ScreenshotPlugin

The ScreenshotPlugin is a plugin for the Feather Debugger that allows you to capture screenshots and GIF recordings directly from your LOVE project and from the Feather app. It helps with debugging rendering issues, documenting game states, and quickly sharing visual output without leaving your development environment.

📦 Installation

Place screenshot.lua in your feather/plugins/ directory (or wherever you keep your Feather plugins). Adjust the require path as needed:

local ScreenshotPlugin = require("feather.plugins.screenshot")

⚙️ Configuration

Register the plugin using the FeatherPluginManager.createPlugin function:

FeatherPluginManager.createPlugin(ScreenshotPlugin, "screenshots", {
  screenshotDirectory = "screenshots", -- output folder for captures
  fps = 60,                            -- frames per second for GIFs
  gifDuration = 5,                     -- default duration of GIFs in seconds
})

Options

• screenshotDirectory (string, default "screenshots") Directory where screenshots and GIF recordings are stored.

• fps (number, default 30) Target frames per second for GIF captures.

• gifDuration (number, default 5) Duration in seconds for each GIF capture.

• persist (boolean, default true) If true, keeps previously captured screenshots and GIFs in the gallery view between requests. If false, only the latest captures are kept.

🔍 How It Works

Screenshot Capture

• Captures the current LOVE framebuffer as a PNG.
• The image is stored as Base64 data in memory and listed in the Feather gallery.
• A file is also created under screenshotDirectory.

GIF Recording

• Records frames at the configured FPS until gifDuration is reached.
• Frames are stored as Base64-encoded PNGs.
• At the end of recording, the plugin creates a gif entry with metadata (name, type, fps, dimensions).
• Encoding to an actual .gif file is left to tools like ffmpeg or gifski (the plugin logs a reminder), Feather app automatically converts the array of PNGs to a GIF.

Debugger Metadata (getConfig)

• Type: screenshots
• Color: #003366
• Icon: camera

🎮 Actions

The plugin adds interactive actions to the Feather UI:

• Capture GIF → starts a GIF recording.
• Capture Screenshot → captures a single screenshot.
• Duration (input, number) → set GIF duration in seconds (1--60).
• FPS (input, number) → set GIF recording framerate (5--60).
• Persist (checkbox) → toggle whether images persist between reloads of the Feather app.

📊 Example

local ScreenshotPlugin = require("feather.plugins.screenshot")

local debugger = FeatherDebugger({
  debug = true,
  plugins = {
    FeatherPluginManager.createPlugin(ScreenshotPlugin, "screenshots", {
      screenshotDirectory = "screenshots",
      fps = 30,
      gifDuration = 5,
    }),
  },
})

function love.keypressed(key)
  if key == "f1" then
    debugger:action("screenshots", "screenshot", {})
  elseif key == "f2" then
    debugger:action("screenshots", "gif", { duration = 3, fps = 60 })
  end
end