EDSSC

Elite Dangerous ScreenShot Converter

A lightweight Elite Dangerous Market Connector (EDMC) plugin that watches for the game's screenshot key, converts what Elite Dangerous writes into a properly named PNG, and shows you a one-click auto-cropped preview of whatever panel was open when you took it.

Author: R.W. Harper (CMDR Bocheaux) Version: 1.3.0 License: GPL-3.0

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What it does

Press the in-game screenshot key (or let EDSSC press it for you — see Auto-capture below) and EDSSC:

1. Converts the raw file Elite Dangerous wrote into a PNG, named from a template you choose (system, body, commander, date, or a sequence number) — automatically, no confirmation needed.
2. Shows a thumbnail of the full shot — tucked behind a "Click to expand" link on the EDMC panel — click it to open a larger, view-only preview.
3. If a HUD panel (target, comms, role, or the left-hand ship panel) was open, shows a second auto-cropped thumbnail of just that panel, for reference — same preview, view-only.
4. Optionally deletes that original BMP/PNG Elite Dangerous wrote in step 1 (not the converted PNG) about 60 seconds after conversion — off by default, turned on in Settings.

• Renaming, not just conversion — SYSTEM(BODY)_NNNNN.png, DATE_SYSTEM_CMDR.png, and 11 other mask presets
• Auto-cropped panel previews, scaled to your screenshot's actual resolution
• Recent-captures strip — glance back at your last couple of shots without leaving EDMC
• Optional per-system folders — group converted shots under a subfolder named for the system you took them in
• Auto-capture timer (Windows only) — EDSSC can press the screenshot key for you on an interval while Elite Dangerous has focus, including a Solo-only high-resolution mode
• Thargoid-scan auto-capture (Windows only) — automatically grabs (and auto-crops) a shot the moment you scan a Thargoid signal
• In-game overlay notification via EDMCModernOverlay (optional — the plugin works fine without it)
• Optional auto-update — off by default; turn it on and EDSSC checks GitHub for a newer release on EDMC startup, downloading and staging it to apply on your next restart

Requirements

• Elite Dangerous Market Connector 5.x
• Elite Dangerous

That is all. EDSSC is pure Python and uses only what EDMC already bundles — no pip install, and no separate Python installation.

Optional:

• EDMCModernOverlay for in-game "screenshot saved" notifications. The legacy EDMCOverlay also works. With neither installed, the overlay feature simply switches itself off.
• Auto-capture and Thargoid-scan capture only work on Windows. On macOS/Linux, EDSSC still converts, renames, and shows crop previews for screenshots you take yourself; those two settings are simply hidden.

Installation

Installing means putting a folder named EDSSC into your EDMC plugins directory and restarting EDMC. Nothing is compiled.

Step 1 — Find your plugins folder

Easiest: open EDMC, go to File → Settings → Plugins, and click Open next to "Plugins folder".

Or navigate there yourself:

Platform	Plugins folder
Windows	%LOCALAPPDATA%\EDMarketConnector\plugins
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/EDMarketConnector/plugins
Linux	~/.local/share/EDMarketConnector/plugins

On Windows, paste %LOCALAPPDATA%\EDMarketConnector\plugins into the File Explorer address bar and press Enter.

Step 2 — Put EDSSC in place

Download the latest release zip, extract it, and copy the EDSSC folder it contains into your plugins directory.

(If you cloned the repository instead of downloading a release, copy the plugin/ folder into your plugins directory and rename it to EDSSC.)

The final layout must look like this:

<EDMC plugins folder>/
└── EDSSC/
    ├── __init__.py
    ├── load.py
    ├── ... (other .py files)
    └── icons/

The folder name matters. It must be exactly EDSSC, with the .py files sitting directly inside it — not nested in a subfolder.

Step 3 — Restart and verify

1. Fully quit EDMC and start it again — plugins load only at launch.
2. You should see the EDSSC panel on the EDMC main window, and EDSSC listed under Enabled plugins in File → Settings → Plugins.
3. Open File → Settings → EDSSC and check your Screenshot Directory and Converted Directory — see Settings below. EDSSC pre-fills sensible defaults, but confirm they match your setup.

Nothing showing up? See Troubleshooting.

Usage

Take a screenshot in Elite Dangerous as usual (default key is F10). EDSSC picks up the event, converts the file, saves it automatically at your chosen filename, and updates the panel — no confirmation step, nothing to click to make that happen.

The main panel

EDSSC's main-window section is headed by a clickable "▸ Elite Dangerous ScreenShot Converter (EDSSC)" title, collapsed by default the first time you install it — click it to expand the section (the arrow flips to "▾") or collapse it back down to just that title line; this state is remembered across EDMC restarts. Expanded, it normally shows just one line plus the toggle/link:

Element	Behavior
Status line	The converted file's name; a hyperlink that opens its containing folder
⏱ toggle button (Windows only)	Turns auto-capture on/off; hideable in Settings if you don't use it
"Click to expand" link	Expands/collapses the thumbnail row below (becomes "Click to collapse" when open); always starts collapsed again next time EDMC launches

Expanding it reveals the thumbnails — all of them view-only previews of screenshots that are already saved:

Element	Behavior
Full-shot thumbnail	Click to open a larger preview of the saved full frame
Crop thumbnail	Appears only when a recognized HUD panel was open (or a Thargoid crop applied); a preview of what that crop looks like — shown for reference, it's not saved anywhere
Recent captures	Up to 2 smaller thumbnails of the captures just before this one, same click-to-preview behavior

Every preview opens the same dialog: a larger image plus Open Folder/Close — never a Save button, since there's nothing left to confirm by the time a thumbnail exists to click. The recent-captures history is per-session only; it resets when EDMC restarts.

Auto-capture

(Windows only)

Click the ⏱ button on the main panel to have EDSSC press the screenshot key for you, once a second, whenever Elite Dangerous is the focused window. It automatically pauses (and says so) if you alt-tab away, and turns itself off if you die or exit to the main menu.

Turn on "Use high-resolution capture on the auto-timer" in Settings for Elite's own hi-res combo — but it only takes effect in Solo play, since hi-res screenshots aren't available with other players around.

Auto-capture always starts off when EDMC launches; it is not remembered between sessions — a background key-presser shouldn't silently re-arm itself.

Thargoid-scan auto-capture

(Windows only, on by default)

Scanning a Thargoid signal source automatically triggers a capture and crops it to the lower-left of the screen — the region the scan animation appears in — without you needing to reach for F10 mid-scan.

Overlay notifications

With an overlay plugin installed, each converted screenshot draws a short-lived line in-game (e.g. Screenshot saved: Ceos(New Dawn Station)_00012.png) on a translucent background panel, so it reads as a HUD widget rather than bare text floating over the game. If the overlay ever misbehaves, EDSSC disables it for the session rather than letting it interfere with conversion.

Auto-update

Off by default. Turn on "Automatically download updates" in Settings and EDSSC checks the Releases page once each time EDMC starts; if a newer release is out, it downloads it and stages it over your current install (backing up the current one first). The update takes effect the next time you restart EDMC — nothing changes mid-session — and the main panel briefly shows a green "Updated to vX.Y.Z" link right after a staged update takes effect.

Settings

File → Settings → EDSSC:

Setting	Default	Description
Screenshot Directory	Pictures\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous	Where Elite Dangerous writes the raw file
Converted Directory	...\Elite Dangerous\Converted	Where EDSSC writes the renamed PNG
Delete original file after conversion	Off	Deletes the raw source ~60 seconds after conversion
Group converted files into a per-system subfolder	Off	Adds a <System>/ subfolder under Converted Directory
Hide the EDSSC panel on the main EDMC window	Off	Collapses the whole panel; re-enable it here to get it back
Show the auto-capture timer icon on the main window (Windows)	On	Turn off to hide the ⏱ button if you don't use auto-capture; auto-capture itself is unaffected
Filename Mask	SYSTEM(BODY)_NNNNN.png	One of 13 presets combining system, body, commander, date, and a sequence number
Use high-resolution capture on the auto-timer (Windows)	Off	Holds Alt on capture; only takes effect in Solo play
Automatically capture on Thargoid scan (Windows)	On	See Thargoid-scan auto-capture
Show a notification on the in-game overlay	On	Greyed out when no overlay plugin is installed
Verbose logging	Off	Raises the plugin's log level to DEBUG in EDMarketConnector.log
Automatically download updates	Off	Check GitHub for a newer release on EDMC startup and stage it for your next restart — see Auto-update

Troubleshooting

The EDMC log is at %TEMP%\EDMarketConnector.log on Windows; search it for EDSSC.

• Plugin not listed / no panel — Check the folder is named exactly EDSSC with the .py files directly inside, then restart EDMC.
• Listed as disabled — A folder name ending in .disabled is skipped by EDMC. Remove the suffix and restart.
• Nothing happens when I take a screenshot — EDSSC checks a couple of likely folders automatically (including a common OneDrive mix-up) before giving up. If it still can't find the file, confirm Screenshot Directory in Settings matches where Elite Dangerous actually writes screenshots (check the game's own Graphics settings for its configured folder).
• Status line says "Conversion failed... blocked by Windows security" — Windows itself (Controlled Folder Access, or another antivirus's real-time protection) is denying EDMarketConnector.exe write access to the Screenshot or Converted folder. Check Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → Ransomware protection → Controlled folder access and allow EDMarketConnector.exe if it's turned on.
• Auto-capture / Thargoid capture greyed out or missing — Those features require Windows. They're hidden entirely on macOS/Linux.
• Overlay messages not appearing — Confirm EDMCModernOverlay is installed and running. A greyed-out checkbox in Settings means EDMC couldn't find it at all.
• Crop thumbnail never appears — Expected outside the four recognized HUD panels (target, comms, role, ship), and for hi-res screenshots, which aren't cropped.
• Auto-update never seems to fire — It only checks once per EDMC startup, silently skips draft/prerelease builds, and does nothing at all unless the Settings checkbox is on. Restart EDMC to trigger another check, and search the log for EDSSC update messages.

Good to know

• The saved file is always the full frame — the crop thumbnail is a preview only, not an alternate save.
• Only four HUD panels get an auto-crop preview (target, comms, role, ship/internal panel) — everything else shows full-frame only.
• Crop framing is calibrated for a standard 16:9 screen; ultrawide/portrait setups will crop the wrong region.
• Auto-capture and Thargoid-scan capture require Windows.
• With auto-update off (the default), EDSSC makes no network requests of any kind. Turning it on is the one thing that does — a check against GitHub once per EDMC startup.

See the Design Specification for the complete, more technical list.

Documentation

Document	Description
Design Specification	User experience, requirements, and event flow
Technical Specification	Architecture, API surface, modules, build system — for anyone modifying the plugin
Attributions & Credits	Third-party references and acknowledgements
Changelog	Release history

For Developers

npm run build     # copies plugin/ → dist/EDSSC/, stripping __pycache__
npm run package   # does the above, then zips it to dist/EDSSC-v<version>.zip

The build script is a convenience, not a compiler — the plugin is its source. Edit plugin/, rebuild if you like, copy to EDMC, restart. See the Technical Specification for the module map, architecture, and full API surface.

Credits & License

EDSSC is a fan-made tool by CMDR Bocheaux. It is not affiliated with Frontier Developments or the EDMC development team.

EDSSC is a rewrite of EDMC-Screenshot by NoFoolLikeOne, modernized to current EDMC plugin conventions. Because it derives from GPL-3.0 licensed code, EDSSC is released under the same license. Full credits are in docs/ATTRIBUTIONS.md.

Copyright (c) 2026 CMDR Bocheaux. Released under the GNU General Public License v3.0.