General Guidelines

The following guidelines should be used for all screenshots used in Nautilus documentation which is shipped with Nautilus.

Appearance

Nautilus should be set to the "Default" theme. Because the Nautilus, Gtk+, and Sawfish themes are not yet integrated, you will have to manually set the Gtk+ and Sawfish themes to "Crux" in the GNOME Control Center. You will also need to set the color to match that of the default Nautilus theme by selecting 'Crux' GTK+ Theme in the Control Center and set the color to 0.37, 0.44, and 0.60 for red, green and blue respectively.

Screenshot Size

Screenshots should be small enough to fit in the default-sized Nautilus main panel which is 646 by 418 pixels. Note that this size includes any callouts which may be present. You should generally allow 7 pixels on the top and left and 11 pixels on the bottom and right for the drop shadow, so your original screenshot should be no more than 628 by 400. If you will have callouts, you should allow 34 pixels for each side with a callout instead of the 7 or 11 pixels for the drop shadow. (eg. A screenshot for a figure with a callout on the left should be at most 646-11-34=601 pixels across. For one with a callout on the bottom, is should be at most 418-7-34=377 high.)

When specifying the geometry of a Nautilus window, remember the geometry does not include the border decorations. Using nautilus --geometry 520x335 works nicely.

Window Focus

You should always make sure that the window you are taking a screenshot of has "focus", ie. if you were to type the text you type would be directed to this window. Generally the window decorations appear differently when the window has focus - it often has more color or brighter color. Typically a window is given focus by clicking on the window border, but this will vary depending upon your window manager configuration.

Trademarks

Screenshots should not include any trademarked logos, such as Eazel's logo, Red Hat's logo, or any others. It may contain the GNOME logo. If your screenshot has a logo, please erase the logo in the GIMP.

Colors

In order to avoid distracting or visually confusing screenshots, you should use colors with low saturation values for callouts or any other drawings you make on your image.

Techniques

There are several techniques which we commonly use in the screenshots:

Drop Shadow

A drop shadow gives the image a perspective and a generally more polished and professional look.

Callouts

Callouts are labels which are used to describe certain portions of the screenshot.

Circled Object Callouts

For small items in a screenshot, such as buttons or icons, a modified callout is used which circles the item.

Drawings

Sometimes it is necessary to draw on a screenshot, such as to represent the action of a drag-and-drop action.