First Capture

Walk through your first end-to-end capture session. Assume Xenocept is installed and running in the system tray.

1. Summon the Overlay

Press the global hotkey:

Ctrl + Backquote

(Same default on every platform. You can change it in the Settings UI.)

Xenocept captures a fresh screenshot of the monitor under your cursor and shows the annotation overlay on top of it.

The overlay’s background is the captured image. The real screen behind continues to live, but you’re now working on a frozen snapshot.

2. Pick a Tool

Hold down the radial-menu trigger (default mouse / touchpad gesture configured in the desktop app, see the in-app help) to bring up the radial menu. The slices show all the available tools:

Drawing slice: Pointer/Select, Pencil, Brush, Rectangle / Rectangle-filled, Circle / Circle-filled, Line, Arrow
Pen size slice (interactive)
Text & Comments slice: Text, Note (comment-area), Bubble (comment-bubble)
Utilities slice: Area (session-area), Blur, Emoji
History slice: Undo, Redo

Release on a tool to select it. The current selection becomes active for the next interaction.

3. Make a Comment

A Note (a.k.a. comment-area) is Xenocept’s main feedback unit. To make one:

With the Note tool selected, click-drag a rectangle around the region you want to talk about. That rectangle is the focus area.
After releasing, the overlay enters a side-pick phase. Click on one of the four sides (top / bottom / left / right) of the focus area — that’s where the text box will sit.
A textarea appears on the chosen side. Type your description.
Press Esc to commit the text — or click the Confirm button hovering near the textarea. (Pressing Enter inserts a newline; it does not commit.)

The note is now on the canvas. Click somewhere else and you can make another, or switch to a different tool.

A Bubble (comment-bubble) works similarly but is anchored to a single point rather than to a rectangle. Pick a target with a click instead of drag-selecting a region.

4. Other Tools

Pencil / Brush / Line / Arrow / Rectangle / Circle — click-drag to draw.
Text — click to place a textarea, type, Esc/Confirm to commit (same pattern as comments).
Blur — click-drag a rectangle; Xenocept replaces those pixels (on the overlay only) with a blurred copy. Useful for redacting secrets.
Emoji — click to place an emoji glyph at the cursor.
Pointer / Select — click an existing object to select it; drag selected objects to move; Delete/Backspace to remove.
Area (session-area) — defines the crop region for the final submitted screenshot. Drag a rectangle; only what’s inside that rectangle ends up in screenshot.png at Submit time.

Ctrl/Cmd + Z undoes the last edit. Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + Z redoes. The undo stack is per-overlay-instance and lives in memory only — it survives Esc (the window is just hidden), but a fresh hotkey press resets the canvas.

6. Submit

When you’re satisfied, Submit through the in-app affordance (a button in the overlay UI). What happens then:

Xenocept POSTs the session data to /api/v1/sessions.
The backend stores screenshot.png, optionally screenshot-clean.png, and one focus-{i}.png per Note under /sessions/{session-id}/ in the AeorDB store. The session metadata is written to session.json.
The session ID is a timestamp string of the form session-YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS.mmm.
The Sessions list view (subscribed via SSE to /api/v1/sessions/events) is notified of the new session.
If you have auto-send turned on, the frontend’s plugin loader then calls /api/v1/sessions/{id}/dispatch to fan out to every enabled destination.

The overlay closes. Your work is now a permanent session in the local store, browseable from the main Xenocept window.

Things to Know

Pressing the hotkey again while the overlay is open hides it; it does not stack screenshots.
In-progress canvas state does not persist across overlay close/reopen. Esc hides the overlay; the next hotkey press resets the canvas. If you want your work saved, Submit it.
Capture covers one monitor — the one under your cursor at hotkey press time.

Xenocept Documentation