h	keep the left half	960, 10, 475 × 310
8	refine	h ×3	the cursor corner in 15px	960, 10, 460 × 310
9	refine	k ×2	and up 10px	960, 10, 460 × 300
10	refine	o	the opposite corner becomes the cursor	960, 10, 460 × 300
11	refine	l ×4	the left edge in 20px	980, 10, 440 × 300
12	refine	j ×4	the top edge down 20px; the box is the card	980, 30, 440 × 280
13	inspect	z	the loupe, at the box's center	980, 30, 440 × 280
14	inspect	shift+j	a loupe width down	980, 30, 440 × 280
15	inspect	shift+j	again	980, 30, 440 × 280
16	inspect	shift+l	right, onto the peak	980, 30, 440 × 280
17	inspect	z	close the loupe; it remembers the pixel	980, 30, 440 × 280
18	annotate	a	annotate opens layer 1, clipped to the box	980, 30, 440 × 280
19	annotate	r	a rectangle, starting at the loupe's pixel	980, 30, 440 × 280
20	annotate	l ×10	50px wide	980, 30, 440 × 280
21	annotate	j ×6	30px tall	980, 30, 440 × 280
22	annotate	a	lock it, back to the pen	980, 30, 440 × 280
23	annotate	n	callout 1 at the pen point	980, 30, 440 × 280
24	annotate	u	undo removes the callout, nothing else	980, 30, 440 × 280
25	annotate	j ×8	the pen point down 40px	980, 30, 440 × 280
26	annotate	h ×4	left 20px	980, 30, 440 × 280
27	annotate	n	callout 1 again	980, 30, 440 × 280
28	annotate	v	an arrow from the loupe's pixel	980, 30, 440 × 280
29	annotate	h ×8	the tip out 40px	980, 30, 440 × 280
30	annotate	j ×8	and down 40px	980, 30, 440 × 280
31	annotate	o	swap ends; the head points at the peak	980, 30, 440 × 280
32	annotate	enter	lock the arrow, commit layer 1	980, 30, 440 × 280
33	censor	x	a censor opens layer 2, a 20px square at the center	980, 30, 440 × 280
34	censor	alt+shift+l	double it rightward	980, 30, 440 × 280
35	censor	alt+shift+l	again, over the label	980, 30, 440 × 280
36	censor	enter	commit layer 2 (pixelate, 10px blocks)	980, 30, 440 × 280
37	layers	1	layer 1 on its own	980, 30, 440 × 280
38	layers	space	hide it	980, 30, 440 × 280
39	layers	u	undo the hide	980, 30, 440 × 280
40	layers	esc	back to select	980, 30, 440 × 280
41	export	enter	the box with both layers, to the clipboard	980, 30, 440 × 280

It begins as a frozen display plane with a thin selection rectangle. Each keystroke changes a corner or snaps the boundary to something meaningful, and a crosshair, pixel loupe and faint guides make the operation legible. Mouse interaction remains possible, but the keyboard can perform the whole workflow.

nothing is burned in

24 keyframes of edits as layers over an untouched 440 × 280 capture. 2 layers end up committed (rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow; pixelate 80×20, 10px); one undo removes a single callout, and hiding a layer in the Layers view is undone the same way.

data

step	keys	open layer	committed layers
1	a	(empty)
2	r	(empty)
3	l l l l l l l l l l	(empty)
4	j j j j j j	(empty)
5	a	rectangle 50×30
6	n	rectangle 50×30, callout 1
7	u	rectangle 50×30
8	j j j j j j j j	rectangle 50×30
9	h h h h	rectangle 50×30
10	n	rectangle 50×30, callout 1
11	v	rectangle 50×30, callout 1
12	h h h h h h h h	rectangle 50×30, callout 1
13	j j j j j j j j	rectangle 50×30, callout 1
14	o	rectangle 50×30, callout 1
15	Return		1: rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow
16	x	(empty)	1: rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow
17	<A-S-l>	(empty)	1: rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow
18	<A-S-l>	(empty)	1: rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow
19	Return		1: rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow; 2: pixelate 80×20, 10px
20	1		1: rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow; 2: pixelate 80×20, 10px
21	space		1: rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow (hidden); 2: pixelate 80×20, 10px
22	u		1: rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow; 2: pixelate 80×20, 10px
23	Escape		1: rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow; 2: pixelate 80×20, 10px
24	Return		1: rectangle 50×30, callout 1, arrow; 2: pixelate 80×20, 10px

After selection, annotations and censoring become operations on a layer stack rather than permanent modifications to the source frame. The stack expands to reveal text, arrows, shapes and filters, and an undo is the removal of an operation, not a visual reset.

inspect and extract

Four results from the same box: pixel (1221,212), region (image 440×280, 2 layers), text (ocr text of 440×280), distance (440 × 280 px). Each goes to the clipboard.

data

yield	keys	result
pixel	z shift+j shift+j shift+l z	pixel (1221,212)
region	enter	image 440×280, 2 layers
text	print . y	ocr text of 440×280
distance	print . m r enter y	440 × 280 px

The picker also lets me inspect colors and pixels, extract text and make geometric measurements. It can be driven from scripts as well as through its interactive overlay.