Mobile development is an important segment for the coding community.
Freelance and agency-based developers may find many new clients for mobile applications or mobile optimized websites. But as great as mobile devices are, they can be a bit challenging as a presentation platform.
For example, when you are communicating with clients via Skype or in a conference room with an overhead projector, passing the Android phone around my not be as effective as showing screen captures from the device or actually having an Android running on your desktop.
There are several good mobile apps designed to get screen captures, but in this short tutorial, I am going to describe how to use the Google Android Software Development Kit (SDK) to take snap shots of what's on the Android phone's screen by actually placing an Android virtual machine on your computer.
Step No. 1: Download & Install the Java Standard Edition Development Kit
The method I am using to get mobile screen captures and/or video assumes that you want to do a bit of mobile development too. Therefore, I am going to need to download Oracle's free Java Standard Edition Development Kit.
An installation wizard takes you though the install process.
Don't be surprised if this installation process takes a little while to run. You will be asked to create an Oracle account, which is a little annoying, but hey you are getting a development kit.
Step No. 2: Download & Install the Android SDK Starter Package
Android has an excellent and well document development site that is a great source of mobile development information. The site is also the place to download your own version of the free Android SDK. For capturing on-screen images, you need only the starter package. You may, of course, add other SDK components or plugins as you build out your mobile development environment.
For my system, I used the Windows installer, which makes the installation process as easy as clicking a couple of buttons.
The wizard will confirm that you have the JDK (from Step No. 1) installed on your system or make you go get it if you tried to skip that step.
The Android SDK installation process takes just seconds.
The SDK should ask you to install one or more packages. For our purposes, you will need at least one. For this tutorial, I used "SDK Platform Android 2.2, API 8, revision 2." It is noteworthy that there is an add on available for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, if you are working on tablet applications.
Step No. 3: Create an Android Virtual Device
I am going to create an Android Virtual Device (AVD). This is an emulator or a virtual machine that runs the Android operating system from your computer.
It is possible to get screen captures from an actual Android phone, but by using the AVD, I can make the phone seem bigger which is better for those of us with aging eyes or a desire to get higher resolution screen captures that are still in the proper aspect ratio.
The Android SDK comes with a virtual device wizard.
Give the AVD a name, select the package you installed as the target, and create it. You don't need to worry about the SD Card, Hardware, or skin settings for our purposes.
Step No. 4: Start Your AVD
After the AVD has been created, it is simple to get a virtual, Android-powered smart phone up and running on your computer.
Since screen captures are our current aim and since I like slightly larger examples to work with, I set the launch options to show my AVD at six inches.
It may take a few minutes for your AVD to launch.
Step No. 5: Navigate to the Web
Using you mouse and keyboard, navigate to the AVD's web browser. Point the address bar to the site you want to take a screen capture from. There may be some latency, so be patient.
Now take a standard computer screen captures (use the "Prt Scrn" key from most PCs for example). Paste the resulting capture into your favorite graphics editing software, and you're done.
Here is a screen capture that I took of the Sears website in my AVD and cropped in Adobe Photoshop.
Video screen captures will require some third-part software like Camtasia Studio, but is no more difficult than taking screen captures.
Summing Up
In this short tutorial, I have described one method for getting screen captures of mobile optimized sites and mobile applications. I like to call this method "the developer's approach" since it makes use of the JDK, Android SDK, and an virtual smart phone. While I think this is the best way to go about getting screen captures if you are going to be developing for mobile devices, it may be an overkill in some circumstances.
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