Google Chrome on Android 12 will let you take screenshots of the entire page

By: Yuriy Stanislavskiy | 17.08.2021, 14:56

Google is adding many sought-after features to Android 12, one of which is scrolling screenshots. First introduced in Android 12 Beta 3, the scrolling screenshot feature allows you to take screenshots of the entire page, meaning you no longer have to manually take and then stitch multiple screenshots together.

Google's approach to this feature differs from how most OEMs have implemented it, and as a result, it doesn't work in all apps right now. One of the most notable apps in which you can't take a scrolling screenshot today is Google Chrome.

What's the difference?

Most OEM implementations provide automatic scrolling down when capturing individual screenshots that are merged when reaching the end of the page, but this often results in poorly "stitched" images. Instead, the Android 12 version works directly with Views, the main building block of UI components in Android apps.

This makes Android 12's approach faster and more robust, but also less versatile. Google claims that screenshot scrolling works "out of the box" for most apps that use the standard UI.

How does it work?

For developers whose apps don't use a View-based UI or use a heavily modified UI, Google recommends using the new ScrollCapture API in Android 12 to provide the capture system with information about View, which needs to be captured.

That's how Chrome developers plan to add support for full-page screenshot capture on Android 12. In a commit sent to Chromium Gerrit, Chrome developers are preparing to add support for the ScrollCapture API for Android 12.

Another Android 12 feature that support is being added to Google Chrome is dynamic themes. This feature currently works, but requires activation via an appropriate "flag". This usually means a very early release.

Source: xda-developers