Hidden “Partial Screenshots” Demoed on Android 7.1 Nougat

Screenshots have been around in Android ever since 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (and even back to 2.3 Gingerbread if you were on Touchwiz). However, the functionality that was added back in the day has remained stationary despite the evolved needs in the past 5+ years. Stock Android started off with simple screenshots, and stock Android has remained with simple screenshots.

While other OEM skins add in features like scrolling screenshots and more, there is hidden screenshot functionality that can be found on stock Android now: partial screenshots. This is "hidden" in the sense that this functionality was added in the latest Android version, but it still needs a small edit to activate it.

XDA Senior Member MrWasdennoch, known in the forums for his Android N-ify Xposed Module, found out that Android 7.1 Nougat on the AOSP master branch contains a commit named "Partial Screenshot", which seemingly allows users to select a size and grid position on the screen to take a screenshot. This results in a screenshot of that particular selection, rather than the full screen, which will help constricting the information displayed to narrower focus points.

XDA Recognized Developer Maxr1998 managed to enable the functionality by modifying line 53 of TakeScreenshotService to takeScreenshotPartial(). The feature would be available in his upcoming ROM build for the Nexus 4, but he was kind enough to demo the functionality for all of us to see without needing to flash a whole ROM:

As demoed, the screenshot functionality allows you to quickly select a focus area, without needing a gallery app to crop the image for you. While a very small addition by itself, this does show that functionality as basic as a screenshot is still open to evolution.

We hope more such smaller additions, like perhaps scrolling screenshots, are made part of stock Android in the future.

from xda-developers http://ift.tt/2fvb8B3
via IFTTT