The island

Bigshot has no Dock icon and no main window. It lives in two places: the menu bar, and the island, a black shape that hangs from the camera housing at the top of the screen. The island has three presentations.

Where it appears

The island always hangs from the built-in display's notch, whichever screen the pointer or the capture is on. On a Mac without a notch it sits centred at the top of the main screen, under the menu bar. It is on every Space and re-lays itself out when displays are connected or rearranged.

Notch View

The island at rest, the size of the camera housing, and invisible against it. Hovering opens Peek View. Clicking opens Expanded View.

Peek View

Hover the notch and it grows down into a tray:

• The strip, the most recent captures, newest first. It scrolls through all of them.
• The stack, three round pods at the strip's end: Lens, Capture (the white one) and Agent. With nothing captured yet, the three hang in a row under the notch.

What you can do:

• Click a thumbnail to open it in the editor.
• Drag a thumbnail into any app that accepts images or files.
• Scroll the strip to see the rest. The stack slides out of the way while you scroll and comes back when you stop.
• Click the handle, the chevron along the tray's bottom edge, to open Expanded View. Clicking the tray anywhere that is not a thumbnail or a pod does the same, and so does the lip when nothing is captured.
• Click Capture to capture with the selected mode.
• Hold Capture to pop the capture modes out in a line beside it; release over one to use it. See Capture modes.
• Click Lens to see the code behind part of the screen, or Agent to select an area and hand it to an agent with your instructions.

Hover a pod to see its key: C, L or A does the same while the pointer is on the island.

With an Active Project, its captures carry a small dot in the Project's colour.

Peek View carries no Project controls, but the keys work here as they do in Expanded View: with the pointer on the island, press P to switch the Active Project, T to switch the tag or M to switch the capture mode. See The keys.

Peek View closes a quarter of a second after the pointer leaves.

Peek thumbnails have no right-click menu or hover buttons. For those, open Expanded View or the Library.

Expanded View

The band

Beside the notch, the band says where new captures go:

• Project pill. The Active Project's name and colour, or No Project. Its menu switches Project, or adds one. P does the same from the keyboard; see The keys.
• Tag pill (with an Active Project). The active tag, or Tag. Its menu picks a tag, creates one (type a name in New tag and press Return), or opens Edit tags…. T does the same from the keyboard. A red dot means the Project's screenshot sharing needs attention. See Projects.
• Capture count, on the right. A capture in progress or an error shows there instead.
• Library opens the Library window. O does the same from the keyboard.
• More (•••). Settings…, Keep Island Open and Trash All Captures…. Right-clicking the island anywhere but on a thumbnail opens the same menu.
• The pin, only while the island is pinned. Click it to unpin.

The captures card

The captures sit in a strip under the band, newest first, and the strip scrolls through all of them. See Thumbnails.

The stack

At the strip's end, three round buttons. Hover one and it grows into a pill with its name and the key that does the same while the pointer is on the island:

• Lens (L) shows the code behind an area of the screen. See Code Lens.
• Capture (C), the white one, captures with the selected mode. The glyph after it is the selected mode: click it, or press M, to pick Display, Window, Area, Smart or Frame.
• Agent (A) selects an area and hands it to an agent with your instructions.

Scrolling the strip slides the stack out of its way; it comes back when you stop.

Trash All Captures… does not delete by itself: it puts a red button in the band. Click that to move every capture shown to the Trash. It goes away after five seconds, or when the pointer leaves it.

The keys

With the pointer on the island, in Peek View or Expanded View, three keys open the Quick Picker, a list that drops under the island:

In the picker, typing narrows the list, ↑ and ↓ move, Return takes the selection and Esc closes it. The current choice carries a tick. A name typed into the tag list that no tag has is offered as Create: Return makes the tag and makes it the one new captures carry.

Five more keys act straight away: C captures with the selected mode, L starts Code Lens, A selects an area for an agent, O opens the Library and H pauses or resumes Hooks.

What was picked is confirmed in a short notice where the picker was. The keys are only Bigshot's while the pointer is on the island; everywhere else, including the Library, P, T and M are typing. The picker takes the keyboard only while it is up, and the app behind gets it back the moment it closes.

Thumbnails

Expanded View shows the Active Project's captures, or the session's captures when there is no Project.

• Click to open the editor.
• Drag into another app. The drag carries the file and the image.
• Hover to show Copy, Edit and Move to Trash over the middle of the image. Move to Trash does not ask.
• The chip in the bottom-left corner shows the capture's tags. Click it to move the capture to another Project or change its tags.
• Badges show the capture's age, whether it is kept, whether it is shared with agents, and Hook status.
• A white ring marks a capture taken in the last minute.

Right-click a thumbnail for:

• Edit…
• Quick Look
• Copy
• Reveal in Finder
• Keep · prevent automatic deletion / Stop keeping
• Screenshot Context… and View Hook Runs… (Project captures)
• Move to Project ▸ and Tags ▸
• Move to Trash

When it closes

• The pointer leaving closes it after about half a second.
• After a capture taken from Expanded View it closes after about a second, unless the pointer is on it.
• An open menu or a drag in progress holds it open.
• Keep Island Open, in the More menu, holds it open for the session. A pin appears in the band while it is on; click it to unpin.

Opening the Library sends the island back to the notch unless it is pinned.

The menu bar

The Bigshot menu-bar icon has:

• Capture (Selected Mode) and each mode by name, with shortcuts
• Active Project ▸ — No Project, each Project, Add Project…
• Pause Hooks / Resume Hooks
• Download Bigshot x.y… when an update is available
• Show Bigshot, Library…, Settings… (⌘,)
• Enter Licence… (Free tier)
• Setup Guide…, About Bigshot, Quit Bigshot (⌘Q)