While I love the uber-popular custom Android ROM, CyanogenMod, I loved the option to easily take a screenshot with my G2X before I jumped out of the stock software. Well, the CM7 team is finally bringing native screenshots to the next build of the ROM and you can grab it now from the nightly builds if you just can’t wait.
Taking a screenshot is easy with CyanogenMod, as you just hold the power button as if you were going to turn off the phone. When the menu pops up after holding the power button, an option to take a screenshot will be available. The method is painfully simple but I must say that I liked the previous way of taking screenshots, which usually consisted of a specific button combination. Even though it required two buttons instead of one, CyanogenMod’s power menu is becoming somewhat cluttered.
After a screenshot is taken, it will be saved into the appropriately named, “screenshots” folder in your photo gallery.
We’re still not sure why Google has yet to officially implement this feature, as the handset-makers have provided this functionality previously. Being able to take screenshots is so simple and a nice feature to have but there have been only so many times that I really needed to be able to take one. While it’s not the most fun to set up, you can take screenshots using the Android SDK, and going back to what I said earlier about CM7’s implementation, if the method used two keys instead of making you use the power button, I wouldn’t have had to connect to the computer to take the screenshot you see above. That said, this likely won’t be an issue for most users.
Either way, we’re certainly glad to see this functionality coming to the most popular custom ROM for Android and hopefully Google will suck it up and throw the feature into the OS natively someday.
[Via: Steve Kondik (Cyanogen)]