DMS Quick Capture & Annotate

Screenshot and vector annotation plugin for DankMaterialShell (DMS).

Requirements

• DankMaterialShell >= 1.5.2 (scroll capture)
• ImageMagick (provides magick/mogrify, required for WebP/JPEG exports, and OCR/QR crop)
• img2pdf (required for PDF export)
• tesseract (required for OCR text scanner)
• zbar (provides zbarimg, required for QR scanner)
• Qt5Compat GraphicalEffects (provides qt6-qt5compat, required for Floating)

Install

Via DMS CLI

dms plugins install quickCapture

Or manually

git clone https://github.com/hthienloc/dms-quick-capture ~/.config/DankMaterialShell/plugins/quickCapture

Quick Start

Action	Result
Left Click	Open widget popout
Middle Click	Region capture (configured in settings)
Right Click	Paste from clipboard (configured in settings)
Drop Image	Drag any image onto the icon to annotate
Print	Capture using default mode (requires keybind setup)

Typical workflow:

1. Trigger capture — click the bar icon, use Control Center, or press Print.
2. Select area — drag to choose the screenshot region.
3. Annotate — use the toolbar, keyboard shortcuts, or radial menus.
4. Finish — press Enter (action depends on settings) or Esc to discard.

Scrolling Capture (Stitching): Select a region, scroll the content, then press Enter to finish stitching. Adjust the scroll interval in settings.

Annotation Tools

Tool Selection

Shortcut	Tool
1	Pen
2	Line
3	Arrow
4	Rectangle
Q	Ellipse
W	Text
E	Pixelate
R	Redact
A	Stamp
S	Highlighter
D	Focus Spotlight
F	Color Picker (Ink/Eyedropper)
T	Eraser
Z	Area Zoom (Callout)
B	Background Options
O	OCR Text Recognition
G (Hold)	Magnifier Lens (Cursor Zoom)
V	Select
X	Toggle Hide/Show Annotations
Tab	Toggle between Select tool and last active tool, or between 2 latest radial presets

Drawing & Editing

• Thickness: Scroll Mouse Wheel to scale brush / font size.

• Quick Erase: Middle-click on any element to delete it.

• Copy / Duplicate: Select a vector with the Select tool (V), then press C to duplicate. Pressing C without a selection pastes the last copied vector at the cursor.

• Undo: Ctrl + Z or Mouse Back Button.

• Redo: Ctrl + Y / Ctrl + Shift + Z or Mouse Forward Button.

• Speech Bubble (Text Tool): Click and drag to draw a speech bubble. The click location defines the tail target point, and the release location is the text bubble. A single click without dragging writes normal text.

• Leader Line (Stamp Tool): Click and drag to create a stamp with a leader line. The click location points to the target, and the release location places the stamp body. A single click without dragging drops a normal stamp.

• Shift Constraint: Hold Shift while drawing to constrain shapes:

  Tool	Shift Behavior
  Pen	Draws straight lines
  Line, Arrow, Highlighter	Snaps angle to 15° increments
  Ellipse	Perfect circle
  Rectangle, Redact, Pixelate	Perfect square

Popover Toolbars & Radial Menus

Interaction	Menu / Popover
Right-click on canvas	8 customizable tool presets
Shift+Right-click (Stamp active)	Open Stamp Options mini-toolbar (Numeric, Alphabetic, Roman)
Shift+Right-click (Text active)	Open Text Options mini-toolbar (Bold, Italic, Underline, Background)
Shift+Right-click (Line active)	Open Line Options mini-toolbar (Solid, Dashed, Dotted)

Special Tools

• Magnifier Lens: Hold G to activate a magnifying circular lens. Scroll Mouse Wheel while holding G to adjust zoom (1.5× – 4×).
• Area Zoom (Callout): Press Z to draw a magnified callout box. Adjust zoom (100%–500%) with scroll wheel.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
Enter	Done (save/copy per settings)
Esc	Discard & Close
Ctrl + Z	Undo last stroke (or Mouse Back Button)
Ctrl + Y / Ctrl + Shift + Z	Redo last undone stroke (or Mouse Forward Button)
Ctrl + S	Save to file
Ctrl + C	Copy to clipboard
Ctrl + Shift + C	Anonymous Copy (randomized filename & stripped metadata / Right-click Copy)
Ctrl + A	Copy & Save
Ctrl + F	Float image to always-on-top window
Ctrl + X	Crop / Resize
Ctrl + 1 – 4	Select color slots 1 – 4
Ctrl + Q – R	Select color slots 5 – 8 (Q, W, E, R)

Pin-to-Desktop (Float)

• Ctrl + F in the annotator to export and float the image instantly.
• Left-click the floating image to return it to the annotator for further editing.
• Right-click the floating image to minimize it into a small cloud icon.
• Hover the cloud icon to restore the floating image.
• Middle-click the floating image to close it.

IPC Commands

Commands that capture or open images accept an action parameter — use edit to open the editor or float to spawn an always-on-top window.

dms ipc call quickCapture <command> [arg] edit|float

dms ipc call quickCapture screenshot region edit   # open editor

dms ipc call quickCapture screenshot region float  # float directly

Command	Arguments	Description
screenshot	mode (region, full, all, output, window, last, scroll), action	Trigger capture
selectFile	action	Open file browser to pick an image
fromClipboard	action	Annotate image from clipboard
openImage	path, action	Open a specific image in the annotator
close	—	Close the annotator window
showHistory	—	Open Recent Edits history carousel

Keybinding Examples

Credits

• Gradia Capture — Inspiration for the toolbar layout and background algorithms
• Flameshot — Inspiration for the radial menu and tool interaction patterns
• Snapzy — Inspiration for the float image / continue-editing workflow
• vky and bodify (Discord) — Actively reporting bugs and contributing valuable feedback to help polish and improve the plugin

Thanks to everyone who supported, contributed code, gave feedback, and the DankMaterialShell community.

License

MIT